Science deal with the EU ‘will not be completed this year’

Former senior civil servant issues warning on negotiations

A Canada-style free trade agreement between the EU and UK may be achievable by the end of 2020, but finalising a “whole load” of sector-specific agreements including science is highly unlikely, according to a former senior civil servant leading on Brexit issues.

“I believe that a thin free trade agreement based on Canada is achievable by the end of this year,” said Philip Rycroft, former permanent secretary at the Department for Exiting the European Union, on the BBC’s Today Programme on 18 February.