Brexit: Cross-Channel Transport

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Smith of Basildon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of post-Brexit cross-channel transport planning exercises.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Transport (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, the Department for Transport is undertaking a comprehensive and wide-ranging programme of work to ensure that we are prepared for the UK leaving the European Union. We will continue to work closely with other departments across government and with stakeholders to ensure appropriate contingency plans are in place for post-Brexit cross-channel transport. Until an agreement is reached, the Government will continue to plan for all eventualities.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, 90% of UK trade is handled by our ports, so the Minister is right that Brexit planning is essential. But we had the farcical Manston exercise in which 89 lorry drivers pretended to be a Brexit convoy to Dover, where they take about 10,000 lorries a day; the Government have given a multimillion-pound ferry contract to a company with no ships, no staff, no premises and no port agreements; and the Road Haulage Association estimates that new documentation could take eight hours per truck. Do the Government have any further exercises like Manston planned, and how confident can the Minister be that those exercises help prepare for Brexit day? How confident is she that all these issues will be resolved by 29 March? Finally, is it not now essential that the Government rule out a no-deal Brexit?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right to point out the focus we need to put on the short straits, and that is what we are doing. As she pointed out, we carried out a live test at Manston on 7 January. Despite what noble Lords may have read in the papers, we can confirm that there were enough vehicles there to ensure the trial was successful, and it achieved its objectives. It was a useful exercise in helping us to understand the effect of potential traffic on that route and to ensure that both local traffic and freight can continue to flow. Of course, we will continue in our preparedness. Just last week, with 180 local attendees we carried out a tabletop exercise designed to explore some worst-case scenarios. If they are needed, all our arrangements for traffic management in Kent are fully functional.