Rogue customs agents with no “knowledge or experience” are offering help with post-Brexit chaos after Michael Gove failed to recruit enough, a trade adviser is warning.
The Cabinet Office minister pledged to recruit 50,000 agents to guide firms through the blizzard of new red tape created – but has repeatedly refused to say how many are in place.
Anna Jerzewska, an independent customs expert, said firms were being “dumped by their long-term customs broker in favour of a larger client that they can charge more”.
And she warned: “What we’ve seen are companies that don’t have knowledge or experience in customs or rules of origin attempting to advise clients and charge clients with that advice – without having any kind of background in that.”
Giving evidence to a Lords enquiry, Dr Jerzewska said: “This number of 50,000 – whether that was an accurate estimate or not, we’re definitely lacking customs agents.
“It really is a market whereby customs brokers can pick and choose who they want to work with.”
It is thought that only around 10,000 agents have been signed up, despite a huge recruitment drive to find staff with at least two years’ experience in global trade.
They are needed to help fill out millions of new forms – paperwork costing £7.5bn a year – for trade that was free of customs checks and tariffs before the UK left the single market and customs union.
Ms Jerzewska said firms desperately needed help with what “it means to be an importer, what kind of records you need to keep, what it all means and how you deal with that”.
“It’s not just a question of bringing goods across the border, it’s the question of, okay, yes, you’re responsible for this, you’re liable for this legally for several years to come,” she said.
“We’re definitely missing that capacity, that experience,” the adviser told the Lords EU goods sub-committee.
The comments come amid growing criticism of Mr Gove amid a survey suggesting exports have plunged by an astonishing 88 per cent since the transition period ended.
The Road Haulage Association protested that he had failed to respond “pretty much every time we have written”, raising fears over the new trading rules, over the last six months.
“He tends to get officials to start working on things, but the responses are a complete waste of time because they don’t listen to what the issues were that we raised in the first place,” the organisation said.
But a Cabinet Office spokeswoman said: “Thanks to the hard work of hauliers and traders to prepare for change, disruption at the border has so far been minimal.”
Mr Gove will meet Marcos Sefcovic, the European Commission vice president, this week to press the case for ‘grace periods’ delaying some of the new Irish Sea paperwork to be extended.
Trade organisations giving evidence to the committee backed the delay – but there is deep unhappiness in Brussels at London’s push for an extension for two years.
