Question to the HM Treasury:

To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what funds his Department has allocated to no deal preparation and how much of that funding has been spent in (a) the last two years and (b) in the current financial year.

The Government’s preference is to leave the EU with a deal. However, the Prime Minister has said that the UK will be leaving on 31 October – whatever the circumstances.

On 1 August 2019, the Treasury announced £2.1 billion specifically to prepare for leaving the EU without a deal. £1.1 billion of this is an immediate cash boost to prepare critical areas for EU exit on 31 October, with a further £1 billion to enhance operational preparedness this financial year, if needed.

Prior to this, the Government had already allocated £4.2 billion to prepare for a range of EU exit scenarios. Within this, work on no-deal exit preparations cannot be readily separated from other EU exit work, given the significant overlap in plans in many cases.