My Lords, I rise to speak specifically to Amendment 12, to which I added my name, but also to the group as a whole, because it covers the cost of all this to the haulage industry: the cost of UK-registered vehicles operating in the EU; the efficiency of haulage after Brexit; future arrangements for the international transport of goods; and the cost impact. I have a slight feeling of Groundhog Day. I will spare your Lordships much of the detail, but I have been through this once in the previous 24 hours, during the EU withdrawal Bill debate, when we covered some of the same territory. For the sake of variety, I will say a few different things because there are plenty of things to say.
A report came out today—hence it was not the topic of my speech last night—by Clifford Chance and Oliver Wyman. It estimates that the costs to business of Brexit in terms of customs arrangements, additional legal and bureaucratic requirements and haulage requirements in relation to customs arrangements for goods in transit will be £32.8 billion. I always measure things in relation to £350 million, for reasons that might be obvious to some noble Lords here; that figure comes out at roughly double £350 million a week. That is a very significant issue and I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, illustrated the situation so well with original documents. I recall that, a year ago, one of the haulage organisations—forgive me, I am delving into my memory and cannot remember which one—sent us a briefing about the costs to the haulage industry. It illustrated them by saying that, depending on the type of goods being carried, driving from the UK to Italy and back could require 64 different pieces of documentation. In this day and age, I am sure that would not be pieces of paper, but people have to fill in the forms online in just the same way. Anyone who spends as much time filling in forms online as I do will know that it is very easy to make one of the mistakes referred to by the noble Lord.
Last night, we talked about delays at the ports. Dover is a particularly stark example because of its geographical configuration and the built-up area around it. That all adds to the cost, and the issue of permits and other documentation is key to getting the lorries through Dover and all the other ports as quickly as possible.
The amendments address the impact of additional border controls and delays, the costs of which go well beyond the haulage industry. When we had Operation Stack—and Dover port is predicting worse queues than Operation Stack as a regular feature—it cost the police and council in Kent £1 million a day. All these other things add up, so it is so important that any permit system is simple, straightforward and as flexible as possible.
I also emphasised last night that we talk all the time about the cost to government, but businesses have to internalise and absorb those costs or pass them on to their customers. In the case of large companies, that might be quite reasonable over a period, but there are SMEs that have only ever exported to EU countries. They will never have dealt with custom systems before, and will not be familiar with the whole process. They will have to set up whole new departments and systems,
which will be of significant cost to business and have significant impact on our industry. That applies across the board.
The Clifford Chance report picked out the impact on the car industry because car parts move across borders frequently during their production. The impact will be on car manufacturers not just in this country but in other countries bringing their cars and car parts to us.
I very much hope that the Minister will be able to assure us that the Government are doing some work on this and will soon be able to produce some hard figures. Reports have been published. They may be accurate or inaccurate, but the work has been done. Individual industries are doing that work. It would be very useful if we had some information on what the Government calculate will be the impact.