Brexit: Cross-Channel Transport

Earl Attlee Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Earl Attlee (Con)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that it would be foolish indeed not to test and exercise a novel logistics system? Were sufficient vehicles available to test the flow rate through choke points in the new system?

[Baroness Sugg]

I agree with my noble friend. It is essential that we continue this contingency planning. The key local stakeholders in that case, in particular Kent Police and Kent County Council—we are also working closely with the Kent Resilience Forum on this—obtained the test results they wanted and were satisfied with the outcome, with Kent County Council describing it as a really helpful exercise.