EU Exit Preparations: Ferry Contracts

Debate between Alan Brown and Andy McDonald

Tuesday 5th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

Was the hon. Gentleman as surprised as I was to hear that no costs had been incurred in this? He has highlighted the £800,000 that was paid out to consultants, but there was also the cost of dredging the port. We were told by the permanent secretary that that was paid for by Seaborne, yet the contract was cancelled. Is the hon. Gentleman as surprised as I am that Seaborne bore the cost of that itself—or was it borne by someone else?

[Alan Brown]

I am actually very surprised at that. I put in a written parliamentary question asking how much the Department for Transport had paid towards the dredging of the port at Ramsgate, and the answer I was given was that it had paid nothing, so I shall be challenging that further. We need to get to the bottom of this, because we know full well that that operation was not done for nothing and that the Transport Secretary was lobbying Thanet Council to keep the port open because of his negotiations with Seaborne. There is more to run on this, and I thank the shadow Secretary of State for bringing it up.

Returning briefly to Eurotunnel, we know that the out- of-court settlement was effectively a Government cave-in. The thing about that Government cave-in is that we have learned that they are going to keep 10,000 documents secret for reasons of commercial confidentiality, which will make it much harder for us to get the bottom of this. We know that they had no confidence in their own position because they settled out of court.

We also need to understand why the Health Secretary came to the Dispatch Box yesterday to tell us that this was such an important contract as it would keep medicines coming into the UK. He said that that was why the Government had negotiated the £33 million settlement with Eurotunnel. He suggested that it was not about compensation but about vital services and improvements. I repeat that we need clarity on this. If that £33 million was related to the provision of vital services, why did Eurotunnel take the Government to court? Why was Eurotunnel not identified as a reputable provider before, when the Government were looking at Seaborne Freight? How much of that £33 million compensation for Eurotunnel has gone forever? What services are we going to see? What updates will the House be given on the progress of those vital services that the Government have procured?

The Transport Secretary has been lax on updating the House from start to finish. We had one ministerial statement at the outset, which he thought would head off the bad press about Seaborne Freight. We have subsequently had to table three urgent questions, and we are now having this emergency debate. And of course, he has sometimes not even turned up to the Dispatch Box. The fact that he is unwilling to come to the Dispatch Box, state his case clearly and leave himself open to questions from Members says everything about his confidence in his own competence.

A procurement matter that I touched on yesterday is that it looks as though Bechtel is going to sue the Government over the HS2 tendering process, so will the Secretary of State identify what other departmental risks exist in relation to procurement? What review of the procurement process has he instigated? Who is heading up the review and when will it report on this matter? It is quite clear that some sort of procurement review is absolutely vital.

I will finish by again describing the Transport Secretary’s litany of failures. We heard about the near £600 million cost of privatising the probation service following his time at the Ministry of Justice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Andy McDonald]

The hon. and learned Lady makes an important point on an issue to which I will be returning in a few minutes.

[Alan Brown]

I tried to intervene on the Transport Secretary on this point. Was the hon. Gentleman as surprised as I was that only after an out-of-court settlement with Eurotunnel had been agreed was this suddenly all about medicines? We had all the other urgent questions and medicines were never mentioned, yet we come to the Eurotunnel settlement and suddenly this is a health-led initiative. Does he share my surprise?

[Andy McDonald]

Yes, I was greatly surprised, but the hon. Gentleman has to concede that there had to be some justification for bringing the wrong Secretary of State to the Dispatch Box, and if a hook could be found to hang that on, that was as good as any. It was a nice try, but it failed totally.