All ferry contracts for no-deal Brexit cancelled – and it’s cost £50,000,000

The UK will be forced to pay several companies a total £50 million after cancelling controversial contracts to provide ferry services after a no-deal Brexit.

Transport Secretary Chris Grayling will not be taking up the deals with Brittany Ferries, DFDS and Seaborne Freight after the expected March 29 date of EU withdrawal was delayed.

The leave date was first pushed back to April 12 and now the UK is scheduled to exit the EU on October 31.

The companies were meant to run extra services from ports including Plymouth, Poole and Portsmouth to ease pressure on the main Dover-Calais route during a hard Brexit.

The cancelling of the contracts suggests the Government has ruled out the possibility of a no-deal.

Mr Grayling was slammed after awarding Seaborne a £13.8m contract despite the company not having ever run a ferry service and not having any ships.

This contract was scrapped in February after an Irish company backing the deal pulled out.

The National Audit Office previously estimated the maximum cost of compensation to ferry operators if contracts were terminated would be £56.6 million.

A Whitehall source said the actual figure would be around 10% lower.