Later today the Public Accounts Committee will grill the Department for Transport over its handling of the situation, which included entering into a contract with Seaborne Freight which owned no ferries and had no binding agreement to use specified ports.

Committee chair Meg Hillier says: “This was an extraordinary procurement which is now unravelling at the taxpayer’s expense.”

On Friday former Treasury official Lord Macpherson tweeted that the £33M payout to Eurotunnel was the “latest example of systemic abuse of the taxpayer” by the Department for Transport.

Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary Andy McDonald said that Chris Grayling has cost the economy dear. He also claimed that the collapse of the Virgin Trains East Coast franchise cost taxpayers £2Bn and that delays with bringing forward legislation banning drones around airports had cost the UK up to £70M following chaos at Gatwick last Christmas.

“Theresa May must stop putting her own interests ahead of the country and sack him before he inflicts further damage,” Andy McDonald said.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable commented: “In any normal world Chris Grayling would have been fired long ago. It is incomprehensible that he is still in his role after this mess.”

Eurotunnel said in a statement that the out of court agreement with the Secretary of State for Transport, “will ensure that the Channel Tunnel remains the preferred route for vital goods to travel between the EU and the UK” and will enable the development of infrastructure, security and border measures “that will guarantee the flow of vehicles carrying urgent and vital goods and that will keep supply chains moving”.

(Photograph: DfT)