In September 2019 the UK government had requested civil servants in the Treasury and Department for Transport undertake a cost and risk analysis of the proposed bridge, with special attention to be paid to possible funding options. The Department for Transport had reportedly already produced a factual paper on the subject for a former transport secretary. When asked to comment on the project the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy said the UK had "amazing ambitions for the future". "The Independent"s Europe Correspondent suggested that the UK was lagging behind by not taking the construction of the bridge seriously, suggesting that other countries had already invested in such bridges. The newspaper cited the example of Japan's islands of Honshu and Hokkaido, which are linked by the Seikan Tunnel which exceeds the length of the proposed bridge. It also cited the examples of the Fehmarn Belt Fixed Link and the Helsinki-Tallinn Tunnel as evidence that the UK was lagging behind comparative European nations. While addressing supporters for the bridge in Northern Ireland Prime Minister Boris Johnson is quoted as having said "With infrastructure projects, finance is not the issue, the issue is political will, the issue is getting the business community to see that this could be something that works for them, the issue is getting popular demand and popular consent for a great infrastructure project – and that is why you need Stormont." In late September 2019 a group of engineers wrote to "National Geographic" magazine agreeing that it was "technically possible and far from unrealistic to build" the bridge. By early October 2019 it was reported that the Scottish government had plans to re-purpose the disused port at Stranraer as a lorry park in the event of a "No Deal" Brexit, due to concerns about traffic flows from Northern Ireland. In October 2019, Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said "Prime Minister Johnson is genuinely interested in taking a serious look at this idea of building a bridge between Antrim and Scotland...I know people dismiss it, but I don’t. It needs to be looked at. It needs to be at least examined". He later added "I know people dismiss these things out of hand, but they used to dismiss the Channel Tunnel as well – the idea of building a tunnel between France and Britain – and I know what I see when I see a bridge tunnel between Denmark and Sweden, when you fly over New Orleans and you see 110 miles of bridge, it’s extraordinary". In March 2020 Alister Jack told the Scottish Parliament that he supported the bridge.