Government to pay £33m to Eurotunnel over Brexit ferry contracts row

The UK government will pay £33m to Eurotunnel in order to settle a legal dispute over controversial arrangements for extra ferry services in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel instigated court action after the Department for Transport awarded contracts to three ferry companies in December, to “ensure supplies to the state-run National Health Service (NHS) and other critical imports should Britain leave the European Union” without a withdrawal agreement, Reuters reports.

Eurotunnel claimed the deals were agreed in a “secretive” way over a six-week period in a bid to speed up no-deal planning, and that it was not given the chance to compete.

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Transport Secretary Chris Grayling also came under fire after it was revealed that one of the firms chosen by the Department for Transport, Seaborne Ferries, did not have any ships. The operator was also found to have copied and pasted the terms and conditions page on its website from a takeaway food company.

Eurotunnel wrote to Grayling in January arguing that unlike Seaborne, it was able to run a cross-Channel ferry service and has done so before, and therefore should have been approached for a contract.

Today, the Government announced it has reached a multimillion-pound settlement with the Anglo-French company, which in return has promised new investment to improve access, security and traffic flow at its UK terminal.

Grayling said: “While it is disappointing that Eurotunnel chose to take legal action on contracts in place to ensure the smooth supply of vital medicines, I am pleased that this agreement will ensure the Channel Tunnel is ready for a post-Brexit world.”

Despite such reassurances, Grayling is facing fresh calls to stand down from his role, the London Evening Standard reports. The demands come less than a year after he faced similar calls following controversial revisions to the UK’s train timetables that left millions of passengers stranded.

The Labour Party said the ferry fiasco shows Grayling is not fit for office, The Guardian reports.

Shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald said: “His conduct as a minister is one of serial failure and routine incompetence. In any other sphere of life he would have been sacked long ago. I say yet again - this trail of destruction has gone on long enough. It’s time for Chris Grayling to go.”