Parts of the economy which have avoided the worst impact of the coronavirus crisis would be hit hardest by a no-deal Brexit, the head of the government's fiscal watchdog has warned.
© PASome sectors have been 'relatively spared' by the coronavirus crisis, Mr Hughes said
Manufacturing, financial services and agriculture have been "relatively spared" by the pandemic, Richard Hughes told MPs.
But if Britain ends up without an EU deal, those sectors would face job losses to add to those experienced by the likes of hospitality that have been squeezed by COVID-19, he said.
Mr Hughes, chairman of the Office for Budge Responsibility (OBR), made the comments as he gave evidence to the Treasury select committee about the watchdog's latest forecasts.
The OBR's projections, published alongside chancellor Rishi Sunak's spending review last week, already point to the UK heading for its worst annual decline in GDP for more than 300 years, thanks to the pandemic.
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But they also warn that leaving the EU with no deal would knock two percentage points off growth next year.
Mr Hughes told MPs that the two "shocks" would hit different parts of the economy.
"Some people have thought 'well, Brexit is just another shock on top of a shock we've already had, so it doesn't add very much more'.
"I think when you look at the sectoral impact of these two different shocks they actually affect very different sectors of the economy.
"Coronavirus has affected the non-tradeable services sector particularly hard but Brexit actually affects the tradeable goods and the tradeable services sectors - so manufacturing, financial services, agriculture.
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"These are sectors that have been relatively spared by the coronavirus.
"Manufacturing struggled early on, but they've managed to adapt their operations to a significant extent to be COVID-safe and resume production and export.
"Financial services have been able to quickly adapt because you can operate at a social distance, you can operate online.
"But were we to leave the EU without a deal these are the sectors whose output ends up getting hit hardest by the fact that they lose access to a very important market for them, which is the EU, on tariff free, and also other non-tariff barrier free, terms.
"In that sense there is an additional hit to those sectors and the employment in those sectors from the fact that we'd be leaving without a deal."
That toll would come "on top of the employment hit that you would get from coronavirus on our central scenario which is affecting a different set of sectors in the economy, which is hospitality and sectors which are largely contained within the UK".
The OBR forecasts see unemployment at 8.3% in the third quarter of next year if there is no deal, 0.9% higher than its central projection, which assumes that there is one.
Its report last week projected an 11.3% decline in the economy for this year, the biggest fall since 1709, and a surge in borrowing to £394bn for 2020/21 - equivalent to 19% of GDP, representing the highest recorded level of borrowing in peacetime.