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Penny Mordaunt (Michael Hughes/DFID CC Attribution 2.0 Generic)Penny Mordaunt criticises "outrageous" £7,000 bike customs charge charity cyclists hit with in Spain
Newly-appointed Leader of the House of Commons — Penny Mordaunt — has criticised the Spanish customs authorities for slapping a group of charity cyclists from Wales with a £7,330 tariff when collecting their bikes ahead of a 600-mile ride raising money for Prostate Cymru, an unexpected fee which may see the club forced to fold.
Addressing the House of Commons for the first time in her new role, the former minister for international trade said the charge was "outrageous" and vowed to "do all I can to help to resolve and get compensation for the group".
Cyclists from the Tap It Out club, based out of a pub in Pyle, Bridgend, flew to Santander, in Cantabria on Spain's north coast, ahead of the challenge, while their bikes arrived by ferry.
> Cycling club arrives in Spain for charity ride... hit with £7,000 bike customs charge
However, the bikes were seized and the group told to pay "in excess of €10,000". Tap It Out considered abandoning the charity venture but ultimately paid €8,500 (£7,330) out of the club's accounts to get their bikes back, a decision head of the group, Nicky Morgan, said might "fold the club — shut it down".
The club received backing from Welsh politician Huw Irranca-Davies and Labour MP Chris Elmore who raised the situation with Mordaunt in Parliament this week. He said:
At the weekend, a group of cyclists from my constituency and the constituency of Dr Wallis were doing a fundraiser for Prostate Cymru, travelling from Wales to Portugal. When they arrived at customs in Santander, their bikes were seized and they were asked to pay in excess of €10,000 to release the bikes for the fundraising effort. Clearly, that has had a huge impact on the fundraising; the cyclists ended up paying €8,500 to release the bikes, which the whole House will agree is appalling.
It appears that it was to do with a post-Brexit form linked to importers trying to sell goods in Spain, but clearly this was a cycling fundraising event. I would be grateful if the Leader of the House could make representations to the Foreign Secretary about providing more support to charities such as Prostate Cymru about what forms need to be completed, and about working with the Spanish Government to ensure that does not happen again to much-needed funds for charities.
In response, Mordaunt said she was "sorry" to hear of the charge and insisted there was "no reason" for it, slamming it as "outrageous". Mordaunt said:
I am very sorry to hear of that. There is no reason why they should have had that difficulty — it is outrageous. I take this opportunity to remind hon. Members about the excellent consular service that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office runs.
I had an incident where a constituent was in real danger. Through the consular service, within half an hour of me making that initial call, the local police force in the United States was on that individual's doorstep. I encourage people to use that facility, and I will do all I can to help to resolve and get compensation for the group of cyclists.
"My jaw just dropped"
Head of the group, Mr Morgan told the BBC that organising the trip had been "really stressful" without the added inconvenience and had been rescheduled twice due to Covid.
"We were doing a charity event. It never entered our minds that we were going to sell bikes or be accused of selling bikes. My jaw just dropped," he said.
Another of the riders, Rhys Lloyd, said he was representing his dad who usually rides with the club but is too ill to participate in this one. Mr Lloyd feels like the group has been "held for ransom" and paying the tariff will "bleed a big hole into the club". Another rider, who lost his mum and colleagues to cancer, said he just wanted to "raise funds and awareness".
Dan is the road.cc news editor and joined in 2020 having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for The Non-League Paper. Dan has been at road.cc for four years and mainly writes news and tech articles as well as the occasional feature. He has hopefully kept you entertained on the live blog too.
Never fast enough to take things on the bike too seriously, when he's not working you'll find him exploring the south of England by two wheels at a leisurely weekend pace, or enjoying his favourite Scottish roads when visiting family. Sometimes he'll even load up the bags and ride up the whole way, he's a bit strange like that.
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48 comments
So what you are saying is "Brexit can be significantly less shit if you just go to the effort of becoming an expert on international customs paperwork".
Does knowing the weight, value, type of goods, country of origin of your bike make you an expert?
Does putting these data in a form table make you an expert?
Or is that similar to making a shopping list...
How does that follow from anything posted ???
filling in the form ->straight forward
knowing that you have to do this -> not straight forward.
Still sounds like a lot more effort and at least £300 for absolutely no benefit to anyone compared to before.
