Wednesday 27 May 2020

50,000 form fillers won't be ready in time

Simmering away under the Cummings saga, which continues to drive the coronavirus pandemic off the front pages, another couple of crises are ready to spring to the surface. If ever there was a PM who seemed to attract crises like moths to a flame, it's Johnson. The first is fishing where yesterday Barnier met by video conference the ministers responsible for fish from a group of EU member states.  It ended with them reaffirming the EU's mandate thus scotching suggestions that there might be some flexibility which might help reach an agreement. The EU are standing very firm. No fishing agreement, no trade deal.
This is Barnier's tweeted confirmation:
Next is the form-fillers needed to cope with the massive increase in paperwork for customs and security declarations after December this year. Peter Foster at the FT tweeted a long thread yesterday which you can see here:

He summarises the problem. We need roughly 50,000 extra form-fillers, a number he says the government does not dispute.  It turns out that the industry itself trained 1,298 customs agents last year according the BIFA -  British International Freight Association (BIFA), the Body representing the industry.  Some of these were people already employed but were taking on extra skills so not all new. Another 244 completed an on-line course.  This is in a letter to Hilary Benn in mid April.  

The government has trained another 870 using an on-line academy set up last September.by the Department of Trade.  In other words we are way short.

A few weeks ago Michael Gove had talked about setting up an academy in Kent to train all these new agents but BIFA told Mr Benn this was just an "informal comment" and as far as they knew and nothing had been done. Foster asked the cabinet office and they couldn't provide any information so it looks like there is no money or plan to do anything on the scale needed to get all these people in place by December.

When Gove appeared before Benn's Select Committee in April he promised to update them with "the uptake and the additional number" of customs agents trained. As of last Friday, nearly a month after giving evidence, Foster was told the Committee has had no reply to its request for information.

Apparently, it takes twelve months to train a customs agent, the forms are long and complex and need to be understood properly otherwise mistakes and delays result.  The Road Haulage Association told Foster it is now "impossible" to train the number of people required in time:

BIFA have written to Hilary Benn warning specifically about "potentially misleading and ambiguous comments being made by some politicians and government departments" about the state of industry readiness:
There seems no conceivable way to get ready for leaving the EU with or without a trade deal at the end of this year.

Truly, if the government does not request an extension before June 30, not only will we be an international laughing stock, the world will begin to fear for us.

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