Grayling urged to quit as spending on Brexit ferry deal consultants revealed

Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, is facing calls to resign after auditors found his department spent £800,000 of public money on consultants assessing the bid of a company with no ships that was temporarily awarded a Brexit-related ferry contract. The shadow transport secretary, Andy McDonald, said his opposite number had been shown to be “off the Richter scale of incompetence” after the demise of plans involving the startup Seaborne Freight. A report by Whitehall’s spending watchdog found the Department for Transport (DfT) “spent approximately £800,000 on its external consultants Slaughter and May, Deloitte and Mott MacDonald”.