BRUSSELS is now preparing for Britain to crash out of the European Union without a deal, a senior EU official has said.

Stefaan De Rynck said the EU27 was braced in case an agreement was not reached but made clear this was "not a scenario" the bloc wanted.

The adviser to Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, said transitional arrangements could be "wrapped up very quickly" but only once progress had been made in the divorce talks.

Mr De Rynck also dismissed claims by David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, that Brussels would push the deal talks down to the wire.

The EU did not want to "add risk" to the exit process by "playing with time," he told the Institute for Government think-tank.

"On going to the wire, we would certainly want to avoid that," declared Mr De Rynck.

Noting how there was a “clear negative impact from no deal,” he explained: “We are preparing for it, that is for sure, at 27 but it is not a scenario that we in the negotiation room want to bring in that negotiation room."

Earlier this month, Donald Tusk said the rest of the bloc was not preparing for a no-deal outcome.

"EU27 is not working on a no-deal scenario. We negotiate in good faith and hope for sufficient progress by December," said the European Council President.

Meanwhile, a row broke out after Mr Davis suggested Theresa May had not read the “excruciating detail” of secret Whitehall studies into the impact of Brexit.

Appearing before the Commons Brexit Committee, two ministers from the Department for Exiting the EU, Steve Baker and Robin Walker, were accused of also not fully reading reports about the impact of leaving the EU on different sectors of the economy, which Whitehall has refused to publish.

The issue was raised by Labour’s Seema Malhotra, who told them: "It sounds to me like both of you haven't fully read those reports that you say can't be published because they could jeopardise the negotiations."

Mr Baker replied: "In the roles that we have, we must ruthlessly prioritise our time.”

He added: "Some of that material I have read in great detail. I have not read all of the documents which we have.”

Mr Walker told her: "We have been consistently kept up to date with the latest analysis on all these things."

But Labour’s Ian Murray for the pro-EU Open Britain, said: “It is shocking to hear that the Prime Minister and Brexit ministers haven’t even bothered to read the Government’s assessments of how its Brexit plans will impact different sectors of the economy.”

The Edinburgh MP added: “This latest fiasco is indicative of the Government’s shoddy and chaotic approach to the whole Brexit process.”

Elsewhere: *ministers indicated separate Brexit legislation would be needed to cover a transitional period after Brexit; *Mr Davis suggested Britain would be at a financial disadvantage if Brexit negotiations extended into the transition period as the EU would likely still be receiving money from the UK in such a scenario and would want to "spin it out as long as possible" and *Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, at a reception in Warsaw told Poles living in the UK that their rights would be protected "whatever happens" in an apparent break from the Government's official Brexit policy.