Brexit: No-deal Ferry Contracts Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Forsyth of Drumlean
Main Page: Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Forsyth of Drumlean's debates with the Department for Transport
(5 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberI would like to focus on the first of those questions: what exactly was the benefit to the taxpayer? The benefit was that the taxpayer had an insurance policy. Like many organisations, the Government are able to take out insurance policies, and these contracts were precisely that. The benefit to the taxpayer is that the Government were able to ensure the continued movement of absolutely critical goods—what we call “class 1 goods”—into this country in the event of no deal. I am fairly sure that the noble Lord would have been the first to criticise the Government had these goods not got through.
Following my noble friend’s analogy, can she explain why we have given up the insurance policy before we have the certainty of knowing that we will not have no deal? Can she also tell us what the total cost to the taxpayer has been of our failure to leave on 29 March?
The noble Lord is right that this particular insurance policy falls away because these were six-month contracts, and now that we have the extension to 31 October the contracts are obviously not needed. These contracts are very visible, but they are actually an extremely small proportion of our no-deal planning. A total of £4 billion has been put in place as an insurance package to make sure that, in the event of no deal, which remains the legal default, we will be able to protect our citizens.