My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. She has covered a challenging discussion, put forward some suggestions and covered a huge amount of ground. Frankly, I look at the port of Dover as the weakest link in the post-Brexit implementation strategy, which I understand to be under the control of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, whose attitude at times—I am sorry to say this—has seemed to be pretty cavalier.
There are three dimensions to the story of Dover. Pre 2020, there was the practice of closing down the M20. Well done; that was good planning. One does ask why they did not take it a little further and recognise that the A2 is not sensible at all and that other practices should be tried around the M20.
Secondly, we have evidence that Her Majesty’s Government, and particularly this department, were behind the curve in the recruitment of customs officials. One would have thought that the department would have thought about that, but we are still behind the curve.
The Road Haulage Association asked for instructions on the new software just before Christmas, but none were forthcoming. Then we had the announcement, almost out of the blue, about the Kent access permit on 14 December, to be implemented by a 31 December deadline. That is not a very sensible way to move forward. According the chairman of the Business Application Software Development Association, Bill Pugsley, the problem is not the IT system itself, but the fact that it
arrived too late for people to learn how to use it. It needed to be phased in, in his judgment, over a period of six months.
The HGV and Kent access permits are only part of seven key IT systems, all linked to a successful international trade in 2021 and beyond. I am told that the key determination is the CDS, originally supposed to be launched in April 2020 to give developers time to test it and roll it out to the customers. But that only happened in mid-December. Now, the Secretary of State, Minister Gove, is, in some of the publicity, blaming the traders for not being ready. Frankly, this is no different from the doctors who offered their services to help with vaccinations—and I am married to a doctor—having to fill out 15 forms with 21 pieces of evidence.
To get back to this important topic: there is no doubt that there has been a fall in traffic. Whatever the department may say, for every 1,000 lorries that went out pre Brexit, only 820 are going out today—and of those, the number going out empty has grown. What worries me more and more is: what are we doing to solve this problem? Others have commented on other aspects, but I do not see that, once we have got all this IT working properly, we need to stretch it out to 2025.
I would like to say to my noble friend on the Front Bench: think about the poor hauliers themselves. They are the absolute salt of the earth; they are tough men and women; they are skilled; they are working very long hours. Why do we not have a truce and look after them a bit? We know the government software was delivered late. Let us admit that and improve the facilities for these people. That, at least, will take some pressure off local residents as well. After all, we all want Brexit to succeed. That should be our priority, so that our exports can move swiftly abroad.
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