13:39

Despite extensive preparations at Dover, the port’s chief executive said it still expects to see a drop in trade worth £1bn a week should Britain leave the EU without a deal. Addressing a ConservativeHome/Port of Dover fringe event at the conference, the transport minister George Freeman confirmed the government was assuming that disruption would roughly halve the traffic on Britain’s main trading link for three months; the drop would range from 40% to 60%.

Doug Bannister, the chief executive of Port of Dover, said the assumed drop in traffic would cut £1bn in trade every week. He said:

That’s how critical it is. If there’s a no-deal Brexit, it’s not going to be OK. But people are doing all they can to ensure Britain keeps trading.

Freeman said he hoped goodwill would prevail should a deal not be agreed by 31 October. Asked what preparations the government was making for “malign interventions”, such as a potential blockade by French fishermen, Freeman said he had seen cabinet papers showing “the Ministry of Defence are actively looking at it”, raising the potential for alarming escalation.

The Freight Transport Association said its preparations meant it did not expect “wholesale meltdown” but people could expect to see less fresh produce. James Hookham, the deputy chief executive of the FTA, said: “There will be changes to what people can expect to see in the shops undoubtedly.”

He said the FTA was holding 140 training sessions in the next few weeks to educate hauliers about the potential paperwork needed. But he said questions still remained unanswered, even in an intricate flowchart issued by the Department for Transport to explain customs and border processes. He said:

The biggest unknown in our book is what the French and EU will demand in terms of British goods imported into the EU.

With delays of up to five days forecast for hauliers doing return border crossings, Hookham said he had advised hauliers to take out additional insurance for cargo, especially perishable goods.

He also said the full impact of a no-deal Brexit on Dover, Calais and Kent would probably not be seen until at least Monday 4 November, due to a long weekend in much of Europe, starting with a public holiday on 1 November (a celebration unrelated to Britain’s departure from the EU).