THE PRICE OF BREXIT - £1.8 BILLION SO FAR

The Institute for Government have produced a report: The Cost of Brexit (HERE) setting out the spending by six departments on leaving the EU. The costs cover spending in 2017/18, projected spending for 2018/19 and funds committed so far for spending after Brexit. This latter item is at the moment only a small part of the overall figures because as yet nobody knows what we need.

In terms of the civil service the report says in June 2016 the service was 20% smaller than it had been in 2010 when the coalition government came in, but Brexit has "largely reversed" these cuts with an extra 9,200 civil servants being recruited or needed in the next year.

The six departments have spending totals for last year, this year and as I said above, a relatively small amount of money for post brexit spending as follows:

HOME OFFICE £249.5m
DEXEU £262.3m
DIT £175.5m
DEFRA £361m
HMRC £622
BEIS £129.2m

This adds up to just short of £1.8 billion. And this is not the end because the report makes clear:

"Government spend on big technology and infrastructure programmes has been relatively small so far, but that is because many are still in the policy design stage and dependent on the outcome of the negotiations".

"This analysis only covers the six departments referenced. For staff numbers, it focuses on core departments, and does not attempt to cover the impact of Brexit on arm’s length bodies"

"If the UK fails to negotiate the access to EU regulators that the Prime Minister wants, the costs are likely to grow – new arm’s-length bodies and new border functions will need to be operational. If it successfully negotiates continued participation in agencies and systems, the impact on Whitehall budgets could be less significant".

"The Treasury has put aside a further £1.5bn for 2019/20. That could prove to be a fairly comprehensive slush fund, or just the beginning".

The report says if we can negotiate access to EU regulators (The Medicines Agency, EUROPOL, etc) the impact on Whitehall budgets could be less significant - but it omits to point out we will probably have to pay for the privilege anyway.

It would come as no surprise to me to learn that after a few years the £8 billion or so we were paying into the EU has been entirely swallowed up by the costs of providing the same services for ourselves. In other words there are no savings anyway and we will have taken a big hit on our economy in order to save nothing. What a shambles it is all turning out to be.