Britian’s ports will only face a few weeks of disruption post-Brexit and will be able to meet freight demand, according to Cabinet Office minister Michael Gove.
He told the Brexit Select Committee that after “an initial few days and weeks of potential disruption, things will resolve themselves into a new normal relatively early in the new year”.
Mr Gove’s comments came after several ports were thrown into chaos in recent weeks as a Brexit stockpiling and Covid-induced supply chain issues led to significant congestion and delays, particularly at Felixstowe and Southampton.
In September, the minister warned that a “reasonable worst case scenario” would result in two days of 7,000 truck-long queues in Kent at the beginning of January.
On Thursday, Mr Gove said the Government was “a little bit more optimistic than we were two or three months ago about the likelihood of avoiding the reasonable worst-case scenario”.
Despite reports of high volumes of traffic, ports and hauliers insist that ports are coping with the recent rise in activity.
A spokesman for the Port of Dover said the terminal was “operating as normal with traffic still flowing through, the backlog is simply [due to] an increase in freight using the Short Straits route”.
