Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Angus Brendan MacNeil Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant]

The third scenario—many of us are increasingly convinced that this is what has happened—is that the detailed analysis indicates that the damage caused by Brexit will be even worse than any of us previously feared. Yes, that would weaken and fatally undermine the UK’s negotiating position. It may well be that the analysis shows that Brexit is such a catastrophic decision that we should not do it at all. What kind of Government in possession of that information would choose to hide it, rather than to act on it? It seems to me that the only scenario in which releasing any of the information can possibly undermine the UK’s position is if that information shows that the damage caused by Brexit is worse than any previous analysis has indicated.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

Is there not an unattributed briefing from a Minister who has said, “We either destroy the Conservative party, or we destroy the country”—that was their choice of words—and in this case are they not choosing, by hiding these documents, to destroy the country rather than to destroy the Conservative party?

[Peter Grant]

I could not comment on that quote, but throughout the Brexit shambles there have been plenty of instances when it has been very clear that the Government are acting in the interests of the unity of the Conservative party, rather than in the interests of the United Kingdom—not that the attempt to retain unity in the Conservative party has been too successful.

Last week, the Secretary of State for Brexit got into a real muddle when he was asked whether the Government intended to make any of this information available to the devolved Governments and in particular, under questioning by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry), whether the assessment of the impact on Scotland would be shared with the Scottish Government. At first, he seemed to cast doubt on whether such an assessment existed at all, and then he admitted that it probably existed, but he was not sure it would ever be shared with anybody. Then he assumed it had already been shared with the Scottish Government—it still has not been shared, by the way—and, finally, he acknowledged that it had not been shared yet but eventually would be.

By a process of elimination—or, perhaps, by accident—the Secretary of State therefore managed to say the same as his colleague the Secretary of State for Scotland said to the Scottish Affairs Committee 24 hours earlier. It is concerning, but not surprising, that the Minister appears to have departed from that today. It seems that as soon as two Ministers agree on something, a third has got to disagree with it almost on principle. The fact is that, even a week later, the information has still not been shared—none of it. The relevant Minister in the Scottish Government, Mike Russell, has had to write to the Secretary of State to remind him of the undertaking that was given and to ask for that information to be shared so that, for example, discussions in the JMC can be more meaningful than they have been until now.

Another possible reason for the Secretary of State’s reluctance to share any of the information comes from an answer he gave later in the same evidence session last week:

“I am not a great fan of mathematical models. They are almost always wrong.”

He referred to a revelation from Norman Lamont who, when he became Chancellor of the Exchequer, was told by the Treasury that he would become the most unpopular man in Britain and that that was the only thing Treasury staff ever told him that turned out to be correct. The Secretary of State went on to say that, sadly, the Norman Lamont story was true:

“I am afraid it is the truth. These models are never right.”

The models produced by the Government at the public expense are never right. That will make for an interesting Budget in a couple of weeks’ time. What kind of a defence is it to tell a parliamentary Committee, “The reason why we will not give you access to information that has been produced at great public cost is that we do not believe it any more than you do”?

The Government have previously refused a formal freedom of information request, as was mentioned by the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). They refused even to confirm whether some of these analyses existed, because they were concerned that even to confirm that such documents existed or that such analysis had taken place might lead some to take precipitate action as a result. This comes from a Government who were excessively precipitate in holding a referendum before people really knew what they were voting on. They were precipitate in triggering article 50 before they knew what it would mean, and they were precipitate in calling a general election, which did not turn out particularly well. It is therefore a bit rich for them to be concerned about anyone else acting in a precipitate manner.

I am not a scholar of Latin, but I remember as a student teacher, over 30 years ago, hearing a very experienced chemistry teacher asking a class of pupils doing experiments involving chemical elements being precipitated in a test tube whether any of them knew about precipitates in the Bible. He explained to them, because he was of a generation that could recite the Bible in English and Latin, and probably in Greek as well, that the word “precipitate” came from the Latin word “praecipitare”, and “se praecipitare” was a verb used in the Bible to describe the actions of the Gadarene swine as they launched themselves off a cliff edge.

