Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what is their assessment of the impact the Port of Felixstowe’s IT problems are having on small and medium-sized enterprises.

Operations at the ports of Felixstowe and at Southampton Container Terminal are matters for the operators themselves in consultation with customers and port users, including SMEs. I understand that the situation at Felixstowe has now improved following difficulties with the 'nGen' system, and that congestion recently affecting Southampton was expected to be transient.

UK container port capacity overall is easily sufficient to meet demand in the pre-Christmas period, and there is also scope for further consented expansion to meet future growth in global trade including the largest vessels currently in world fleets.