It’s now just 5 months till the UK leaves the EU Single Market and Customs Union. Yet a new survey by the Institute of Directors confirms that most businesses have been far too busy coping with the Covid pandemic to even think about preparing for the change.

Only a quarter of businesses say that they are fully ready, as the IoD note:

“Nearly half of the 978 company directors polled in late June said they weren’t able to prepare right now, with one in seven distracted by coronavirus and almost a third saying they needed the details of any changes to be clear before adjusting. Those in the financial sector were most likely to be ready while manufacturers in particular had more to do. Directors in services felt especially unable to prepare at present, whether due to pressures of the pandemic or because they needed more clarity on changes.”

Most businesses are still hoping against hope that a deal will be reached with the EU, to enable business to continue more or less “as usual”. But the UK government doesn’t seem to share their concerns.

It has now published its new Border Operating Model – a detailed 206-page guide to what businesses need to do.  It is also spending £705m on building a major new lorry park near Ashford in Kent, to serve lorries waiting to cross the Channel, and hoping to recruit 50,000 new Customs officers to deal with the extra 215 million Customs Declarations needed each year

Officials have also told industry leaders there will be a new “Smart Freight” app to enable lorry drivers to obtain a ‘Kent Electronic Access Permit’ – with fines for those who fail to do this. As the Financial Times notes:

“It seems quite late in the day to be launching these initiatives, however well intentioned. Building such an app is one thing — getting lorry drivers to download and use it effectively in the real world is quite another.”

Companies will no doubt continue to hope that a deal will be done at the last minute, to allow ‘business as usual’ to continue. But this is looking less and less likely as every day ticks by, as the CEO of Make UK warned last week:

“Should the UK fail to reach a comprehensive trade agreement with the EU, then those regions with a high concentration of manufacturing and a dependence on Europe as a major market will suffer a triple hit, given the impact of Covid-19. For some companies the combination may prove fatal.”

The risk of doing nothing is growing by the day.  5 months is really very little time to prepare for the scale of changes ahead if there is No Deal.

The Ready for Brexit Directory contains lots of practical advice on what you need to do to prepare

The Institute of Directors publishes a series of papers calling on the next Government to concentrate on details of international trade. Anna Tobin reports

Whoever forms the next Government following this week’s general election must focus on the intricacies when it comes to international trade, that’s the message from the Institute of Directors in its latest paper.

The Institute of Directors is calling on the next Government to:

• Commit to a ‘trade sense check’ that assesses the potential impact of new domestic regulation on the UK’s trade with other countries. A review of the draft Digital Services Tax should form a critical part of this.
• Ensure companies have sufficient time to adjustment before any new relationship with the EU comes into effect.
• Commit to publishing negotiating objectives well in advance of all new trade talks.
• Make imports a more positive part of the Government’s narrative on promoting trade.

In addition, if the EU Withdrawal Agreement passes through Parliament, the Institute of Directors urges the next Government to guarantee that it will protect Northern Ireland’s place in the UK internal market and provide targeted financial support to SMEs to help them to prepare for Brexit.

“While it’s impossible to know at this point how Brexit will turn out, business needs a number of commitments from the next Government to help navigate its way through choppy trade waters ahead,” said Allie Renison, head of Europe and trade policy at the Institute of Directors.

“Understanding the exact nature of how arrangements with the EU may change is critical for companies, and our data clearly shows that getting a workable deal after Brexit is more important to business leaders than simply how long it takes to get there.

“We’ve heard much talk of the idea of ‘Global Britain’, with little focus so far on the concrete, bread-and-butter issues that are needed to deliver the UK’s international ambitions. The ideas we lay out aim to bring the discussion back to basics of what business needs to safeguard and expand their international footprint – with the EU and beyond.”