Oral Answers to Questions

John McNally Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Mc Nally (Falkirk) (SNP)]

18. What steps he is taking to reduce potential disruption to travel in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

19. What steps he is taking to reduce potential disruption to travel in the event of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Grayling]

The hon. Lady clearly was not listening on Monday, when I indicated that we had options in contracts to provide additional capacity on longer sea routes to replace any that we might have had on the short sea routes.

[John Mc Nally]

I can assure the Secretary of State that I was absolutely listening intently on Monday. From that position over there, the Secretary of State said on Monday, in relation to Seaborne Freight, that

“we have not spent any money on this contract.”—[Official Report, 11 February 2019; Vol. 654, c. 619.]

We now know that that is not the case and that his Department spent approximately £800,000 on external consultants for Seaborne. Will he now take the opportunity to set the record straight and apologise to taxpayers for what has amounted to a monumental waste of taxpayers’ money?

[Chris Grayling]

I am afraid that, once again, SNP Members have their facts completely wrong. Interestingly, we have heard complaints from the other side that we did not do enough due diligence. Actually, as with all major Government contracts—Mr Speaker, you will recall that £90 million of contracts are going to Brittany Ferries and DFDS—we contract professional support when we let contracts of that size.