Brexit at 10: Policy making

Almost all of Defra’s business was affected by Brexit. We had three major pieces of legislation to put in place on agriculture, fisheries and the environment for a department that had been an EU ‘rule-taker’ and did little primary legislation of its own. There had not been an Environment Act since 1995, or an Agriculture or Fisheries Act since we joined. 

The scale of the task

There were hundreds of statutory instruments (SIs, or secondary legislation) to draft and agree to turn EU rules into UK law. Seven major IT systems to develop with associated rules and guidance. Tens of trade agreements to replace and a major trade and cooperation agreement with the EU itself to conclude – as well as the need to create a new regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

This picture was not as extensive in every government department, but many had large programmes of policy and delivery work to complete. Much of this change had to be in place by the original planned leaving date of 29 March 2019; various extensions and a transition date led to a final effective exit date of 31 December 2020.

How Brexit changed policy making

The absolute clarity of the task and sharpness of the deadlines led to changes in the process and culture of policy making. Some of the best examples of the changes we brought about are set out below.

First, the volume of SIs that needed to be developed, drafted, cleared and laid was so great that the usual process of multiple submissions, meetings, and generous deadlines would have left the UK with huge and dangerous gaps in the rules on exit date. So timelines were conflated. Ministers would come into a ‘war room’ with the policy and legal advisers needed there in person or on phone lines, relevant documents plastered the walls, all questions would be asked and answered and drafts cleared in the meeting with a note taker to create the audit trail. Externals signed NDAs to operate in parallel looking at and commenting on SIs in the building so these views could be relayed to the room.

Second, in another change to the usual sequential approach that the civil service takes, we introduced dynamic modelling into ministerial meetings. That meant, for example, that the model for farming schemes could be adjusted live in response to comments and questions rather than taken away for new modelling to be done and a new meeting arranged.

Third, standing meetings of stakeholders were used on a regular cycle – a weekly meeting of the major farming and food organisations for example – to enable timely two-way dialogue. In Covid this continued and additionally a daily call with organisations across the whole food supply chain from farming, through manufacturing, retail and hospitality with policy asks raised and often fixed within days including by other government departments brought into the call.

Fourth, policy and delivery teams operated seamlessly. In fisheries the policy team and Marine Management Organisation were able to design and implement a grant support scheme within 11 days. The failure to bridge the split between policy and delivery has been a long-term complaint from ministers about the civil service: Brexit showed how that gap could be eliminated.

Breaking out of departmental siloes

Lastly, although we talk of ‘Whitehall’, in reality people work for their department. But to cope with Brexit, government departments worked together to use limited people resource well. Defra received help from DfE and MoD offering skilled staff on loan within weeks of an ask.

Deep policy experts became critical points of failure, but we learned what to put around them to support them doing the critical thinking, it did show up some gaps and lack of depth.

Controversial as this sounds, I believe we used consultants well. When you do something challenging as a one-off that is a wise time to use help, it bolstered our capabilities and in Covid we had greater analytical skills and ways to present data because of the transferred learning from our Brexit consultancy spend.

These are a few examples of different ways of working that emerged. There were also agile ways of working across government co-ordinated by the Cabinet Office with often daily meetings resolving issues of readiness for different scenarios including ‘no deal’, strengthening senior policy advisers ability to speak truth to power in their departments. Meetings with ministers and officials operating together were some of the most effective.

Not all good lessons were learned

Many of these learning continued into Covid. But to my deep frustration it proved very hard to mainstream the best of these examples into working outside of a crisis. I believe that where clarity of objective and deadline exists and owned by prime minister, through secretaries of state and permanent secretaries, the best of these behaviours can still be replicated.