Quite. A Carnet costs £310 + VAT (so £372). In addition they would need to pay a deposit equal to the tax at risk (so £7,330). They could have avoided these charges by flying with their own bikes (but many airlines have a maximum number of bikes they can accept so this would involve travelling separately), or by sailing with their bikes. I don't know whether flying was for convenience or cost, but either way, the additional cost and/or inconvenience would not have applied before we became a third country.
You need a bit of knowledge for that though, It's not really something that is obvious or likely for recreation users - they are not businesses.
Far from reducing red tape brexit has increased it. You only need to follow the tweets of Daniel Lambert (Wines) to read of what is required in just the wine industry.
Mordant is just playing to the crowd and continuing in the government denial of the consequences of brexit.
I'm sure they would have too, with the benefit of hindsight. But that's not the point, really, is it? If we'd remained in the customs union there would have been no issue, and we also wouldn't have a shit show in Northern Ireland.
That easy to say, with the benefit of hindsight
A politician lying? Surely not.
Cult of Brexit - constant denial that Brexit is the cause of the problem.
Is every Tory MP a Brexit cultist at this point?
hopefully all the centre right tories have seen the party for the brexit cultists they have become and have left/no longer vote for them.
Can the minister also reimburse all those other businesses that incorrectly or failed to fill out paperwork when exporting product, and had it returned to them or were imposed VAT and import charges when sending their goods abroad?
If the club had looked into what they were doing, the whole sad and sorry affair could have been overcome by filling out the proper forms to state they were bringing the bikes in and taking them back again.
Maybe what we can do as a cycling community is create a go fund me page and raise the money to avoid the club folding. If the money is reclaimed from Sapnish customs, it and any excess from a go fund me page can go to the very worthy charity.
Business rules generally are different from consumer rules, indeed the whole underlying logic of consumer legislation is that businesses can either employ people with the correct knowledge for the job or can pay someone to get it whereas the consumer does not have that access.
So comparing the problems of businesses in dealing with bureaucracy to private individuals doesn't really work.
Businesses problems generally have been three-fold - lack of any information from Government, lack of infrastructure being implemented to support businesses, and the excessive costs of paperwork, fees and taxes. The public got caught with those for personal imports, but most people have got the message now - don't buy directly from abroad due to unknown tax and duties, the lack of enforceable consumer legislation and the inability to economically return faulty goods. Businesses are discovering that having being built on international trade for 40 years, with the encouragement of Government, they don't have the option to withdraw into trading in Britain, so are either not viable or alternatively they need to move abroad or set up partnerships with foreign agents which in turn means sharing the profits of their labour.
Having said that, I think we are all owed a few years' taxes back as we were supposedly buying a competent government (that would "get Brexit done") with that money and instead it seems we were sold a bunch of chancers who apparently signed off a legally binding contract without understanding it, or worse and more likely, understanding it, but lying about what they had agreed to and signing it anyway with the intent of breaking that contract.
Onerous paperwork was always going to be the result of leaving the single market and pretending that it is the nasty old EU's fault for wanting to keep the benefits of membership for its members is, as the analogy has been told many times, like resigning from the golf club, not wanting to pay any fees then complaining that the bastards won't let you have a round of golf as and when you want, and now they are telling people that they are going to use the course anyway because the golf club are some metropolitan elite so breaking the rules doesn't count.
Be fair - the bellends that voted them in knew what they were going to get. Elect a clown, expect a circus.
I note the new cabinet, which has not yet been approved by the Monarch, does not have a Brexit opportunities Minister.
Good luck with that refund. Although, I dare say that the EU may be nice and refund them, it really doesn't have to.
Pretty sure the Cabinet has been approved (by the previous Monarch, of course) and that there was no plan to retain a Brexit Opportunities Minister. However, I think there is an issue that not all the junior Minister roles had been filled and there may be some delay in doing so now.
they've filled the junior role of Rees Mogg's sommelier at least
https://twitter.com/Parody_PM/status/1567554263634649092
Or does sommelier not extend to bottled water?
As usual, I bet the gutter press have only covered half the story. Did the club follow the correct procedure? Probably not. Did they even check on any restrictions? Probably not. Sorry but that chucks the ball into their court.
Did they comply? They the Spanish are wrong . Easy really isn't it?
Until this is is known comenting is somewhat pointless surely?5
Carnets are nothing new so why get stressed?
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