UNITED KINGDOM
Specialist Agencies in the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) have been “raided” for hundreds of staff to work on the country’s departure from the European Union (Brexit).
Secretary for the Environment, Michael Gove admitted this in a letter to MPs who have voiced concerns over DEFRA Agencies’ ability to continue with their statutory duties.
Mr Gove said that “over 400” of the 2,000 Brexit-related roles that the Department had recruited involved loans or secondments of staff from other parts of the Department’s empire.
Mr Gove’s letter, published by Parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee, said that of the 400-plus staff brought into the central Department to work on Brexit-related roles, around 50 had come from environmental protection adviser, Natural England.
Mr Gove, a leading supporter of Brexit, said the majority of the remaining 350 staff had come from the Environment Agency, the Rural Payments Agency and the Animal and Plant Health Agency.
Chair of the Committee, Mary Creagh said it was disappointing that DFERA had raided staff at Natural England at a time when the watchdog’s own figures showed a fall in the proportion of Sites of Special Scientific Interest assessed to be in a “favourable” condition.
The revelations came as a former head of the Public Service urged Prime Minister, Theresa May to call a second Brexit referendum.
Lord Kerslake (pictured) said voters should be offered a two-choice referendum, which included the option to remain in the EU.
“I’ve changed my view and now back a second referendum,” Lord Kerslake said.
“A combination of poor negotiations and poor choices have left us in an unenviable place, and that’s why we’ve got to reopen this question, even at this late stage.”
He said no-one could have imagined the public would be facing the “stark choice between a poor deal or the catastrophe of no deal”.
Lord Kerslake said a no-deal Brexit was “not tenable” because it would wreak havoc on the economy and because the Public Service was unable to prepare for such a radical change in policy at short notice.
London, 10 November 2018
