Daily Mail

Log jams at our ports

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iN RObERT HARdMAN’S article on possible post- brexit customs procedures, he describes how the port of Felixstowe runs on barcodes, scanners and computers (Mail).

However, a computer can’t see inside a container or know to whom it should bill any charges.

i helped train staff at Harwich, Essex, to use a system that proved to be a huge learning curve in the technology of handling clearance times. before the free movement of goods in the Eu, we had rules and regulation­s on food, crops, meat and plant health.

deep-sea container terminals and cross- channel ferry ports are at opposite ends of the spectrum when it comes to handling non-Eu and Eu goods. After brexit, there will be a huge increase in Eu declaratio­ns at dover, where 2.6 million vehicles pass through the port each year.

Ferry ports have no space for vehicles to hang around waiting for customs. Today, lorries with goods to and from the Eu roll on, roll off and drive away. Many ports may suffer log jams after brexit and there appears to be no plan to train the hundreds of extra clerks required.

Tariffs are a tax, with all revenue raised going straight to the Government, often with VAT on top. The consumer ends up paying more and on future imports of Eu goods — we have not yet been told how much this could be.

We all want it to be zero, but the Government’s problem is that it could well be 2 or 3 per cent more on what we buy, and 8 or 9 per cent more on what we eat.

Not many of us remember what it was once like, still fewer know what it might become. The clock ticks on.

STEPHEN BROWN, Harwich, Essex.

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