No Brexit plan till February, says David Davis

David Davis - Parliament TV

The UK Government will not set out its plan for Brexit before February and may not publish a white paper until after Article 50 is triggered, Brexit Secretary David Davis has told MPs.

Speaking to the dedicated select committee on leaving the European Union, Davis said Whitehall was still conducting preparatory work ahead of the start of negotiations with the European partners.

Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to begin the exit process before the end of March.

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Davis also opened the door to a transitional deal with the EU and expressed confidence that both the terms of departure and a new trade agreement could be secured within 18 months from March.

“It won’t be next month. The policy work is still underway; there are quite a few decisions still to be made," he said.

“We’ve carried out or are in the midst of carrying out about 57, I think, sectoral analyses, each of which has implications for individual parts of 85 per cent of the economy, and some of those are still to be concluded; we have work still to be done on justice and home affairs, so there is a fair number of things still to do. So it will be as soon as we’re ready.”

The Financial Times had previously reported that Davis had told a private meeting he was “not really interested” in a transition period because it could delay Brexit.

But he refused to rule out a “bridge” period today, so long as the final Brexit situation was determined beforehand.

Mr Davis said: “Whatever the transitional arrangement is, we need to know where we’re going before we decide on the transition. If you build a bridge, you need to have both sides established before you build the bridge. So we need to know where we’re going; it seems to me perfectly possible to know what the end game will be within two years.”