Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what sectors his Department plans to prioritise for support in the event that the UK leaves the EU without a deal.

The Department is maintaining efforts to ensure businesses across the UK are ready to leave the EU on 31 October. We continue to robustly assess the potential impact of no-deal and are engaging widely with businesses across all sectors and meeting regularly with business representative organisations and trade associations. HMRC has also put into place funding for training that helps businesses to complete customs declarations and processes and has launched a trader helpline to answer border related questions

The Business Readiness Fund makes up to £15M available to support Business Representative Organisations as they help to prepare businesses for leaving the EU on 31 October. As of 1 October, BEIS has approved 69 bids from business representative organisations. Further applications are still in the process of being reviewed. Applications have spanned a wide range of sectors and are from across the UK. We continue to encourage bids until applications close on 7 October.

In addition, we have secured £1.3 million central funding which we are directing towards targeted sector-specific engagement across the UK through sector teams to complement the Business Readiness Fund and Public Information Campaign.