The Treasury and HM Revenue and Customs have announced £8m in funding to help private customs brokers beef up their capacity and train employees to prepare for the possibility of a no-deal Brexit.
The government will open a procurement process in the coming weeks to set up contracts with training providers, it said, after businesses warned training for customs brokers was not widely accessible. Providers will use the funding to develop new training courses and expand existing ones.
Customs intermediaries – which include customs brokers, freight forwarders and fast parcel operators whose job is to help firms move thier goods through customs checks – will also be able to apply for grants to cushion the upfront costs of training and to invest in automation, through two schemes set to open in late Autumn.
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In a statement, HMRC said automation would help boost the productivity of smaller brokers that now rely on manual data entry. “The government understands that upfront cost is a key barrier to automation, particularly for smaller businesses,” it said.
Mel Stride, financial secretary to the Treasury, said HMT and HMRC had listened to intermediaries’ concerns about their capacity to cope with the extra demand for their services that would arise “in the unlikely event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal in March 2019”.
“That is why we plan to invest £8m for customs training and automation to support the sector to expand to help meet the potential increase in demand for this scenario,” she said.
HMRC has said it expects the number of customs declarations it handles per year – which now stands at around 55 million – to increase fivefold after Brexit. If the UK and EU do not agree a withdrawal agreement that includes a transition period after March 2019, the tax agency and businesses will need to be ready to deal with the extra customs requirements for imports from the EU immediately after Brexit.