Jeremy Corbyn has heaped pressure on Theresa May to sack her transport secretary over the failed plan to get a ferry company with no ships to provide emergency freight in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
The Labour leader put Chris Grayling squarely in the spotlight with six questions on how Seaborne Freight was handed a contract for the task, calling it “a symptom of the utter shambles of this government”.
Mr Corbyn said Mr Grayling had told MPs last month he was “confident the firm would deliver the service”, and asked: “What went wrong?”
Mrs May said the contract went to three companies, with the other two making up 90% of the capacity, with both still in place.
She said, to laughs from opposition MPs: “Due diligence was carried out on all of these contracts and, as Mr Grayling made clear earlier this week, we will continue to ensure we provide that capacity, which is important in a no-deal situation.”
Mr Corbyn concluded his remarks by asking how the prime minister could continue to say she had confidence in the transport secretary.
Mrs May defended Mr Grayling, saying he is delivering the “biggest rail investment programme since the Victorian era” and noting there were Brexit questions Mr Corbyn had avoided asking.
SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford later called on Mrs May to extend Article 50, he said: “Businesses are begging for certainty, the economy is already suffering. Prime minister you’ve come to the end of the road, rumbled by your own loose lipped senior Brexit adviser.
“Will the Prime Minister now face down the extremists in her own party and extend Article 50?”
Mrs May replied: “He can give business certainty by voting for the deal,” adding: “He complains about no deal but of course it was the SNP who wanted to leave the UK without a plan and perhaps we should remind the SNP that independence would have meant leaving the EU with no deal.”
The prime minister refused to be drawn on the reported comments of her chief UK negotiator Olly Robbins, who was overheard in a bar saying the EU was likely to allow an extension to the Brexit process.
She said that MPs should not rely on “what someone said to someone else as overheard by someone else, in a bar”.
“It is very clear the government’s position is the same” she added.