Two senior partners from Linklaters have been seconded to the government on at least £5,000 a day

The new Brexit unit is hiring top lawyers at up to £5,000 a day as ministers begin spending the half a billion pounds it is thought will be needed each year to get Britain out of the European Union.

Whitehall officials believe that at least 5,000 extra civil servants will have to be recruited to deal with Brexit, but extra lawyers and management consultants paid on a daily basis will push the costs up further. The bill could reach £5 billion over a decade.

Two senior partners from Linklaters have been seconded to the Department for Exiting the European Union along with management consultants from McKinsey. A legal expert who has worked with government said that the Linklaters lawyers would be on at least £5,000