No-Deal Brexit: Cross-channel Freight

Jo Stevens Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Chris Grayling]

That is an important point. We have paid a reduced cancellation charge, as set out in the original contracts in the case that we did not need the ferries as a result of a change in circumstance. The change in circumstance, of course, is that the potential no-deal date has moved by seven months. Nobody seriously expects that we would be paying to have ships either sailing empty or moored at the quayside for that time, but the companies incur costs—by leasing extra ships and taking extra staff— that have to be met. At the start, we negotiated a cancellation level of payments, meaning that we did not have to pay the full amount in the contract and mitigated the cost to the taxpayer of the insurance policy that we took out.

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

The private sector has no faith in the Department for Transport’s ability to undertake procurement properly; confidence has been lost. Is the Secretary of State concerned that his own incompetence will reduce future private sector investment in the transport sector?

[Chris Grayling]

I do not know what the hon. Lady is talking about because she is not being specific. She says that the private sector has lost confidence in the Department’s procurement, but that tends only to be the case if people have not won a contract.