There is an 80% chance of “chaos in Kent” when the Brexit transition period ends, a haulage industry leader has warned.
Richard Burnett, chief executive of the Road Haulage Association (RHA), made the prediction due to concerns over several aspects of the UK’s preparations for the export of goods from January 1.
These include a lack of customs agents, what will happen at new customs sites and the fact that development of a new border IT system has not been completed.
Mr Burnett told the Commons Future Relationship with the European Union Committee: “The devil is in the detail, and some of the fundamental things that need to change and some of the things that need to be invested in are simply not happening fast enough.”
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon brands UK legislation a ‘full frontal assault on devolution’
He went on: “In terms of my gut feeling as we stand here today with 81 days to go, with the amount of work that we’ve got to undertake, (the likelihood of) chaos in Kent (is) 80/20.
“Because if businesses try to dispatch because they haven’t got customs agents to do the paperwork, then the chances are they’re going to still want to trade, they’re still going to want to drive volume there.
“If we’re not ready then the likelihood is we will have chaos.”
Mr Burnett accused ministers of having a “self-belief in their own rhetoric at the moment that everything will be OK”.
He added: “My fear at this stage is there will be significant disruption, potentially, at the year-end.”
The RHA boss told MPs that the UK is “a long way off” recruiting enough customs agents to deal with the anticipated increase in declarations required after the Brexit transition period ends on December 31.
He said: “It can take six to 12 months just to familiarise yourself, but probably three years to really understand how the process works end to end.
“We’ve got 81 working days between now and the end of the year, to be able to recruit the number of agents that are required.
READ MORE: Brexit: How European media reacted to Boris Johnson's bid to change the withdrawal agreement
“The intelligence that’s coming back from the industry is that there is a denial, there’s an apathy, there’s a real sense that the Government is not getting the message.”
The RHA was one of eight logistics organisations that last week called for an “urgent” meeting with Cabinet ministers over Brexit border preparations.
They wrote to Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove to highlight fears the UK-EU supply chain “will be severely disrupted” if issues are not resolved by the end of the year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel