Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether his Department will be responsible for reimbursing Portsmouth City Council for costs incurred from preparations at Portsmouth International Port for the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

On 30 August, as part of a £30m investment package for ports, DfT announced a targeted £5m fund for Local Resilience Forums (LRF) for traffic management improvements on roads around key maritime ports outside Kent. Hampshire and the Isle of Wight Local Resilience Forum, which includes Portsmouth City Council, is eligible for up to £1.25m from this fund in recognition of the high volume of accompanied freight traffic between Portsmouth International Port and EU ports. The LRF funding could be used for reimbursement of the council’s capital works on local roads, provided that it can demonstrate that the works were undertaken to directly mitigate the potential traffic impacts of a no-deal Brexit.

On the same day, DfT also announced a £10M Port Infrastructure Resilience and Connectivity (PIRC) fund with the intention of supporting Brexit resilience preparations at English ports. Portsmouth City Council, who own Portsmouth International Port, will be eligible to apply for PIRC funding for supporting future no-deal Brexit related mitigation efforts and any bid will be subject to a competitive assessment process against applications from other ports.