Transport secretary refusing to answer questions about handing no-deal Brexit contract to ferry firm with no ships, say MPs

Chris Grayling also declines to explicitly reject allegations that he acted illegally - because there was no open tender

Chris Grayling has refused to explain why he used emergency powers to award no-deal Brexit contracts to ferry companies, including one with no ships, MPs have protested.

The transport secretary has been strongly criticised for an “extraordinary” failure to answer questions about the deals, which will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds.

Mr Grayling also declined to explicitly reject allegations that he acted illegally, because there was no open tender for the contracts – merely saying: “I note the detailed points advanced.”

Infamously, they include a £13.8m contract to Seaborne Freight, a British “start-up” company” which has never operated a ferry service and has no ships.

Lilian Greenwood, the chairwoman of the Commons transport committee – which sent Mr Grayling 22 detailed questions – said he had refused to say why he had chosen to “bypass the normal procurement process”.

“It seems extraordinary to me that the government’s response fails to provide any additional insight into why the department used emergency powers in the award of the contracts,” she said.

Ms Greenwood said her committee had been told Mr Grayling had “acted illegally in securing these contracts without a full procurement process,” adding: “This was an opportunity for the secretary of state to put the record straight.”

The contracts were announced just after Christmas, to help ease congestion at Dover if the UK crashes out of the EU without a deal, by providing lorry capacity on different routes.

Seaborne says it hopes to operate freight ferries from Ramsgate from late March, beginning with two ships and increasing to four by the end of the summer.

Meanwhile, the department for transport is facing accusations, including from a university reader in economic law, that the contracts break “the core rules of EU law and policy”.

Eurotunnel has also protested against the “distortionary and anti-competitive effects” of a breach of “competition and state aid law”.

Among questions Mr Grayling did not answer directly were:

* How the companies were chosen – and how many others were approached, or made bids?

* What performance measures are included in the contracts?

* How many services the companies are required to run?

* Whether the firms will still receive a payment if their ships “are not required or cannot be run”.

In a letter, Mr Grayling defended the deals as a “responsible measure to secure capacity in the public interest in conditions of extreme urgency” – but without saying they were legal.

On the use of emergency powers, he wrote: “The lead times required for acquisition of vessels, planning of fleets, marketing of routes, and necessary works at ports on each end of the routes was limited.”

Mr Grayling has previously admitted the extra ferries will only deliver “around 8 per cent of normal flows across the Dover Straights”, which will be “not be sufficient to mitigate the full level of disruption possible”