TORY Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is facing an inquisition into his department's no-deal Brexit planning that forced the Government to pay £33 million to Eurotunnel for "absolutely nothing".
Grayling was urged to resign over the fiasco after it emerged on Friday that ministers had agreed to pay the Channel Tunnel operator the huge sum in order to avoid a High Court showdown.
Eurotunnel had launched legal action over the awarding of £108 million in contracts to three ferry firms, including one which had no ships, for services in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
READ MORE: May urged to sack ‘failing Grayling’ over £33m ferry ‘debacle’
Meg Hillier, chairwoman of the Commons Public Accounts Committee, said MPs will be scrutinising the Department for Transport's handling of the affair when its permanent secretary appears before them next week.
"This was an extraordinary procurement which is now unravelling at the taxpayers' expense," she told The Times.
Eurotunnel had previously accused the DfT of awarding the contracts through a "secretive and flawed procurement process".
The decision to award Seaborne Freight a deal worth £13.8 million sparked widespread concern as the start up firm has not previously run a ferry service.
Conservative MP Huw Merriman, who sits on the Transport Select Committee, said Grayling will have to explain "exactly what's happened, what he's going to do to remedy it and what he thinks is his position as a result of that".
He told Channel 4 News: "What we are touching on here is something that does seem to have occurred under his executive position as secretary of state, which is why he will need to explain exactly why the decision has been made to pay such a high amount out."
Merriman, who also criticised Eurotunnel for pursuing the action, said it was "absolutely outrageous that a company has managed to get £33 million out of a £108 million tender contract, effectively make 33% profit, by doing absolutely nothing".
Labour MP Rachel Reeves, chair of the Commons Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee, said it was a sign of the Prime Minister's "weakness" that she had not removed him from the Cabinet.
"Probably across the whole country, Chris Grayling is known as Failing Grayling," she told BBC Radio 4's Today Programme.
"There is no reason whatsoever that this man should still be in the Cabinet, making key decisions still on transport policy.
"He should be sacked by the Prime Minister, and it is a sign of her weakness that she's not able to do that."
Former minister Anna Soubry, who recently quit the Tories to join The Independent Group (TIG) of MPs, was scathing about Grayling's record.
Soubry told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "If you look at the evidence, he should have gone a long time ago.
"It's a litany of disaster. That is his record and that is the evidence."
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