A flotilla of barges would be sent to the coast of Northern Ireland with energy generators after Brexit to keep the region’s lights on in the event of no deal, according to reports on Wednesday.
The scheme, which has been described as “potty” by business leaders in Northern Ireland, is said to be part of contingency planning by Whitehall mandarins in case the UK crashes out of the EU, smashing Ireland’s all-island electricity supply in its wake.
The issue has arisen because Northern Ireland relies on imports from Ireland for electricity supply as part of a ground-breaking single energy market deal struck in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement.
According to a leak to the Financial Times, the plan would involve bringing back equipment from military zones such as Afghanistan to build up capacity in the Irish Sea.
Thousands of electricity generators would have to be requisitioned at short notice.
Conor Patterson, chief executive of the Newry and Mourne Enterprise Agency, said: “It seems a potty idea to me. That they have even contemplated this, even if it is blue-sky thinking, is difficult to comprehend. How would this work? Would we be on a three-day week? Would we have electricity rationed?
“Would the barges be run on gas, on coal, nuclear fuel, how would it work? It’s an apocalyptic scenario.”
The Department for Exiting the European Union said: “We have made good progress on this and a number of other issues during recent negotiations and remain confident that we can reach a deep and broad free trade agreement with the EU. However, as a responsible government, we will continue to prepare for all scenarios, including the highly unlikely outcome that we leave the EU without any deal next March.”
No-deal contingency planning is being stepped up right across Europe, with Whitehall and civil servants in Ireland, France, Belgium and Holland in particular making plans for the worst possible scenario on 29 March next year.
Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs said on Wednesday that it would cost businesses an extra £17bn to £20bn a year in administration if they were obliged to fill out customs declarations forms after Brexit.
HMRC’s chief executive, Jon Thompson, told the public accounts select committee that there were around 100,000 businesses with no experience at all of filling out customs declarations forms with more than 50 data fields.
He is currently in talks with ministers on how to reach those businesses but admitted they could not start a communications or awareness programme until the government’s Brexit position was settled.
One MP said small firms would go bust if they had to bear those sort of costs, especially after being told the amount HMRC collects on cross-border trade is less than double that at £38.5bn a year.
“Do you really think this is a sensible taxation system?” asked Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, Conservative MP for the Cotswolds, of the public accounts committee. “Won’t this put lot of small businesses out of business?”
Thompson told him it was not his place to comment: “We just give ministers the advice.”
