We keep hearing talk of a no-deal exit and Mrs May tells parliament we're leaving on March 29th next year. But when you lift the stone what you find underneath doesn't look terribly promising. The Hansard Society, a charity dedicated to strengthening democracy has been scrutinising the rate at which the government is getting the 800 or so Statutory Instruments through parliament. They have a 'dashboard' (HERE) keeping track of progress.
Since the Withdrawal Act was passed on June 26th this year, only 181 (today's figure) have so far been presented to parliament. When the process started there was 40 weeks available, and therefore the average rate would have been 20 SIs a week. In fact the government has never reached that figure and at the moment, the target rate has now risen to 34 per week. But we have never achieved that rate either. We have used 55% of the available time to produce just 23% of the required number. Something has to happen very soon if the target is to be met and the Society is worried that parliament will become totally overwhelmed in the last few weeks.
Part of the Hansard Society dashboard quotes from an evidence session before the Public Accounts Committee in October (HERE) and some of their information is slightly hair raising for anyone who knows anything about big IT projects. The Committee released a report (HERE) on 14th November which would normally be very worrying for government - unfortunately they have other things like Brexit on their mind! I give you some quotes from the report:
"[DEFRA] faces enormous challenges in the lead-up to EU Exit and, with the
deadline of 29 March 2019 looming, still does not know which scenario it
is preparing for".
"The Department is too complacent about the levels of disruption or
interruption to trade that may be faced. Fundamental issues for food,
chemical and animal importers and exporters are yet to be resolved".
"The Department has made good progress in drafting the 86 statutory
instruments [SIs] it must prepare, with three-quarters of them either fully
drafted or near completion. But in its efforts to rush through the
drafting, we remain concerned about risks to quality. The amount of
parliamentary time that these, and those of other departments, will
require is daunting".
Many of the SIs are short but some from DEFRA are said to be technically complex and 150 pages long! Looking at the evidence session last October, there are 14 IT systems being relied on by DEFRA including four new ones. Six of these were discussed:
- Vererinary Medicines Authorisation
- Chlorinated gases
- Catch certificates for fish
- Chemicals database
- Import Notification System
- Export health certificate system
These are all in various stages of development or upgrading, none of which were complete in October. Just taking one of them, David Kennedy, DEFRA's Director General for Food, Farming, Animal and Plant Health was asked about "engagement plans" and this was the exchange:
David Kennedy: Let us take an example—we have talked about the import
control system. There are 600 import agents that we have identified as
using the system. We have all their contact details, but we have not yet
gone to them to say, “This is how to use the new system”. We will be
doing that very shortly. So we are putting together guidance, training packages and whatever—
Chair:
(Q152) You see, this is part of my worry. You are doing it “very
shortly”. We are five and a half months before Brexit, whatever way we
go out. I mean, that is very late for people and organisations to get up
to speed with what’s going on. Couldn’t you have done it quicker?
David
Kennedy: On that particular one, we have not got a system that they can
use at the moment, so we are coming through to the testing phase in January, I think.
He 'thinks' the import control system will get into the 'testing phase' by January which gives two months to complete the testing and debugging and contact and train the 600 import agents to use it. I will give my prediction - this will never be ready in time.
The Register (HERE) sees the PAC report on DEFRA like this:
Broadly, the report
concluded that Defra is still facing an "enormous" challenge and risks
losing sight of its priorities, with insufficient Brexit border planning
and time running out.
On its approach to IT systems, the MPs said the
department has taken a "pragmatic" approach by prioritising the most
essential work and opting for basic functionality in the short term
while leaving building the full systems for the future.
But it sounded a warning about the fact the six
critical IT systems have yet to be fully tested, with Defra itself
admitting the work could throw up challenging problems.
In particular, the committee said it was concerned
that testing is due to start on the systems simultaneously in January
2019, saying "so much concurrent critical testing activity" leaves
"little time to resolve issues that arise".
The Register also quotes the head of HMRC in front of The Treasury Select Committee (HERE) saying they need about 30 months to prepare for the Irish backstop, starting from when they know what to build! This won't be until well into the transition period because the 26 page political declaration "makes references to customs cooperation, but provided no specific details".
I take two things from this. First that talk of no-deal is just that, talk. It ain't going to happen. Secondly, these are the people who will be in sole charge after Brexit. Be very afraid.
