Whitehall departments in ‘impossible challenge’ to get ready for Brexit
AN INFLUENTIAL parliamentary committee fears there are “substantial risks” of Britain’s food and chemical industries being disrupted if preparations for Brexit are not completed in time.
The Government’s environment and trade departments face an “impossible challenge” to get ready for Brexit and have failed to develop a clear plan to meet it, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said.
In a report published today, the committee warns that the two departments’ preparations were being hampered by “pervasive uncertainty” about the nature of the UK’s future relationship with the European Union.
It said that “slow decision-making” by the Treasury on funding the extra bureaucratic costs imposed by Brexit was standing in the way of effective preparation.
Both Michael Gove’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Liam Fox’s Department for International Trade (DIT) were “optimistic” in evidence to the PAC inquiry about being ready by March 2019 to deliver whatever comes from negotiations, but the committee said it was concerned about how realistic their plans were.
Defra and DIT may feel the 21-month transition period agreed in March gives them “some breathing space”, but it “does not mean they can take their foot off the gas”, said the
committee. Both Defra and the DIT are still having to prepare for the possibility that Britain will leave without a transition, or with no deal at all.
In a letter to the committee, the Department for Exiting the EU’s top civil servant Philip Rycroft revealed that Whitehall ministries were working on 325 “workstreams” to prepare for Brexit.
Defra alone was working on 64 areas, ranging from import controls on animals and animal products to the authorisation of new chemical products, and the committee heard that it could use “manual workarounds” if new IT systems are not ready in time, an exercise the committee said would be “costly and embarrassing” and could impede imports and exports.
It warned: “There are substantial risks, including disruption to the agri-food and chemical industries, if Defra’s IT systems are not ready in time. With only a year to go until the UK leaves the EU, and in light of Defra’s poor track record in implementing new IT systems in the past, we have concerns over the potential for disruption to the agri-food and chemical industries.”
It is unrealistic for Defra to pursue its planned £138m efficiency savings, the committee said, as it asked Defra to make clear what other priorities it will scrap or scale back to free up resources for Brexit preparations.
“Both departments have an impossible challenge and don’t have a clear plan of top priorities,” the report states. Committee chairwoman Meg Hillier added: “The clock is ticking and there is still no clarity about what Brexit will mean in practice. ”
A government spokesman said a clear plan for Brexit had been set and that “real progress” had been made on its delivery, adding: “Work is being undertaken across the whole of government, in a range of exit scenarios in preparation for our withdrawal from the EU. Close collaboration between departments is vital as we negotiate our exit from the EU and develop our future trade policy with the world.”
BOTH BREXIT customs plans being explored by the Government remain on the table despite suggestions that senior Cabinet Ministers had rejected Prime Minister Theresa May’s preferred option, David Davis has suggested.
The Brexit Secretary dismissed suggestions he could resign over the issue, stressing both models have pros and cons and that the Cabinet needs time.
It came after Mrs May asked officials to draw up revised proposals after her inner Brexit “war Cabinet” were understood to have rejected her preferred plan.
Members of the Brexit subcommittee yesterday came down 6-5 against Mrs May’s “customs partnership” model, under which the UK would collect tariffs on behalf of the EU, after Tory Eurosceptics made clear they regard the plan – branded “cretinous” by Jacob Rees-Mogg – as unacceptable.
They prefer the so-called “maximum facilitation”, or “Max Fac”, model which they say would use new technology to avoid the need for border checks in Ireland.
But at Brexit questions, Mr Davis told the House of Commons: “Both of these approaches have merits and virtues, both have some drawbacks and that’s why we’re taking our time over the discussion on this.”
The issue is causing a major headache for the PM, who told colleagues that the final arrangement must ensure there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and no customs border down the Irish Sea, and leave trade with the remaining EU “as frictionless as possible”.
Mrs May is also conscious that Tory rebels are threatening to tie her hands in a Commons vote to keep the UK in a customs union.
Her official spokesman insisted: “Both of the options we have put forward are serious propositions and we are taking time to get it right.
“We are absolutely confident that we can agree a solution that works for all the parties involved.”
Mr Davis distanced himself from speculation that he may resign if Mrs May goes ahead with the customs partnership plan thought to be favoured by her top Brexit official Olly Robbins.
In the Commons, Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said: “Can I assume that (Mr Davis’s) presence signals that he thinks he won the argument with the Prime Minister yesterday, and that the customs partnership with the EU has now been taken off the table?”
Mr Davis replied: “The first advice I’d give to him is not to believe everything he reads in the papers, even about himself, let alone about me.
“Secondly, I mentioned earlier that the Government is spending some time, rightly, on making sure that we get absolutely the best outcome, which will preserve the United Kingdom without creating internal borders, and which will also deliver the best outcome in terms of both retaining the trade we have with the European Union and opening up opportunities to the rest of the world.
“That’s why we’re taking time to get this right.”