Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask Her Majesty's Government how much they have spent on ferry contracts that were entered into in anticipation of a possible no-deal Brexit in the past 12 months.

As part of preparations for a potential No Deal Brexit in March, the Government procured additional freight capacity to support the continued flow of Category 1 goods. When Article 50 was extended, £51.4m was paid to terminate contracts.

The Government ran a new procurement exercise to secure freight capacity as part of preparations for Brexit on 31 October, entering into contracts for the 6 months from this date. With the extension to Article 50, we have changed our requirements with operators to make sure that capacity remains available from 31 January if required. This scaling down of capacity will cost approximately £8m.