Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what estimate she has made of the additional staff required by her Department in the event that the UK leaves the EU (a) with and (b) without a deal.

The Government continues undertaking planning for all EU exit scenarios, as is prudent. The Department continues to work closely with the Department for Exiting the European Union to ensure consistency of plans across government. Members of staff across the Department provide advice and analysis on EU Exit issues as required. Given the interactions between EU exit work and the Department’s other priorities, it would not be possible to give a figure for the information requested.

The Department continually reviews workforce plans, priorities and changing needs, which includes identification and cessation of non-priority work where appropriate. We have accelerated our plans, and at the same time, the Civil Service as a whole is working to ensure that EU exit implementation is carried out to high quality without impacting public service delivery across the whole of government.

The Department publishes its workforce management information each month. These details can be found at the following link.

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/dwp-workforce-management-information#2010-to-march-2014-