Cost of EU Exit preparations surpass £4bn

The National Audit Office has revealed that government departments have spent at least £4.4 billion preparing for the UK’s exit from the EU.

Since June 2016, departments have undertaken work to prepare for EU Exit, planning for both a ‘deal’ and ‘no deal’ scenario. Of the money spent up until 31 January 2020, the spending watchdog found that £1.9 billion was spent on staffing costs; £288 million on expertise and external advice; and £1.5 billion on activities such as building new systems and infrastructure.

Departments reported spending £1 billion less up to 31 January 2020 than their allocation for the 2019-20 financial year, but conceded that they may spend additional amounts in February and March on EU Exit-related activities. The Treasury made £2 billion of additional funding available to departments in 2019-20 specifically for no deal preparations.

Although the NAO stressed in its report that it was not making a judgement on whether the spending represented value for money, the Liberal Democrats have labelled the findings as proving that ‘billions of pounds have been thrown away in a bid to paper over the Tories' Brexit mess’.

It also reported that the Home Office, HM Revenue and Customs and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs accounted for more than half of the £4.4 billion spent on Brexit preparations.

Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “In preparing for EU Exit, government departments planned for multiple potential outcomes, with shifting timetables and uncertainty. This report provides, for the first time, a clear picture of how much government has spent and what that money has been spent on. Producing this report has highlighted limitations in how government monitored spending on EU Exit specifically, and cross-government programmes more generally. Our previous work has recommended that government continues to improve the way it plans and allocates money, linking spending to objectives.”