Government assessment
This section covers the expected impacts of Brexit on industry sectors, as anticipated between 2016 and 2018. It’s clear that the government knew about the potential harms of Brexit before negotiating the Trade and Cooperation Agreement with the EU.
To gain an overview, the government provisionally assessed the expected impact of Brexit under three scenarios for the UK-EU relationship: EEA, FTA, and WTO or ‘no deal’ (see Figure 8.2). The assessment considered the impact on each sector’s Gross Value Added (GVA), its contribution to the economy.
The provisional results were that:
- the WTO and FTA scenarios would be much more damaging than the EEA scenario (which had been ruled out by ‘red lines’);
- chemicals, food and drink, clothes, manufacturing, cars and retail would experience the worst effects;
- agriculture would enjoy a small upside under the FTA scenario, but suffer harm under the WTO scenario.
The Cross-Whitehall Briefing described the results and was released in March 2018.
Figure 8.2 Expected sector impact of Brexit 
Non-government assessments
Separately, three non-government, comprehensive studies looked at the costs of trade and jobs at risk. The studies by Oliver Wyman, Clifford Chance and Birmingham University found:
- five sectors would bear most of the costs of trade effects (according to Oliver Wyman and Clifford Chance):
- Financial services
- Automotive
- Agriculture, food and drink
- Consumer goods
- Chemicals and plastics.
- three sectors that had the most jobs at risk were (according to Birmingham University):
- Administration and support services
- Wholesale trade
- Legal and accounting services
For illustrations of the expected impact on SMEs please see three vivid case studies in Appendix B.