The issue of the divorce bill promises to be one of the first sticking points in Brexit negotiations | Leon Neal/AFP via Getty Images UK could walk away without paying Brexit bill, ministers believe Senior Tory suggests Berlin is reminded that 'that we remitted one half of all German debt' in 1950s.

LONDON — Theresa May's government will go into Brexit negotiations believing the U.K. could legally walk away from the EU without paying a divorce bill, a Brexit minister signaled Monday.

David Jones, the number two in David Davis' Department for Exiting the European Union, backed the findings of a recent report which claimed the U.K. would not be liable for any financial contributions if it left the EU without a deal, during evidence to a committee of MPs Monday.

Meanwhile, a senior Conservative MP risked souring relations with a key EU negotiating partner by urging the government to "tactfully" remind European officials that the U.K. helped Germany waive half of its war debt in the 1950s.

Bill Cash, chair of the European Scrutiny Committee, said it would be a useful point to make given "Germany's extremely dominant role in the European Union" and insisted that "we really don't owe anything to the European Union."

The issue of the divorce bill promises to be one of the first sticking points in Brexit negotiations. EU and member state officials have suggested that the U.K.'s outstanding liabilities could be as high as €60 billion.

But in his evidence to the committee, Jones said a House of Lords report, published earlier this month, which concluded that leaving the EU without a deal would mean no legal obligation to pay any financial contribution at all, had been "extremely helpful."

"I'm sure that it's not gone unnoticed in Brussels and other European capitals for that matter," Jones said, signaling that it would be a "starting point" for the U.K.'s position on the legality of its financial liabilities to the EU. However, he conceded that there would be "a big political element to the discussion" of exit payments.

May has signaled that the U.K. would be prepared to pay an "appropriate contribution" to the EU budget to remain part of certain Europe-wide programs. Her government is determined to avoid a no-deal scenario, but Jones' comments indicate that the prospect of the U.K. walking away without paying anything — leaving a hole in the EU's budget — is seen as strengthening the U.K.'s negotiating hand.

Tim Barrow, the U.K.'s permanent representative to the EU, appearing alongside Jones, told the committee that his EU counterparts were looking at legal opinions that "offer a different interpretation" of the divorce bill liabilities.

Any large one-off payment to cover liabilities under the EU's existing financial framework, or to meet the U.K.'s share of EU pensions contributions, would not be considered acceptable by Euroskeptic Conservative MPs, a number of senior lawmakers have told POLITICO.

Cash, a prominent Euroskeptic, said European Commission chief negotiator Michel Barnier's suggestion of a €60 billion divorce payment had been "fairly extravagant."

Speaking during the committee hearing, of which he was chair, Cash said: "Has anybody pointed out to them, or would you make sure that they do understand, that we have been net contributors for many decades to the tune of what is now running at around £9 billion or £10 billion a year, that our accumulated liabilities are offset by the extent to which we have made these massive contributions.

"And perhaps also to bear in mind," he added, "that back in 1953 there was a thing called the London Debt Agreement, where Germany, for all its malfeasance during the Second World War, and its unprovoked aggression, found that in 1953, in circumstances which were quite remarkable, found that we remitted one half of all German debt."

The London Debt Agreement of 1953 cut by 50 percent Germany's debt liabilities still outstanding from the war reparations demanded following the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. The debt relief agreement, which included several other creditors including France and the U.S., helped kick-start the country's recovery after World War II.

Responding to Cash's comments, Jones said he was "not entirely sure how tactful one can be when one is mentioning the London Debt Agreement," joking that he would refer his EU negotiating partners to Cash.