No Article 50 before Brexit ministry fully staffed: UK minister

[LONDON] Britain will not trigger article 50, the formal step that will kick off negotiations on the terms of its exit from the European Union, before its dedicated Brexit ministry is operating at full capacity, the minister in charge said on Tuesday.

"The (Brexit) department has doubled in one month. I suspect it will double again in size and that's about the point we will be looking for that information," said David Davis, in answer to a question about when his ministry would be assessing data and analysis on Brexit from other parts of government.

Asked by a committee of lawmakers whether his ministry would reach full capacity before or after Article 50 was triggered, he said: "Before ... That's self-evident I would have thought."

Mr Davis went on to say there was already a lot of work going on across government. "It's a very big process. There's a lot of work going on. Pretty much every department of state is involved in it, they will of course be doing a fair amount of contributory analysis themselves."

REUTERS