tag:theconversation.com,2011:/fr/topics/dover-19227/articlesDover – The Conversation2020-12-21T15:11:05Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1523272020-12-21T15:11:05Z2020-12-21T15:11:05ZBrexit deal or no deal, food bills are about to get a lot more expensive<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375909/original/file-20201218-15-12ob7b7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Affordability issues mean low-income households could eat more unhealthy amid COVID-19.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/london-jun-12-2015-fresh-vegetables-300248831">Anna Levan/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With just a few days until the end of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-australian-style-and-canadian-style-brexit-trade-deals-152123">transition period</a>, and with British freight hauliers temporarily banned from travelling to France, we still don’t know if a free trade deal will be struck between the UK and EU. Yet, even if a deal can be agreed and approved before January 1, 2020, British consumers need to prepare for the fact that their shopping bills are about to get a lot more expensive.</p>
<p>Although a respectable 52% of the UK’s food needs are currently met by domestic production, the remainder is heavily dependent on imports from the 27 European Union (EU27) countries. About 29% of the food consumed in the UK comes from the EU27 compared to just 4% each from the regions of <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/608426/foodpocketbook-2016report-rev-12apr17.pdf">Asia, Africa and the Americas</a></p>
<p>The UK’s reliance on the EU is especially acute in the horticulture sector, with about <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201719/ldselect/ldeucom/129/129.pdf">40% of vegetables and 37% of fruit</a> sold in the UK imported from EU countries.</p>
<p>At this time of year, outside of the British growing season, the country’s dependence on Europe is even more stark, with practically all of tomatoes, lettuces and soft fruit coming from the <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/britains-food-revolution-is-about-to-get-more-expensive-12161602">Netherlands and Spain</a>.</p>
<p>Just how this trade will be affected will depend on the outcome of the current negotiations. A no-deal scenario clearly poses the biggest challenge. The UK would be legally required to apply the same tariffs on EU goods as for other <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-are-australian-style-and-canadian-style-brexit-trade-deals-152123">World Trade Organization (WTO)</a> members with which it does not have a free trade agreement. </p>
<p>These tariff rates vary between different foodstuffs and are generally quite low for fresh fruit and vegetables (typically around 10%), high for drinks and beverages (20%) and even higher for meat and dairy (up to or higher than 40%).</p>
<p>Research suggests that the tariff effect of no deal would lead to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/002795011724200113?casa_token=WsN1pNMzGO0AAAAA%3AVoxuVkd9s80ZxSvkn7Lp1M3-cCRhzqJtJB8UXr-1pv3wp5zfUjNBDUc-y2qAaIg7Wh0s1O4bA4o6">food price inflation</a> of an estimated 3.1% for fruit and 4.0% for vegetables.</p>
<h2>Additional costs and food waste</h2>
<p>Just how much of this additional cost would be passed on to the consumer is yet to be seen, since retailers may prefer to absorb it or, more likely, <a href="https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/fmcg-prices-and-promotions/co-op-tells-suppliers-to-absorb-brexit-tariff-increases-on-promoted-stock/651462.article">attempt to pass it onto their suppliers</a>.</p>
<p>Although these tariffs would only be applicable in the event of no deal, the same can’t be said for other Brexit costs that businesses and consumers will incur in 2021, even with a deal. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1320630046969704448"}"></div></p>
<p>These so-called “non-tariff barriers” come in the form of extra red tape, including customs and rules of origin declarations, as well as checks on plant and animal imports. </p>
<p>One frustrated industry association leader in October 2020 shared their thoughts:</p>
<p>As one frustrated industry association leader told us in October, whatever deal the UK strikes will create additional costs and delays for the fresh fruit and vegetable sector. They pointed out a lack of preparedness around <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-the-perils-of-our-just-enough-just-in-time-food-system-133724">“just in time”</a> supply chains.</p>
<p>An additional concern is the UK’s Smart Freight IT system, which is designed to prevent traffic chaos by ensuring haulage trucks have the correct paperwork before they arrive at ports. But it <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54172222">won’t be ready in time for the end of the transition period</a>. </p>
<p>The consequences of this failure - which will be felt mostly at the Dover-Calais artery where most imported food is landed - could spark the <a href="https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/brexit/british-firms-may-pause-eu-food-exports-to-avoid-traffic-chaos-in-january/649227.article">suspension in January</a> 2021 of perishable foods transport by UK and EU companies. </p>
