Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, how many officials in his Department have been seconded away from their normal duties to work on the UK's withdrawal from the EU; and what effect that secondment of staff has had on the effectiveness of his Department.

Departments continually review workforce plans, reprioritise and assess 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.

A total of 122 MHCLG staff were redeployed from other work on to EU Exit work between December 2018 and April 2019, the majority of whom were redeployed for a short period between 8 and 11 April in anticipation of a possible exit on 12 April.