Brexit: Border Crossings

Viscount Waverley Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, of course we understand the importance of ensuring a smooth customs operation post exit and we are doing all that we can to avoid adding unnecessary time and cost to the process. In the Budget today, the Chancellor has just announced that we are investing a further £3 billion, on top of the £700 million already committed, to prepare Britain for every possible eventuality and to ensure that we prosper after we leave the EU.

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that new, integrated digital economy platforms that cover jointly e-logistics, e-commerce, e-finance and e-insurance are in the making, spearheaded not least by the public-private partnership GCEL? It could offer solutions to government for post-Brexit, delay-free EU border crossings, the Irish question and much more. If the Minister would care to have her officials put in touch with people who can answer much more than me, I would be delighted to have that happen.

[Baroness Sugg]

I would be delighted to put our officials in touch. We absolutely are aware of the technology-based options and are looking at those. In our future partnership paper, which we published in August, we proposed that we would use a highly stream- lined customs arrangement and bilateral technology-based solutions to speed up processes and ensure that traffic can flow smoothly.