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<img alt="Worker with rejected produce in food processing warehouse." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375932/original/file-20201218-23-8gybqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/375932/original/file-20201218-23-8gybqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375932/original/file-20201218-23-8gybqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375932/original/file-20201218-23-8gybqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375932/original/file-20201218-23-8gybqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375932/original/file-20201218-23-8gybqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/375932/original/file-20201218-23-8gybqq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Worker with rejected produce in food processing warehouse.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/worker-rejected-produce-food-processing-warehouse-1586728120">Juice Flair/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Even short time delays of a few hours, coupled with the additional cost of doing business outside of the Single Market and Customs Union, will cascade through the UK’s just-in-time supply chains. Indeed, the current travel restrictions may be a portend of what cross-channel trade could look like in early 2021, with UK <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/21/sainsburys-port-restrictions-missing-products-uk">supermarkets already warning of possible food shortages</a>. </p>
<p>Fresh fruit and vegetables are perishable and any delay will reduce shelf-life and lead inevitably to more food waste. It is consumers who will ultimately be picking up the bill for this in the form of reduced choice and high prices. </p>
<p>Because affordability is the major determinant of consumer behaviour, food price inflation is likely to drive down demand for fruit and vegetables – especially by low income households – at a time when the government really ought to be sending the very opposite signal.</p>
<p>Not least since unhealthy diets have proved a <a href="https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3085">key risk factor during the COVID-19 pandemic</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152327/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Heron receives funding from the ESRC and BBSRC. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Bob Doherty receives funding from UKRI Global Food Security Fund BBSRC. </span></em></p>Although 52% of the UK’s food needs are currently met by domestic production, the remainder is heavily dependent on imports from the EU.Tony Heron, Professor of International Political Economy, University of YorkBob Doherty, Professor of Marketing and Chair of Agrifood, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/919372018-02-26T10:03:45Z2018-02-26T10:03:45ZWhat three landscapes tell us about English identity<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207003/original/file-20180219-116365-5vh4xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/landscape-view-white-cliffs-dover-sea-102077893?src=g2-x_zrDd64OVVkO6laYxQ-1-4">TTStock/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The relationship between landscape and English national identity goes back at least to the 18th century, when aficionados of the picturesque and the sublime made places such as the Lake District objects of patriotic pride even before Wordsworth declared them “a sort of national property”. Today, links between landscape and nation are charged with new significance in the context of debates about Brexit and Scottish independence. The nature of Englishness has never been more topical.</p>
<p>But what, exactly, can landscape tell us about Englishness? This was the question I explored in my new book, <a href="http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/history/british-history-after-1450/storied-ground-landscape-and-shaping-english-national-identity?format=HB#K8LZMAVikLAgVToI.97">Storied Ground</a>. In order to do so, I looked at a number of particular case studies. Here are three of them: </p>
<h2>The cliffs of Dover</h2>
<p>In a recent speech, Boris Johnson <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2018/feb/14/boris-johnson-brexit-is-not-a-v-sign-video-highlights">claimed</a> that Brexit was “not some great V-sign from the cliffs of Dover”. Whether or not you were wooed by his words, the foreign secretary’s choice of image is telling. The cliffs of Dover are powerful symbols of the nation, and specifically its insular character. </p>
