Reply to: UK to spend £108m on no-deal ferries

[chopper]

Oops, looks like the ferry deal may need to be extended to other operators.

Eurotunnel's disadvantage is that they already have trains.

[meridian]

Why?

the chunnel only leaves from 1 place

it seems we are looking to send ferries from new places

are the chunnel people willing to dig another tunnel and make another route?

Why?

It explains why in the letter.

[original PM]

Oops, looks like the ferry deal may need to be extended to other operators.

Why?

the chunnel only leaves from 1 place

it seems we are looking to send ferries from new places

are the chunnel people willing to dig another tunnel and make another route?

[meridian]

Oops, looks like the ferry deal may need to be extended to other operators.

[chopper]

Further updates on the comedy show that never seems to stop:

All I hear is people talking down Seaborne Freight, but it will be a success. They hold all the cards.

[darmstadt]

Further updates on the comedy show that never seems to stop:

WHAT DO WE KNOW THAT THEY KNOW:
Here’s a quick summary of how things stand today with Seaborne Freight and the Department for Transport (setting aside the silly stuff like Terms and Conditions lifted from a pizza company).

Despite “careful vetting” and due diligence by a team of officials from the DfT and independent outside experts, the following facts about Seaborne Freight are now plain and indisputable:

1) They have no money.

In normal procurement circumstances, Seaborne Freight would normally be required to have a turnover of £15m or more for £5m per annum of work and a strong credit rating.
If you do a credit check on Seaborne Freight, the recommended “contract limit” is £1,000 maximum.

2) They have no ships:

Checked yesterday afternoon via a confidential shipping source.
Every ship Seaborne Freight has ever declared an interest in is now not available to them or beyond their reach for at least a year.
They have no current offers out to lease a ship.
All the ro-ro ferries that we know of which can get into the port of Ramsgate are accounted for and none of them are available to Seaborne Freight.

3) They have no track record, no real premises, no employees, one telephone line and no working website or sailing schedule.

4) They have no ports.

As we speak, Seaborne Freight do not have even an “agreement” in principle” to use either the Port of Ramsgate or the Port of Ostend.
Thanet District Council is on record yesterday saying only “discussions continue”. While the Director of the Port of Ostend told C4 that no agreement had been reached – and no agreement could be reached until Seaborne Freight proved they had £30 million to cover 6 months operating costs.

5) Two of Seaborne Freight’s Directors do not pass normal due diligence requirements.

As Channel 4 showed yesterday, Chief Exec, Ben Sharp’s previous company, Mercator, was wound up with in dubious circumstances, allegedly with hundred of thousands of unpaid debts.

While, Chair, Roy Dudley has a very unsavoury past exporting live animals. This is particularly toxic in Ramsgate/Thanet, as the local taxpayer has had to pay out £5-6 million in compensation to live animal exporters and is being forced to continue the trade against the wishes of the council, the local MP and virtually all local residents.

The idea that Chris Grayling might be using public money to promote this trade is politically lethal. According to Tory MP Roger Gale, he receives more letters from constituents about animal welfare than everything else put together.

6) Seaborne Freight cannot yet put to sea

The various safety regulations and maritime requirements covering the North Sea and English Channel are long, complicated and onerous.
While there is no suggestion that Seaborne Freight would not be able to get through such regimes, at the point of issue of the contract, they hadn’t and couldn’t.

To do so, at the very minimum, Seaborne Freight would need a shore-office in the Port of Ramsgate and some named ships that had completed a fire and evacuation drill.

So at the time the contract was issued, Seaborne Freight was not safe to go to sea and Chris Grayling and the DfT could not know for certain that they would ever be safe to go to sea.

Chris Grayling still insists Seaborne Freight weren’t just “plucked from thin air”. I suspect “plucked” may be the word of the day for both of them.

[darmstadt]

I personally would be a bit concerned about getting on one of their (non-existent) ferries mainly due to:

The DfT said it was 'aware of the career history of the leadership team at Seaborne Freight and due diligence confirmed there were no significant issues'.

followed by:

Ben Sharp, chief executive - a former submariner who served 10 years in the Royal Navy before setting up a series of shipping firms.

