Recommendation 13

Government spent £4.4 billion on preparations for EU Exit between the referendum and January 2020.34 The Treasury admitted that it had not itself asked departments to provide information on their expenditure on EU Exit which it could consolidate to get an overall picture of spending for any period prior to 2019–20. In 2019–20 it had asked departments to publish information on EU Exit spending in their 2019–20 Annual Reports, but these have been delayed due to Covid-19 and the Treasury has identified inconsistencies in what has been presented so far. The Treasury is now tracking information in-year for 2020–21.35 However, the Treasury is still consolidating departments’ expenditure for the first half of 2020–21 and information on devolved administrations’ spending on EU Exit will not be available until spring 2021 in the supplementary estimates.36