<p>Surmounted by an ancient castle, they have long been associated with defence and defiance: metaphorically as well as physically, they are ramparts, keeping out the rest of the world. Across the 19th and 20th centuries, the cliffs were described as “white walls”, as “natural defences”; in 1878, Black’s Guide to Kent called Dover a “fitting symbol of English Power”, with “its walls of glittering chalk, majestic and impregnable”. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207006/original/file-20180219-116346-hy8u5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/207006/original/file-20180219-116346-hy8u5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207006/original/file-20180219-116346-hy8u5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207006/original/file-20180219-116346-hy8u5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207006/original/file-20180219-116346-hy8u5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207006/original/file-20180219-116346-hy8u5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/207006/original/file-20180219-116346-hy8u5l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">The gates of Dover Castle.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Andrzej Sowa/Shutterstock.com</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>In a more peaceable vein, the cliffs have also functioned as markers of home – familiar, historic, reassuringly unchanging. But something like the V-sign has persisted throughout. When the French European Commission president, Jacques Delors, announced his plans for European unity in autumn 1990, The Sun told its readers “to face France and yell ‘Up Yours, Delors’”. And where better to “bawl at Gaul”, the paper suggested, than from the cliffs of Dover? </p>
<p>Indeed, page three on November 1 that year featured no underdressed young lady, but a portly bearded man in a hat and black leather jacket, draped in a Union flag, holding a half-drunk pint of beer and shouting out at France while sitting atop Dover cliffs.</p>
<h2>The Scottish border</h2>
<p>As The Sun’s injunction to what it called “true blue Brits” suggested, the patriotism associated with the white cliffs is British as well as English. This is true of other English landscapes, one notable example being that of the Northumbrian border with Scotland. </p>
<p>Here, the history of conflict between the two nations is indelibly inscribed in the landscape, with its ruined castles and blood-soaked battlefields. Yet, for much of the 19th and 20th centuries, this environmental heritage of enmity supported a form of Englishness quite different from any stereotypical ideal of pastoral, cottagey tranquillity. This was a grittier Englishness — one of romance, valour and derring-do; but it was not one that cast the Scots as a national “other” in any very antagonistic sense. Instead, in concert with a complementary variant of Scottishness, it conscripted the divisions of the past into the service of unionism. It was, to use the historian Graeme Morton’s <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Unionist_Nationalism.html?id=vahnAAAAMAAJ">helpful term</a>, a variety of “unionist-nationalism”. </p>
<p>Take Flodden Field, site of the terrible Scottish defeat of 1513, which was reimagined as a place of “splendid past bravery and present unity”. There, in 1910, an Anglo-Scots committee erected a great cross, hewn from Aberdeen granite and dedicated “to the brave of both nations” who had fallen on that bleak Northumbrian moor. The cross stands there still. Today it also memorialises the unionist identities now in retreat on both sides of the border. </p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206828/original/file-20180217-76003-4t86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206828/original/file-20180217-76003-4t86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206828/original/file-20180217-76003-4t86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206828/original/file-20180217-76003-4t86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206828/original/file-20180217-76003-4t86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206828/original/file-20180217-76003-4t86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206828/original/file-20180217-76003-4t86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flodden Memorial, Branxton, Northumberland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">The Land/Wikimedia Commons.</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Manchester: shock cityscape</h2>
<p>The historian Asa Briggs has called Manchester the “shock city” of the Victorian age. Its landscape of “dark, satanic mills” is often contrasted with a supposedly dominant, countrified ideal of Englishness: as the sociologist Krishan Kumar has said, by the 1880s “the essential England was rural”. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206831/original/file-20180217-75961-7osc41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206831/original/file-20180217-75961-7osc41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/206831/original/file-20180217-75961-7osc41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206831/original/file-20180217-75961-7osc41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206831/original/file-20180217-75961-7osc41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=993&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206831/original/file-20180217-75961-7osc41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1248&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206831/original/file-20180217-75961-7osc41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1248&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/206831/original/file-20180217-75961-7osc41.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1248&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Adolphe Valette, India House, Manchester (1912).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But was it? Manchester suggests otherwise, or at any rate that landscapes of industry and commerce were integral to the geography of Englishness. Throughout its Victorian and Edwardian heyday, Manchester’s architecture of enterprise was aestheticised by artists and a focus of both tourist interest and local pride.</p>
