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Thompson said HMRC was investigating the “business case” for a new Singapore-style system, which could deal with customs and border checks in one system.
He had hired the team that delivered the Singapore project, but said the Treasury would have to stump up between £500m and £800m to get it off the ground.
“We need to be transparent with you: that is a mega project,” Thompson told the committee. “You need to be thinking about that as a project that costs somewhere between £500m and £800m.
“It would take five to seven years to implement. We have been asked to look at whether there is a business case for that because there would be a noticeable change to GDP in my opinion.
“It would make it much smoother to import and export if you only had to go to one place instead of multiple different government departments.”
Another HMRC official told MPs on Thursday that in a “crude estimate” it could require an additional 3,000 to 5,000 people by the 30 March 2019 Brexit deadline, to meet the increased custom demands posed by Brexit.
Jim Harra, HMRC’s director general of customer strategy, said the organisation would have to deal with an additional 130,000 new companies after Brexit that import and export within the EU but do not currently come into contact with British customs.
This would involve a fivefold increase in business and require five times as many staff – possible up to 5,000 workers.
“There are probably about 130,000 new businesses that will be dealing with customs for the first time and there is a big challenge in reaching them, supporting them and getting them to be able to comply with their obligations on a transitional basis as well as on an ongoing basis,” said Harra. [...]