Seaborne Freight

Helen Goodman Excerpts

Monday 11th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

In another triumph of the Department’s no-deal Brexit planning, the Secretary of State’s junior Minister wrote to all Members of Parliament about the hauliers who, presumably, will use these sea routes, saying that 3,816 international permits had been awarded, but there are 526,000 HGV hauliers in this country, so fewer than 1% will be able to get a licence. Is this really going to work in the event of no deal?

[Chris Grayling]

As you will be aware, Mr Speaker, the European Commission has already said that it wants haulage to continue. It does not expect a permit-based system to be required. But in the event of a no-deal Brexit, we have bilateral agreements with a number of other EU member states that come into effect. We have put in place a system to distribute the ECMT permits precisely because we want to make sure that all bases are covered. However, we wrote to hauliers last week saying that they were being issued as a formality. Nothing that has happened so far would lead us to believe that those restrictions will be there.