<p>Bradshaw’s famous railway handbook reckoned a visit to a factory was “one of the chief sights” of the place. The city’s warehouses were said “to rival in architecture the palaces of Venice”, and its public buildings were acclaimed as powerful emblems of the national importance of the metropolis of cotton. In the landscape of Manchester could be read the story of the nation’s rise to economic greatness, and as such — as one observer noted in 1900 — it was “a microcosm of England”. </p>
<p>These three examples illustrate how Englishness has been found in diverse places and has taken diverse forms — urban as well as rural, northern as well as southern. Indeed, this very diversity has been a major source of the integrity and resilience of English national identity — and indeed of the English nation — throughout modern history. </p>
<p>And so whatever side Britons might choose to take on Brexit or the issue of Scottish independence, they would do well to remember that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91937/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Readman is Professor of Modern British History at King's College London. This article is on the topic of his new book, Storied Ground: Landscape and the Shaping of English National Identity, which is published by Cambridge University Press. He is a member of the Labour party.</span></em></p>Englishness has been found in diverse places and has taken diverse forms.Paul Readman, Professor of Modern British History, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/478642015-09-24T05:27:38Z2015-09-24T05:27:38ZRevealed: asylum seeker children face welfare lottery on arrival in Britain<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95719/original/image-20150922-25757-6o14ip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Dover is taking more than its fair share.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">from www.shutterstock.com</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As the refugee crisis continues to <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/migrant-crisis">dominate headlines</a> around the world, local authorities in Britain are in dispute with the government over the funding they receive for the care of unaccompanied children seeking asylum. They have understandable concerns – rules designed to protect children arriving in the UK may, in fact, be making it harder to look after them properly.</p>
<p>The London Borough of Croydon <a href="http://www.lgcplus.com/news/council-considers-legal-action-over-cuts-to-funding-for-asylum-seeking-children/5090379.article">is considering legal action</a> against cuts to asylum seeker funding grants that were implemented in March 2015. Croydon says the cuts will create a £4m hole in its budget, while the county of Kent, which borders London and includes the port of Dover, predicts a <a href="http://www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford/news/whitehall-officials-to-visit-child-40902/">£5.5m shortfall</a>. </p>
<p>The money only tells one side of the tale, of course. To put it in human terms, the Millbank induction and assessment centre in Kent was <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34168528">reportedly housing 99 children</a> in early September 2015, despite having a <a href="http://www.kentonline.co.uk/ashford/news/whitehall-officials-to-visit-child-40902/">capacity of around 50</a>.</p>
<h2>Rapid escalation</h2>
<p>When I interviewed a senior social worker in Kent in late April 2015, the council was responsible for 376 unaccompanied children. That followed the arrival of 211 children from the beginning of August 2014 to the end of February 2015. By September 4, Kent was <a href="https://kccmediahub.net/unaccompanied-asylum-seeking-children-in-kent745">responsible for 730</a> unaccompanied children.</p>
<p>I made Freedom of Information requests to every local authority children’s services department in England to try to establish where unaccompanied children were living and how many each authority was responsible for. Some 146 of 150 authorities responded, revealing that in June to August 2015, one-fifth of authorities were not responsible for any unaccompanied children at all. A further third of authorities looked after fewer than ten.</p>
<p>The overwhelming majority (105) had fewer than 20 in their care and just seven authorities had more than 50. Of those, Kent (then with 376) and Croydon (412) between them looked after 28% of all unaccompanied children in England.</p>
<p>The reason Kent and Croydon are responsible for so many children is that the <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1989/41/contents">Children Act 1989</a> provides that unaccompanied children must be taken into the care of the local authority where they are first found. While adult asylum-seekers are dispersed across the UK with no choice in where they go, lone children are legally the responsibility of the local council. </p>
