Brexit: No-deal Ferry Contracts

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Vere of Norbiton]

I am pleased to be able to tell the noble Lord that we have reached a settlement with the ferry companies, as I pointed out earlier, and that the termination fees are £43.8 million. It is clear that we have co-operated with the ferry companies, and we are grateful to them for the amount of mitigation that they have been able to do to reduce the amount of money that we have had to pay. We have had negotiations with them. We tried to sell as many tickets as possible to reduce the cost to the taxpayer and the ferry companies have cancelled sailings. We are grateful for their co-operation and believe that this is a fair settlement of the contract.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, if it is necessary, which I hope it is not, to take out further insurance policies of this nature, can we be absolutely sure that the ferry companies that we contract with will actually have some ferries?