Britain plans to spend STG705 million ($A1.28 billion) to create post-Brexit border controls by the end of this year, the government says.
It will fund new infrastructure, customs technology and jobs "to make sure our borders are ready for full independence," Cabinet chief Michael Gove, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's senior minister for Brexit, wrote in the Telegraph.
Gove said the funds "will ensure that Great Britain's new borders will be ready when the UK takes back control on January 1, 2021," adding that Brexit was "a bit like moving house."
Britain formally left the bloc on January 31, after a slim majority voted for Brexit in a 2016 referendum.
Little has changed during a planned 11-month transition that Gove and Johnson have vowed not to extend despite a lack of progress in talks that have been overshadowed by the coronavirus crisis.
Gove insisted on Sunday that the government was not afraid to leave the European Union without a deal on future trade.
"We're negotiating hard, of course, to get the best possible trading relationship with our neighbours in the EU but we won't back down on the essential principles the country voted for when we chose to leave," he wrote.
"Whatever the nature of our trading relationship with the EU, we'll be outside the single market and the customs union - and that means the preparations for new export arrangements and new border processes will be needed whatever the negotiations bring," Gove said.
Australian Associated Press