<p>It means that as a key entry point for migrants, Dover puts Kent into a position of responsibility, while Croydon’s disproportionate role comes thanks to the fact that it houses the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/asylum-screening-centre">Home Office’s Asylum Screening Unit</a>.</p>
<h2>Prospects</h2>
<p>The full protection of the Children Act has been hard won for unaccompanied children. They were previously often provided with a lesser level of support than they were entitled to under the Act. As a result they were also denied “care leaving” services – those designed to provide a soft landing for vulnerable people turning 18 –- until a <a href="http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed67968">Supreme Court judgment</a> established that they must be looked after. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.unicef.org/crc/files/Rights_overview.pdf">UN Convention on the Rights of the Child</a> obliges the authorities to treat the best interests of the child as a primary consideration in all decisions. Yet the UK entered an “immigration reservation” which it maintained from 1989 to <a href="http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2008/11/11/lifting-uncrc-reservation-offers-hope-for-asylum-seekers/">2008</a>, to avoid that “best interests” principle when the child in question was subject to immigration control.</p>
<p>So there is an entirely reasonable reluctance to allow any dilution of the application of the Children Act to unaccompanied children. However, leaving aside any concerns about the financial well-being of the high-intake authorities, even in April 2015 it appeared doubtful that children’s best interests could be fully implemented in Kent.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95521/original/image-20150921-31513-kqkjmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95521/original/image-20150921-31513-kqkjmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/95521/original/image-20150921-31513-kqkjmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95521/original/image-20150921-31513-kqkjmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95521/original/image-20150921-31513-kqkjmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95521/original/image-20150921-31513-kqkjmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95521/original/image-20150921-31513-kqkjmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/95521/original/image-20150921-31513-kqkjmc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Brighton has space to help.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrischabot/15287834955/in/photolist-phW9Hi-e2xXev-5vb6M2-jneb8p-nYbnaK-oXSMTv-FkP2g-bU9yfM-n38DWG-wWZhhY-qeFdCg-vznABm-pVc7MV-65hAA4-qyXRsL-qugkdo-q4p1GY-efveUG-ggYkhS-5jDG99-4hLgRF-huJpaH-xxJuq1-4hpyh-4yBNsM-h4AZAU-frD63D-jNm712-asmFuq-5q9eKP-4dX9Je-pVNzc5-64mPed-4dYB8u-8k3jfg-dqmH3t-e4iSd1-f1ZZvJ-jVkr7t-pCWez6-6RgdK2-dNTRYY-oSwfGE-bsHc8m-3AviBr-iSpe2f-q43kXh-cC68V1-nwmBV2-n3hr3Y">Chris Chabot</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.brighton.ac.uk/crome/research-projects/minas-unaccompanied-minors-rights.aspx">My fieldwork revealed</a> that children aged 16 and 17 had minimal prospects of entering foster care in Kent, while those in Brighton and Hove in East Sussex generally entered foster care regardless of age and remained there until at least the age of 18. A number of children I met did not know who their social worker was in order to ask for help and were relying on charities instead.</p>
<p>Eritrean children who I interviewed were fasting for the Orthodox Lent, but were unable to go to the nearest Eritrean Orthodox Church (in London) for the important Easter services because they could not obtain travel money. <a href="http://www.refugeecouncil.org.uk/assets/0003/1125/Lives_in_the_balance.pdf">High-quality legal representatives</a> had limited capacity because of the structure of contracts with the Legal Aid Agency.</p>
<h2>Sharing the burden</h2>
<p>While experts and children in Brighton and Hove described rapid access to good educational support, children in Kent faced long delays to start education or long journeys into London to reach college. Demand for educational places could not be met in Kent’s schools and colleges but the situation was being exacerbated by deliberate decisions to stop meeting unaccompanied children’s needs. </p>
<p>According to anecdotal evidence I have heard, the fear in Kent is that colleges which have been willing to offer English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) are dropping out under pressure from local councils over the numbers of unaccompanied children being accommodated in the area.</p>
<p>Given these multiple obstacles, it’s clear there is a need for some form of responsibility sharing between local authorities. But “dispersal” of the kind used for adults is not the answer. Any exception to the Children Act must (legally and morally) be tightly limited to the allocation of legal responsibility for the child at first arrival.</p>
<p>Proper funding is essential. Responsibility sharing models in France and Austria are ineffective largely because of disputes between the local and central government over funding for the children’s care. Previous attempts to develop responsibility sharing in the UK <a href="http://www.communitycare.co.uk/2007/03/21/unaccompanied-asylum-seeking-children-councils-reaction-to-dispersal-proposals/">have foundered</a> because of the Home Office’s failure to provide proper funding and the increase in duties towards children in care.</p>
