Thread by @jl_owen

As the Cabinet finally makes some decisions on no deal planning beyond "technical notices" - worth pointing out how little this meeting has actually changed...

(Spoiler - not very much...)

Firstly - the money

This £2bn will make a grand total of zero difference to the UK's readiness for no deal.

Why? Because it's for the year 2019/20. So not a penny will be available to departments until the UK has left the EU.

It will be helpful as the UK continues to adapt to life after EU in '20.

We were told by officials that base no deal plans for 2019 aimed *ensuring the UK did not break international law* - so that leaves plenty of room for improvement.

But that doesn't help for March.

That's where today's reports are more informative..

@tnewtondunn said only around £500m of the £1.5bn available to departments in 2018/19 had been spent.

That £1.5bn was allocated on the basis of costed no deal plans - agreed by DExEU & HMT. That means either plans were crap...

Or only a fraction of the activity in the plans has managed to happen?

That's more likely - Govt has said as much.

So of the supposed £3.5bn worth of Brexit plans floating around in Government, covering 300+ workstreams across c.20 departments...

Only £500m has been spent.

We know there was an additional £250m given to departments in 2017/18, but that mostly went on staff.

So that's £750m of £3.75bn. With three months out from the biggest step change in relationship.

The next point is the communications to business.

Why was this done now? A message to Parliamentarians?

It might be - but it's also because these are things the Government has postponing over and over.

Whitehall has been talking about "the jagged edge" rather than the "cliff edge".

That means the series of big go or no go decisions that had to be hit before Christmas for Whitehall's plans to still work in theory.

That's big reason they pushed for extraordinary Nov EU council

And most of the big decisions were about engaging with business.

But does this announcement change anything??

Businesses who were already planning - many have already passed the point of no return, about 80% according to @CBItweets

Businesses who weren't already planning - mainly SMEs - are not going to enjoy a big document for government just before Christmas.

There is 3 months. How much does government honestly think can be achieved in three months?

They gave businesses up to six years for automatic pension enrollment, years for previous customs changes... Making Tax Digital has been delayed for years because of difficulties in reaching SMEs.

The Cabinet issuing a letter/document with three months to go is no game changer

The reality is, UK Government & UK businesses are more dependent on what happens in Brussels and European Capitals.

How ready we are for no deal will depend on how high they set the requirements and where they use discretion.

So all in all - this Cabinet meeting has changed nothing really:
- no more money, can't get rid of current cash quick enough
- not much guidance to business - too little, too late
- still dependent on concessions from Brussels