Labour secured an Urgent Question on the failed contract signed by the Transport Secretary with a ferry company who had no ferries.
During his statement, the Transport Secretary said that not one penny had been spent by his department in this terrible deal, which has now been cancelled. However, civil servants and lawyers aren’t free so it must have cost us taxpayers money.
I pressed the Minister as to how many civil servants and lawyers had worked on this contract and what cost it had to the taxpayer. As no answer was forthcoming I have tabled a series of Written Questions to the Secretary of State and will keep pushing for a response.
We cannot allow a government to mismanage our public finances. It was clear from the start that signing a contract with a company with no ferries, a copied and pasted contract from a takeaway and a business owner who owed HMRC tax that this was never going to work. Yet the Secretary of State ploughed ahead.