[chopper]

More government money going to overseas suppliers due to Brexit....

Ahh you see, not a problem. For Brexiters are massive fans of WTO rules, and there are specific WTO rules requiring international tender of government contracts.

[meridian]

No - but really I was firstly responding to the article and then asking a wider question of why the need exists.

Although looking on the internet not sure exactly how much ferry you get for 13 million - but the answer would seem to be 'not a big one'

They’ll lease one (or a couple). If there are any available that can use Ramsgate. And assuming that there are, supply and demand would dictate that the ferry owners know that a. the U.K. is in a bit of a hurry, and b. there is plenty of government dosh backing it. The price may go up a tad.

Side note, the dredging of Ramsgate started today. By a Dutch company. More government money going to overseas suppliers due to Brexit....

[original PM]

Let me know if I've taken either of these quotes out of context.

No - but really I was firstly responding to the article and then asking a wider question of why the need exists.

Although looking on the internet not sure exactly how much ferry you get for 13 million - but the answer would seem to be 'not a big one'

[WTFH]

We need more ferries

Anyway what confuses me is why we need more ferries

Let me know if I've taken either of these quotes out of context.

[original PM]

Indeed only 13 million going to the new company though

Ferry company awarded £13.8m government contract despite having no ships 'copied and pasted parts of website from takeaway outlet'

Ferry company awarded GBP13.8m government contract despite having no ships 'copied and pasted parts of website from takeaway outlet' | The Independent

[darmstadt]

I imagine that some of the more established ferry companies were not that interested in this due to the disruption to their business plans....

I imagine you didn't read any of the news reports:

Seaborne, together with Brittany Ferries and Danish shipping firm DFDS, were awarded a total of £102.9m over the last few months to provide additional ferries between the UK and several European cities, in a bid to ease congestion at Dover in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

[chopper]

Anyway what confuses me is why we need more ferries

It's not about physical capacity on the ferry, it's about capacity of the ports to process the trucks coming off the ferries. So we need ferries going through different ports, to alleviate that capacity issue. Boats cannot be diverted from the Dover to Calais route, because a RoRo boat designed specifically for that route isn't going to work in a non-RoRo port, or a very much smaller port - like Ramsgate.

In a No Deal Brexit scenario, *all* food products will need to be inspected, whether of animal or plant origin. Not some, not a random sample, but *all* - full sanitary and phytosanitary controls, full veterinary inspections, full paper trail. They are the EU's rules, and WTO Rules say they cannot apply them differently to the UK as a third country compared to any other third country.

Similarly, and food products coming into the UK will need to be inspected, again on the basis of WTO rules that we either inspect all of it or none of it from anywhere in the world. And if we aren't inspecting beef coming from Argentina, or chickens from America, then UK made food will simply be unacceptable to the EU as it will not meet their standards as we'll be unable to show that all elements of said food complies with EU rules.

Are we not better being in the EU, defining those food rules, rather than on the outside and having to comply with them anyway (and that applies even in a No Deal scenario).

[meridian]

We need more ferries - so the argument that the company has no ferries is pointless - whichever company got the contract would need to buy more ferries - because you know the whole point is we need more ferries.

Does seem strange to award it to someone with no experience - however I am pretty sure that that firm will get in lots of people with experience of doing this sort of thing....

I imagine that some of the more established ferry companies were not that interested in this due to the disruption to their business plans....

That’s it, very positive. No dodgy goings-on here at all, no siree...

Other companies were not interested because they know that Ramsgate is useless as a port until its dredged, and even then there are only a handful of ferry types that can use it.

Oddly, your second paragraph is wrong but unintentionally so - it appears that the company directors do have some experience running shipping companies, but also have a habit of them going bust leaving plenty of debts.

Anyway what confuses me is why we need more ferries - is this because the assumption is that it will take longer to offload in Calais (or whichever European port they end up in) and so rather than having the lorries stacked on the M20(?) they will be stacked in boats in Calais harbour?

They will take longer to offload both in Calais and in Dover.