<p>Whether voluntary or compulsory, responsibility sharing is crucial to the best interests of unaccompanied children. Proper funding, tailored to proper fulfilment of all of the duties set out in the Children Act, is the only way to achieve this.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47864/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Wilding receives funding from PPUAM of the European Union for this research.</span></em></p>How FOI requests revealed the massive burden on two local authorities, and how to end the damaging effects on children.Jo Wilding, Research Fellow, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/456712015-08-05T15:44:28Z2015-08-05T15:44:28ZCalais migrant disruption: how much is the Channel Tunnel worth?<p>With the crisis of migrants in Calais trying to smuggle their way across the Channel continuing to cause problems, a look at the economic importance of one of the UK’s major connections to continental Europe shows why stopping the flow of goods and vehicles is so difficult. </p>
<p>In the 21 years since the opening of the Channel Tunnel there has been an enormous growth in cross-Channel traffic. In 1994, the year the tunnel opened, ferry traffic through Dover was <a href="http://www.doverport.co.uk/about/performance/">just over 19m passengers</a>. By 2014, despite a 30% fall in the number of ferry passengers, total passenger traffic on the ferries, Eurotunnel shuttles and Eurostar trains <a href="http://www.eurotunnelgroup.com/uk/eurotunnel-group/operations/traffic-figures/">was almost 34.3m</a>, an increase of more than 75%. Eurotunnel and Eurostar each carried more than 10m passengers, while the ferries carried 13.3m. </p>
<p>As a passenger port, Dover plus the Eurotunnel terminal outside Folkestone are nearly the size of Gatwick Airport and hence by a large margin the third biggest entry and exit point to the UK.</p>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/aGsFD/3/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Excluding passengers on Eurostar trains, the 24m passengers in vehicles occupied more than 5m cars and almost 160,000 coaches in 2014, an increase of almost 2m vehicles in 20 years.</p>
<p>Even more significant is the <a href="http://www.eurotunnelgroup.com/uploadedFiles/assets-uk/Media/Press-Releases/2015-Press-Release/2015-Half-Yearly-Financial-Results-Full.pdf">increase in truck traffic</a>, which has more than tripled in the past 20 years. Ferry freight traffic more than doubled from 1.16m trucks to 2.42m, while Eurotunnel shuttles carried an additional 1.44m. Trucks have dominated. Rail freight services have not developed as forecast, with just 1.65m tonnes carried in 2014, though this is now demonstrating strong year-on-year growth of about 20%.</p>
<h2>Traffic jams</h2>
<p>So 5m cars and 4m trucks need to use the narrow corridor of the M20 and M2 motorways through Kent to reach the Channel crossing points. That is a simple average of 11,000 trucks and almost 14,000 cars per day (although truck traffic tends to peak on certain days of the week and car traffic is highly seasonal). </p>
<p>A key aspect of the competition between the tunnel and the ferries is that there has been an increasing concentration of short-sea ferry routes through Dover with the closure of the ferry <a href="http://www.courier.co.uk/TransEuropa-ferries-suspend-services-Ramsgate/story-18779363-detail/story.html">from Ramsgate to Ostend in 2013</a> and the earlier closure of ferry and fast ferry routes <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/po-closes-ferry-route-to-boulogne-1476650.html">from Folkestone to Boulogne</a>. On the continental side of the channel this has led to a concentration into Calais and Dunkerque. Thus there are no easy alternatives if the Dover routes are disrupted.</p>
<p>Dover’s significance as a freight port should not be underestimated. In terms of volume of tonnage, it was the seventh-largest port in the UK in 2014, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/port05-traffic-indices-and-quarterly-breakdowns">handling around 27.6m tonnes</a>. This, however, underestimates the importance of the port, since loads on trucks typically have a much higher average value of goods per tonne than general cargo. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90870/original/image-20150805-22499-x0tg7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90870/original/image-20150805-22499-x0tg7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90870/original/image-20150805-22499-x0tg7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90870/original/image-20150805-22499-x0tg7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90870/original/image-20150805-22499-x0tg7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=323&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90870/original/image-20150805-22499-x0tg7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90870/original/image-20150805-22499-x0tg7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90870/original/image-20150805-22499-x0tg7.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Freight vehicle traffic increases since 1994.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eurotunnel and Dover Harbour Board</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This overview of the statistical importance of the Kent corridor with continental Europe makes it easy to see how any disruption through bad weather, industrial action, or increasingly desperate activity by migrants, has knock on effects. </p>
