Seaborne Freight

Alan Brown Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

I share my hon. Friend’s disappointment. We are spending a lot of money on contingency planning and resilience in Kent, and I personally regard the port of Ramsgate as an important part of that. He knows that I am committed to continuing to work with Thanet District Council, and I would like to see ferries come back to Ramsgate. Whatever happens, we must make sure that we keep open opportunities for the future, in my view.

[Alan Brown (Kilmarnock and Loudoun) (SNP)]

Last month, the Secretary of State said that he had full confidence in Seaborne, and just last week he lobbied Thanet Council on its budget plans for Ramsgate. Does this not tell us everything we need to know about his judgment? His argument that Seaborne accounted for only 10% of the proposed additional services and that it did not matter if it did not deliver was nonsensical. Flouting EU procurement rules on unforeseen events by arguing that this was an emergency situation was also fundamentally flawed, given that he awarded a contract to a company with no ships. He says that he has been in negotiations with Seaborne for 12 months. How is that an emergency situation? He has now created his own emergency procurement process.

How many representations has the Secretary of State’s Department received on the procurement process, and are those representations still live, given the two contracts worth £89 million that he has awarded? Are we ever going to see the legal advice and the due diligence that was supposed to have been undertaken? Also, he has not answered the question on why this contract was not referred to a procurement assurance board. What will this missing 10% of capacity mean for Dover? What impact will it have on the port there? To keep HGV freight moving, what is his Department doing about the backlog of 9,000 ECMT permits? Given that he has now reached a stunning new level of incompetence, which must have been really hard to achieve, when will he go?

[Chris Grayling]

I am not sure that the hon. Gentleman was listening to a word I said. He asked a question about no ships. I can confirm that, as of last week, two ships had been identified and that options were in place to operate the route. This makes it even more disappointing that Arklow was not able to continue its support. He asked a question about negotiating for 12 months. That was Arklow, not my Department. He asked a question about the legal position. The legal position was signed off by officials in my Department and by the Treasury and by my accounting officer. The hon. Gentleman also asked about extra routes. As I mentioned in my remarks, we already have options for additional capacity in the North sea. Those routes are clearly longer and more expensive, but they are available to us. He asked about the ECMT permits. The current position is that the European Union has been very clear that we will continue with the current arrangements. I know of no reason why that should not happen, but we have bilateral arrangements that we can fall back on if it does not.