I deleted the email news release about the Brexit White Paper. The subject line was “A ‘new, positive and constructive’ partnership”, so I assumed at a quick glance that it was a boring corporate announcement.

Fortunately, one of the plusses (or occasionally minuses) of modern computing is that deleted doesn’t really mean deleted. Once I had recovered the email and read the White Paper, however, my first instinct was confirmed. This must be one of the thinnest statements of Government policy ever produced, and it sheds no new light at all on Theresa May’s negotiating objectives.

So when Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit Secretary, complained in the House of Commons this afternoon that David Davis’s department had delivered his copy late, he was attacking the Government’s incompetence rather than complaining about the lack of time to prepare to question the Secretary of State properly.

Many MPs had assumed that, although most of the White Paper would be a padded-out version of the Prime Minister’s Lancaster House speech, it would contain a rationed nugget of new policy, so that it wouldn’t just look like the speech rewritten as if by a student trying to defeat anti-plagiarism software.

How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Show all 8 1 /8 How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Weetabix Chief executive of Weetabix Giles Turrell has warned that the price of one of the nation’s favourite breakfast are likely to go up this year by low-single digits in percentage terms. Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Nescafé The cost of a 100g jar of Nescafé Original at Sainsbury’s has gone up 40p from £2.75 to £3.15 – a 14 per cent rise—since the Brexit vote. PA How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Freddo When contacted by The Independent this month, a Mondelez spokesperson declined to discuss specific brands but confirmed that there would be "selective" price increases across its range despite the American multi-national confectionery giant reporting profits of $548m (£450m) in its last three-month financial period. Mondelez, which bought Cadbury in 2010, said rising commodity costs combined with the slump in the value of the pound had made its products more expensive to make. Cadbury How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Mr Kipling cakes Premier Foods, the maker of Mr Kipling and Bisto gravy, said that it was considering price rises on a case-by-case basis Reuters How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Walkers Crisps Walkers, owned by US giant PepsiCo, said "the weakened value of the pound" is affecting the import cost of some of its materials. A Walkers spokesman told the Press Association that a 32g standard bag was set to increase from 50p to 55p, and the larger grab bag from 75p to 80p. Getty How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Marmite Tesco removed Marmite and other Unilever household brand from its website last October, after the manufacturer tried to raise its prices by about 10 per cent owing to sterling’s slump. Tesco and Unilever resolved their argument, but the price of Marmite has increased in UK supermarkets with the grocer reporting a 250g jar of Marmite will now cost Morrisons’ customers £2.64 - an increase of 12.5 per cent. Rex How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Toblerone Toblerone came under fire in November after it increased the space between the distinctive triangles of its bars. Mondelez International, the company which makes the product, said the change was made due to price rises in recent months. Pixabay How Brexit affected Britain's favourite foods from Weetabix to Marmite Maltesers Maltesers, billed as the “lighter way to enjoy chocolate”, have also shrunk in size. Mars, which owns the brand, has reduced its pouch weight by 15 per cent. Mars said rising costs mean it had to make the unenviable decision between increasing its prices or reducing the weight of its Malteser packs. iStockphoto

A bit of new policy would have confirmed that preparations for the Article 50 talks were well advanced, and would have been a chance to send signals to the EU negotiators. But no. There was nothing here at all.

The 12 points of May’s Brexit plan were repeated word-for-word from the Prime Minister’s speech on 17 January. Most of what was added was waffle. On the rights of EU citizens in the UK, the White Paper blames unnamed EU states for refusing to guarantee the rights of UK citizens in the rest of the EU in return – just as May did in her speech. The White Paper adds that the Government has “engaged a range of stakeholders” about it.

I’m sure that will reassure all those MPs, Labour and Conservative, agitating for an amendment to the Brexit bill next week to guarantee the rights of EU citizens even if other countries won’t guarantee our citizens’ rights.

Indeed, “stakeholders” is one of the main new features of the White Paper. The word didn’t appear at all in the Prime Minister’s speech, but is used seven times in today’s document, including this: “The Government has established a High Level Stakeholder Working Group on EU Exit, Universities, Research and Innovation.”

The White Paper also has some charts, tables and graphs, although there is a rather dramatic error in a bar chart comparing holiday and maternity entitlement in the UK and the rest of the EU, which seems to have been copied from a Liberal Democrat by-election leaflet.

MP gives Trainspotting-style speech about Brexit

In desperation, journalists have even read the annexes to the White Paper. One is about how trade disputes between the EU and the UK might be resolved once we have taken ourselves out of the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the EU.

But this turns out to be a list of possible models: Canada, Switzerland, Nafta (the North American Free Trade Agreement that President Donald Trump wants to renegotiate), Mercosur (the South American trade deal), the New Zealand-Korea Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organisation. These have all been endlessly discussed in Brexit commentary: what we need to know is which one the Government wants to copy. The White Paper does not even mention Efta, the European Free Trade Association, which has its own court and which might be the closest comparator.

This is an important question, because any trade agreement needs an enforcement mechanism. But we are no wiser about the Government’s thinking.

Then there is the annex on UK/Ireland relations, another difficult problem, from which we learn: “More than 10,000 live pigs are exported from Ireland to Northern Ireland every week”. I admit that I did not know that before I deleted and undeleted the email.

But we learn nothing about the Government’s plans for the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic except that its aim is to make it not only “frictionless” but also “seamless”.