<p>The most visible aspect of this is <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/11775079/Operation-Stack-on-M20-What-is-it-and-how-does-it-work.html">Operation Stack</a>, which uses the M20 motorway as a giant parking area for trucks waiting to cross the Channel in an effort to control traffic. These trucks are delayed for several hours waiting to get access to the port or tunnel embarkation areas. But closing parts of the M20 for several days increases those delays and non-freight traffic for the continent is diverted to alternative routes that themselves rapidly become congested. </p>
<p>Despite the impressive volume of traffic passing through the ports, international traffic remains a relatively small proportion of total traffic seeking to use Kent’s roads. It is local traffic that suffers the most from the diversions and delays. </p>
<h2>Costs of the disruption</h2>
<p>The full economic cost of the disruption is difficult to calculate because it is so diverse. The Freight Transport Association estimates the cost of Operation Stack on the M20 to road haulage firms to be of the order of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-33688822">£700,000 a day</a>. This comes from delays to drivers, but also from the loss of perishable cargo or the failure to make just-in-time delivery slots. Most goods transported via the short-sea routes are high value or time dependent consignments. </p>
<p>When you take into account the costs of policing, the direct cost of disruption to the Channel Tunnel is even greater. Additional police costs for the first three weeks in July when the so-called migrant crisis heated up <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-33688822">have been estimated at £700,000</a>. We need to add to this the time cost to motorists, which the Department for Transport uses values of £22.74 per hour for time spent by drivers in working time and £6.04 for drivers and passengers in <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/webtag-tag-data-book-november-2014">non-working, non-commuting time</a>, thus a three hour delay for a tourist car with a typical average 2.5 occupants would cost £45 and on an average day this affects 14,000 vehicles giving a total of £634,000 a day. And this is just for traffic travelling via the tunnel or Dover. </p>
<p>Less easy to calculate are the costs of disruption to local and commuter traffic between towns in Kent, delivery and service vehicles and the wider impacts on those living on the diversionary routes. Kent businesses, especially those involved in tourism, report cancellations <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-33765956">and lower levels of business</a> as people find it more difficult to reach locations, or are put off by reports of gridlock on the roads. </p>
<p>We then need to add to this the many tourists from continental Europe that either come to Kent or stop off in Kent on their way to other destinations in the UK. Just as there has been a reduction in outward day trip traffic to Calais with Eurotounnel for example asking such travellers <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-33685469">to postpone their journeys</a>, there is likely to be a reduction in inward day trip traffic to such places as Canterbury. But the impact is not just on Kent as many of these tourists travel via the Kent corridor to the rest of the UK. </p>
<p>The full cost of all these effects will not become clear for some time as the increasing perception of the difficulty of reaching the UK, and the potential dangers of facing blockades of migrants or striking ferry workers, will take time to wear off. Many such tourists may find alternative routes on the longer sea crossings, but most will not. UK tourists will be more likely to choose alternative destinations, alternative routes or modes of travel. </p>
<p>Relieving pressure on the M20 by bringing alternative parking sites into use reduces the uncertainties, but does not remove much of the additional costs, especially to road haulage onto UK trade in general. The government is committed to spending extra resources on security and policing in Calais to address the migrant problem, but little has been said about securing the freedom of passage for traders and tourists who are bearing the real financial cost of the issue.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45671/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Vickerman owns (a very small number of) shares in Eurotunnel. He has in the past received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, INTERREG funds of the European Union, Kent Council and Eurotunnel for research on the Channel Tunnel and its impact on Kent (not related to the specific topic of the current article).</span></em></p>Why free-flowing traffic between Dover and Calais is so important.Roger Vickerman, Professor of European Economics, University of KentLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.