Question to the Department for International Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for International Trade, (a) how many staff have been appointed to prepare and (b) what the cost to the public purse has been of preparing his Department for the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

The Department of International Trade was created as a result of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. Individual roles are not classified according to particular EU Exit scenarios, including leaving without a deal.

The Department for International Trade integrates scenario planning for EU exit into its overall programmes of work. ‘No deal’ planning is not undertaken by a distinct team and it is therefore not possible to separately identify the spend associated with the UK leaving the EU without a deal.

HM Treasury has allocated over £4.2 billion of additional funding to departments and the devolved administrations for EU exit preparations so far. This includes the £1.5 billion of additional funding HM Treasury announced in the Autumn Budget for 2018/19. A full breakdown of how this has been allocated to departments 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/). This money will be reflected in the January Supplementary Estimates.