§ Sir Anthony Grantasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the current separate amounts of official attendance charges being raised by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise at Dover East, Dover West and Folkestone for out-of-hours attendance on imports; and what are the corresponding figures for exports.
§ Mr. HayhoeThe receipts from charges for out-of-hours official attendance at Dover East, Dover West and Folkestone for the month of April 1984 are as follows:
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£ Dover (East) 49,242 Dover (West) 15,417 Folkestone 9,421 It is not possible to apportion these figures between imports and exports as, generally speaking, separate records are not kept.
§ Sir Anthony Grantasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what increased customs attendance charges will be applicable at Dover East if the proposals within the Rayner report on attendance charges are introduced; and if he will give separate details for imports and exports.
§ Mr. HayhoeAs the Rayner report's proposals bear particularly heavily on ports like Dover which operate continuously 24 hours a day, I have asked Customs to conduct a further survey using modified criteria. This latter survey is aimed at providing estimates of the costs of other options which, while adhering to the general principles already accepted by the Government, would apply the increases in a more even manner. I expect to make a further announcement on this subject in the near future. I regret that separate details for imports and exports are not readily available.
§ Sir Anthony Grantasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer how many officers of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise have been allocated for out-of-hours attendance at the entry processing units at Dover East, Dover West and Folkestone, respectively; and what are the equivalent figures for officers allocated for normal hours attendance.
§ Mr. HayhoeThe Customs staff at the EPUs at Dover and Folkestone are allocated to duties to cover 24 hours every day according to the needs of the traffic. The following tables give the total numbers of staff on the various rostered shifts and on normal day duties. The officers perform both import and export duties and included in the figures are some staff engaged on purely preventive work in the freight area.
Dover East Staff on rostered duty Daytime staff 7 am to 3 pm 3 pm to 11 pm 11 pm to 7 am 9 am to 5 pm Sunday 43 52 45 7 Monday 59 55 52 100 Tuesday 60 66 52 123 Wednesday 60 66 52 113 Thursday 61 66 52 114 Friday 61 67 52 125 Saturday 50 58 52 5 In addition, 12 officers are engaged on mobile duties with no fixed hours.
Dover West 7 am to 3 pm 3 pm to 11 pm 11 pm to 7 am 9 am to 5 pm Sunday 2 1 0 0 Monday/Saturday 16 14 9 0 605W
Folkestone 7 am to 3 pm 3 pm to 11 pm 11 pm to 7 am 9 am to 5 pm Sunday 8 11 5 0 Monday/Friday 10 12 6 9 Saturday 10 12 6 0 1. The "free" hours or imports are:
- Monday/Friday 9 am–6 pm
- Saturday 9 am–5 pm
The "free" hours for exports are:
- Monday/Friday 6 am–7 pm
- Saturday 6 am–6 pm
All hours are charged for on Sundays and Public Holidays.
2. The shifts do not entirely correspond to out of hours attendance but it is true to say that all of the night shift and a proportion of the other two shifts are covering out of hours work.
§ Sir Anthony Grantasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what charges have been made to the trade for out-of-hours attendance by Her Majesty's Customs and Excise at Dover and other ports for 1983.
§ Mr. HayhoeThe receipts from charges for out-of-hours attendance in the various Customs collections for the year ended 31 March 1984 are as follows:
Collection Totals £ Aberdeen 126,040 Belfast 63,741 Birmingham 30,566 Bristol 48,394 Dover *1,108,527 East Anglia 494,994 East Midlands 89,449 Edinburgh 76,522 Glasgow 190,358 Leeds 36,601 Liverpool 224,080 London Airports 487,277 London City and South 4,784 London North and West 21,084 London Port 139,128 Manchester 102,647 Northampton 102,741 Northern England 74,321 Reading 17,172 Southampton 440,580 South Wales 114,850 South West England 34,623 TOTAL 4,028,479 * This figure is the total for Dover collection and includes the amount of £818,661 for Dover port alone.
The information is presented for each Customs and Excise Collection rather than for each port. Figures for individual ports are not collected centrally and to gather them together for every port would take a disproportionate amount of effort.
§ Sir Anthony Grantasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what were the numbers of import entries lodged to Her Majesty's Customs and Excise for Dover and other ports during 1983; and what were the relative numbers of customs officers employed at each of these ports.
§ Mr. HayhoeThe number of staff employed on Customs work and the number of full import entries dealt within the year ended 31 March 1984 were as follows. However, it should be noted that the nature and mix of Customs work in different locations is such that there is no direct or consistent relationship between staff numbers and numbers of entries processed.
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Collection Estimate of staff engaged on customs work during the whole period Entries Aberdeen 124 23,800 Belfast 238 194,490 Birmingham 69 54,923 Bristol 100 43,611
Collection Estimate of staff engaged on customs work during the whole period Entries Dover 959 *938,408 East Anglia 604 558,410 East Midlands 138 162,383 Edinburgh 109 19,934 Glasgow 161 69,006 Leeds 180 131,737 Liverpool 309 101,841 London Airports 935 1,014,127 London City and South 6 601 London North and West 8 11,059 London Port 532 275,332 Manchester 139 149,453 Northampton 95 117,745 Northern England 144 61,880 Reading 12 6,220 Southampton 469 237,943 South Wales 88 34,252 South West England 113 14,247 TOTAL 5,532 4,221,402 *This figure includes 709,859 full entries at the port of Dover. 1. The information is presented for each Customs and Excise Collection rather than for each port. The data for individual ports is not collected centrally and to gather it for every port would take a dispoportionate amount of effort. 2. The estimate of staff numbers has been calculated by dividing the number of man-days worked by the number of working days in the period. It includes any overtime working, so the result does not correspond to the formal stafing complement. It should be borne in mind that the figures are or staff engaged on all Customs acctivities, not just for work associated with entries.