Belief that customs system will be ready for Brexit ‘borders on insanity’

One of the world’s biggest logistics companies, whose clients include Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Primark, has said it is “bordering on insanity” to think new Brexit customs systems will be in place for 2019.

Leigh Pomlett, the executive director of CEVA Group, which specialises in road, air and ocean-going freight, said Downing Street and the Treasury did not understand how difficult it would be to have a system in place in 15 months’ time, when the UK leaves the EU.

“It is just the urgency of this that worries me. It takes me longer to negotiate a supply chain contract than we have here. Arguably, it is already too late,” he said.

CEVA employs 6,000 people in the UK and counts supermarkets, car manufacturers, food producers and pharmaceutical companies including GlaxoSmithKline among its clients.

Pomlett told the Freight Transport Association conference in Dublin on Monday that delays in Dover would lead to a “calamitous situation”. It is calculated that an increase of just two minutes in the average time it takes trucks to clear customs could cause 17-mile tailbacks in the port town.

He said 70% of EU trade entered Britain “on a lorry” and urged businesses to be more vocal about the potential disruption in order to force the government into action.

Meanwhile, a body set up by the Good Friday agreement to promote cross-border trade in Ireland warned that some companies in Northern Ireland could be wiped out simply by the sheer number of rules of origin certificates required for each export to the EU after Brexit.

“They are £48 a pop. We worked out the bill for one company would add on £700,000 in costs a year, its entire profit,” said Aidan Gough, strategy director of InterTrade Ireland, which is coaching businesses on Brexit survival.

Manufacturing Northern Ireland said this was only the tip of the iceberg. “Add staff time, copies, potential letter of credit – if banking arrangements aren’t agreed – and the cost increases tenfold,” it tweeted in response to Gough.

Pomlett was speaking as the British Ports Association called on the chancellor, Philip Hammond, “to prioritise transport infrastructure spending and to ensure that port connectivity schemes are not overlooked” in Wednesday’s budget.

The comments throw the spotlight once again on frustrations within the transport industry over the lack of progress in preparing Britain for Brexit.

Last week, an influential select committee said a failure to have a new customs declarations system in place in time for Brexit would be catastrophic.

Honda has revealed it relies on 350 trucks a day arriving from Europe to keep its giant Swindon factory operating, with just an hour’s worth of parts being held on the production line.

Pomlett said Britain was facing an exodus of drivers, who would return to Poland and other eastern European countries because of Brexit and the perceived lack of welcome in the UK since the referendum. “We cannot recruit at the speed we are losing drivers at the moment,” he said.

A senior civil servant from Ireland’s Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport said new customs controls were a challenge for the Irish border, partly because there were so many backroads on the 310-mile frontier.

“There are 11 national roads crossing the border, but there are twice as many crossing points as from the Arctic to Black Sea. That’s an extraordinary thing to think about – Donegal to Louth has more crossings than the line from the north of Europe to the south of Europe,” said Ray O’Leary, assistant secretary in the department.