The Department for Exiting the European Union has been accused of hiding the "unpleasant realities" of Brexit from the public, as new analysis suggested it only answered a fifth of Freedom of Information requests in full.

Research by the People's Vote campaign for a second referendum found DExEU refused to release any information for more than half of all requests, and only answered 21% in full between July 2016 and June 2017 - the lowest percentage of FOI requests granted in full across all of Whitehall.

The Cabinet Office, Department for International Trade, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which all also deal with Brexit, answered 26%, 25% and 23% respectively of requests in full.

People's Vote found the Whitehall average to be 44%.

Labour's Peter Kyle, a supporter of the People's Vote campaign, said: "The Government's astonishing lack of transparency around Brexit is a national scandal, and is part of the reason why we've ended up in the mess we're in now.

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"The Government departments charged with dealing directly with Brexit are deliberately obfuscating and hiding the many unpleasant realities of the process from the public.

"The truth they're trying to hide is that the Government's proposed Brexit would severely harm our economy and is much worse than our existing deal inside the EU.

"I have written to the chief executive of the Civil Service to demand urgent answers, because the British public deserve to have all the information about Brexit available to them.

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"Because of the failure to be open and transparent, the public have lost confidence in the Government's ability to handle the Brexit process properly. That's why more and more people are rallying behind the calls for a People's Vote, to give the people the final say."