Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation
BY HAMISH MACDONELL
Disappearing act A statistical glitch meant figures for Scottish salmon exported to the EU in January were wildly wrong, but it took a while for HMRC to realise there was a problem
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s every economist knows, there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. But that view is not confined to economists. It is now shared by many in the Scottish salmon sector, thanks to an extraordinary episode over export figures. The collation of our export figures is usually pretty routine. Salmon consignments are registered as they leave the country and flagged again when they arrive at their foreign destination. The figures are then brought together by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and published monthly and that, usually, is that. However, when the official figures for January 2021 were published, it was clear that something had gone very badly wrong. Instead of an expected 5,000 tonnes of Scottish salmon landing in the EU, customs officials reported just 87 tonnes: a drop of 97 per cent on the expected figure. We knew about 5,000 tonnes of salmon had been sent (we had export declarations to prove it). We knew the salmon had passed through the hubs where the export health certificates were issued and we knew the salmon had arrived at its European destinations. But, according to HMRC, the salmon had vanished somewhere between the UK and the EU. We are not the only sector to put great weight on our export statistics (we would not be able to champion our success as the UK’s largest food export if we did not have the figures) so we tried to find out what had happened. At this point, it is worth remembering the context. When this statistics foul-up happened, the UK Government had just set up the Brexit Seafood Task Force (at the behest of the Scottish salmon sector) to find practical ways of solving the paperwork problems that Brexit had introduced. Everybody, from the Prime Minister down, wanted real, accurate figures for the amount of trade being done with the EU since the Brexit deal came into force. And yet, not only did the customs service not have anything even resembling accurate figures, it did not appear to see the need to put the error right. The SSPO chased and questioned, harried and pleaded but all we got back was a simple refusal to acknowledge anything had gone wrong. In a statement reminiscent of the famous Belfast adage about the
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Titanic – “it was alright when it left here” – HMRC kept insisting that it had published all the figures it had been given. It was this refusal to engage that was the most infuriating part of this whole saga. It was almost as if those in charge of data collection did not want to admit there had even been an error. They appeared determined to insist there was not a problem that needed to be fixed, rather than concede something had gone wrong and set about trying to correct it. We checked with our producers. They had filled in the paperwork properly. We checked with the hauliers. They also confirmed that it would have been impossible to get export declarations without the paperwork being filled in correctly. We even checked with officials at the European statistics agency and they confirmed that 4,700 tonnes of Scottish salmon had arrived in the EU in January. In the end, we had to raise the issue publicly, at Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee. That attracted mainstream press coverage and the incredulity of MPs. After that, HMRC did act. Officials got in touch. They started working through their systems and eventually found out what had happened. There had been a decision to adopt a new, light touch approach to customs from 1 January onwards, in the hope of avoiding tailbacks and Above: Cross Channel queues at the UK Channel ports. Part of this involved dropping a check which registered the ferries to France at the goods as having arrived in the EU. To cope with Port of Dover in Kent this change, exporters were expected to tick an extra box on the export declaration: something they did not know they had to do.
www.fishfarmermagazine.com
07/06/2021 16:14:57
