Ministers are urging people to take out comprehensive travel insurance if they are heading abroad from January as they announce plans to plough £700m into a new border strategy. From Monday a new marketing campaign to get the public prepared for life after the Brexit transition period will include TV, radio and digital adverts. Advice for people in Northern Ireland is set to follow in a few weeks’ time as negotiations with the EU continue. As well as reminding people about insurance and checking passports are in date, the adverts will also be targeted at businesses exporting to or importing from the EU, reminding them to get an economic operators registration and identification number, or to register with the relevant customs authority. The new advice is part of the government’s ‘The UK’s new start: let’s get going’ campaign. Holidaymakers will need to take out insurance that covers health as the European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) will only be valid up to 31 December 2020. Anyone wanting to travel to Europe with a pet from 1 January 2021 needs to contact their vet four months in advance. Michael Gove has announced that the £700m investment in the UK’s borders when the country leaves the single market and customs union on 31 December involves hiring 500 extra staff and building control posts. The financial package comes days after a leaked letter from the international trade secretary, Liz Truss, revealed her concern that the country will not be ready by the time the transition period comes to an end. But Gove said GB-EU borders would be secure by the end of the year. “Whether or not we secure a Canada-style trade deal with the EU during the course of negotiations that we are carrying out, we will be outside both the single market and customs union come what may,” he told the BBC’s Andrew Marr show. “Government certainly needs to take some steps to make sure we are ready.” He denied the financial plans had come too late to be implemented by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was reported to be poised to introduce tax cuts and an overhaul of planning laws in up to 10 new “free ports”. Sunak is said to be planning to open bidding for towns, cities and regions to become free ports – where UK taxes and tariffs will not apply – in his autumn budget. The Sunday Telegraph said the ports would be fully operational within 18 months of the UK leaving the customs union and single market at the end of this year. The £705m package includes £235m for staffing and IT systems and £470m for port and inland infrastructure to ensure compliance with new customs procedures and controls. New border infrastructure will be built inland where there is no space at ports, while ports will get one-off financial support to ensure the right infrastructure is in place. On reports that the government has bought land in Ashford, Kent, to turn into an enormous lorry park – anticipating tailbacks as goods are checked at the border – Gove said that was not the government’s intention. “What we want to do is make sure freight travelling through Kent can get to Dover, on to the ferries and then into France as quick as possible. It may be the case that, not so much in Kent but elsewhere, that there will be specific pieces of infrastructure in order to smooth the flow of traffic,” Gove said. He said this was to avoid traffic jams and tailbacks on roads. The £705m relates only to the implementation of the UK-EU border, and the government is expected to publish specific guidance and measures for Northern Ireland later this month. In her leaked letter, Truss said she believed HMRC would apply the default EU tariff to goods in Northern Ireland on 1 January 2021, rather than a dual tariff system that the government has been trying to develop with a bespoke IT system. Gove was also questioned about why the prime minister had said in December 2019 there would be no checks at the border. He replied: “There will be some checks from products of animal origin that go from GB to Northern Ireland but we want them to be as light-touch and as minimal as possible. You will not have customs officers saying ‘halt’. What you will have are vets who will be suitably equipped in order to carry out surveillance.”