Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, if he will make an estimate of the (a) cost to the public purse and (b) money spend on infrastructure required to prepare for the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

At Autumn Budget 2017, HM Treasury committed £3 billion to help Departments and Devolved Administrations make necessary preparations for leaving the EU in 2018/19 and 2019/20. This was subsequently increased by £0.5bn in the 2018 Budget, meaning the Government has invested over £4bn helping Departments and the Devolved Administrations prepare for EU Exit scenarios since 2016, including ‘no-deal’. This breaks down as:

• £412m of additional funding over the spending review period for the Department for Exiting the European Union, Department for International Trade and the Foreign & Commonwealth Office at Autumn Statement 2016.

• £286m of additional funding for 2017/18. A full breakdown of which can be found in Supplementary Estimates 2017/18:

(https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/679738/PU2137_Supplementary_estimates_web.pdf)

• Over £1.5bn of additional funding for 2018/19. A full breakdown of which can be found in the Chief Secretary’s Written Ministerial Statement, HCWS540, laid on the 13th March:

(https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2018-03-13/HCWS540/)

• Over £2bn of additional funding for 2019/20. A full breakdown of which can be found in the Chief Secretary’s Written Ministerial Statement, HCWS1205, laid on the 18th December:

(https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-statement/Commons/2018-12-18/HCWS1205/)

Of the £1.5bn funding for 2018/19, Defra was allocated £310m with a further £10m being repurposed from existing budgets. The details of this allocation were not included in the 2018/19 Main Estimate but will be confirmed in the Supplementary Estimates, which is normally published by February each year.

Of the £2bn funding for 2019/20, Defra was allocated £410m. This funding will support ongoing preparations in all scenarios with a further process expected to draw upon additional funds in 2019/20 to manage emerging no deal risks if and when they materialise.