PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Brexit (19 December 2018)

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, how much funding from the public purse has been allocated to his Department for financial year 2018-19 for planning for the UK leaving the EU without a deal; and how much of that funding has been spent.

Asked by:
Esther McVey (Conservative)

HM Treasury has already 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 at Autumn Budget 2017 for 2018/19. A full breakdown of how this was 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 paid out in Supplementary Estimates 18/19 later this financial year.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been allocated £29.6 million by HM Treasury for 2018-19 to support essential EU Exit preparedness. Through HMT funding and a process of internal reprioritisation we have strengthened our diplomatic network in the UK and across Europe so that it is better able to represent and promote British interests and engage with our European partners in support of a successful EU Exit. We have stepped up our No Deal planning in recent weeks, however it is not possible to identify the amount of money spent specifically on No Deal preparations as data is not stored in this way.

Answered by:
Sir Alan Duncan (Conservative)
11 January 2019