Thread by @PickardJE

While Chris Grayling defended the Seaborne Freight debacle in the Commons this afternoon, the NAO put out an interesting report showing the DfT last autumn identified “material risks” to using Seaborne given it was a new operation with no ships

The procurement process began in November when DFT assessed 9 options for how to transport vital medicines and food supplies into UK if main Dover-Calais artery became choked up due to no-deal Brexit.

One eye-catching idea was “use of military vehicles”.

DFT assumed a no-deal Brexit involving new customs checks etc would mean an 87% cut in normal freight flows.

But it hoped that by creating new freight capacity on new and existing routes it could increase that 13% of capacity to 38% - still far below the norm.

DFT approached 9 operators and invited them to submit bids by December 14.

Only 3 bidders came forward.

NAO says those bids accounted for only 11% of “normal flows” between UK & mainland vs target of 25%.

“This fell short of what the department expected to achieve.”

It was in this somewhat desperate context that DFT gave deals to all three bidders: making up a £103m package including Brittany Ferries and DFDS of Denmark.

EVEN if all went well the new service wouldn’t have been ready until late April – a month after Brexit.

NAO said DFT recognised the Seaborne plan was “novel and exceptional proposition”.

But it concluded failure to act would mean government would lose ability to secure ferry capacity to protect critical goods under a no-deal exit.

Here’s @FT story

ft.com/content/836a0b…