Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what assessment his Department has made of the effect on UK ports of the UK leaving the EU under the Government's worst case planning assumptions.

The Department has been liaising with ports and local partners on Brexit preparedness, for some time. In Kent, along with Highways England and other partners, the Department has been working closely to develop Operation Brock, which is intended to provide the resilience and flexibility required to deal with any disruption to cross-Channel travel from Kent ports. As well as keeping freight moving through our ports, the contingency measures of Operation Brock are designed to keep Kent’s road network moving for local people, businesses and visitors.

The Department has also engaged closely with localities outside Kent, and has recently shared revised analysis of the potential impact of a no deal Brexit on key ports with the Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) in Humber, Hampshire and Isle of Wight, Merseyside, Lancashire, Essex and North Wales. It is now for those LRFs to consider how this impacts on their traffic management contingency plans and whether any amendments are required.