

HMT briefing - Operation Yellowhammer - 04 September 2018

Operation Yellowhammer: no deal contingency planning

Summary of issue

•This meeting will consider progress on the Government's plans for mitigating the immediate impacts of a No Deal Brexit.

•The Civil Contingencies Secretariat held a two-day workshop last week to review departments' plans, assumptions, interdependencies and next steps.

HMT objectives

1.Emphasise the importance of building XWH [cross Whitehall] communications architecture that can help maintain confidence in the event of contingency plans being triggered - particularly important for financial services.

2.Explain that departments should be raising Yellowhammer costs through the normal channels - through their spending teams for in-year pressures, and in their bids for 19/20 Brexit allocations for spending that year. Their first call should be internal prioritisation.

3.Reaffirm the need for consistent planning assumptions across plans […] aviation and rail access to the EU.

4.Remind departments of the need to consider the financial […] commercial firms that play a role in their contingency plans.