Grayling’s contract to ferry firms challenged in court
TRANSPORT SECRETARY Chris Grayling’s decision to award contracts to three ferry companies, including one with no ships, under no-deal Brexit plans, is being challenged at the High Court.
Eurotunnel, which operates the Channel Tunnel, says the contracts totalling £108m were awarded through a “secretive and flawed procurement process”.
But the Department for Transport (DfT) argues that the “extreme urgency” of preparations for Britain’s departure from the EU on March 29 justified the process.
At a hearing in London yesterday, Eurotunnel’s barrister Daniel Beard QC said the procurement process for “additional capacity for transport of goods across the English Channel” had been “undertaken without any public notice being issued”.
Mr Grayling’s decision to award Seaborne Freight a contract worth £13.8m to run services between Ramsgate and Ostend had attracted widespread criticism. The DfT said it had decided to terminate the contract after Irish company Arklow Shipping, which had backed Seaborne Freight, stepped away from the deal.
In the Commons yesterday, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald said: “What began as a debacle has now descended into a Whitehall farce. This Minister is rewriting the textbook for ministerial incompetence in office.”
He said Mr Grayling chose to ignore warnings from MPs and industry, also claiming the Department for Transport “took shortcuts” in the procurement process with Seaborne Freight.
Mr Grayling defended his department’s no-deal Brexit planning, adding the Seaborne Freight contract was “assured jointly” by DfT and Treasury officials.
Tory backbenchers queued up to defend the under-fire Transport Secretary in the Commons, with Robert Goodwill (Scarborough and Whitby) telling MPs any suggested scandal was “nonsense”.