I will never ceased to be amazed at just how many prophecies in the good book come true sooner or later. The Government have been precipitate throughout this entire sorry affair. They have artificially, unilaterally and quite arbitrarily put immense time pressure on themselves, this Parliament and the overworked staff at the Department for Exiting the European Union and elsewhere.

It is no defence against that chaos or against the repeated display of incompetence we have had from the Government for them now to say that we cannot trust the public with information that exposes the full damage that the Government’s incompetence will cause. The electorate were sophisticated enough to understand after the vote in the referendum that when the Government said we could still be in the single market if we were out of the EU, they did not mean it. The electors in east London were sophisticated enough to know that when a Minister told them, “If we leave the EU, we will stop immigration from the EU and those of you who have family in Bangladesh, India or Pakistan will be able to bring them over to replace those people,” that was rubbish. The electorate were sophisticated enough to know that when someone who is now a Minister promised £357 million more for the health service, that was Boris being Boris. They were sophisticated enough to know that we never believe anything the Foreign Secretary says. Well, we do not need to be too sophisticated to realise that, I suppose.

So the electorate are sophisticated enough to known that all the promises that were made before the referendum really did not mean anything, yet they are not sophisticated enough, or educated or intelligent enough, to look at an impact assessment, or a summary of an impact assessment, and make their own decisions about the competence and the re-electability of a Government who got us into this mess in the first place.

Without even having seen this information, I believe it is not being made widely available because it demonstrates beyond any shadow of a doubt that leaving the EU is the wrong way to go. Leaving the single market would be catastrophic for these islands and the Government should change course before they follow the Gadarene swine over that cliff edge.

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP)]

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[Chris Bryant]

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[Wera Hobhouse]

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

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[John Redwood]

We can have a system of authorised economic operators, developing the existing system, and it will be quite easy to speed the lorries through, and if we still have to impose tariffs because there is no agreement, we will be able to do that electronically, without there being a lorry jam.

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[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker. Is it disingenuous or misleading Parliament to suggest that the £120 million you did not spend in Wales was the same as £120 million of tax cuts for the people of Wales when they did not get tax cuts in that year?

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

That is not a point of order. I call John Redwood.

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[Huw Merriman]

The danger with that argument is it presupposes that everybody in this Chamber knows exactly the reasons why people voted the way they did. The reality, from the question on the ballot paper, is that more people voted to leave than voted to remain. That is all we know. We do not know the reasons why and it would be wrong for us to try to interpret them. I have been elected by those same constituents, so of course I would say they are right, but SNP Members may wish to think about the same principle: for whatever reason, they came to that decision and they were right.

What I want to do is make a success of it. This is the big concern about this debate, which is a great technical debate that I have found interesting, as a lawyer. The question is whether it moves us forward to making a success of leaving the EU? We must remember that 498 out of 650 Members of this House voted to trigger article 50. Surely it follows that it is in their interests to make a success of a decision that, ultimately, they made. Yet time and again the House is used as a mechanism to slow the process down and try to defeat the ultimate goal of those who voted in that manner. I find that a terrible shame.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

rose—

[Huw Merriman]

I will not take any more interventions; the hon. Gentleman will have his own time.

As I was saying, I find that a shame. On Monday, our Transport Committee heard from four leaders—those of British Airways, EasyJet, Manchester airport and Heathrow airport. We challenged them on whether this would be a success for industry and they could not have been more confident that it would be. They were confident in their industry, but with the proviso that, between industry and politicians, we would make a success of it. My concern is that politicians seem to be the ones who do not have it in them to make a success of it. Again, I challenge all hon. Members who voted to trigger article 50 to talk this process up and make a success of it.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the right hon. Lady for her very reasonable point of order. It is not for the Chair to rule on what the Government may say to journalists, but I say to the right hon. Lady that while a debate is going on in the Chamber about a matter of great importance, the place where announcements in connection with or pertaining to that matter of importance should be made is here in the Chamber.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. You said that the debate is about not only the motion but how the Government interpret it. Should papers be provided to the Exiting the European Union Committee, surely other Select Committees—such as the International Trade Committee, which I chair, and perhaps the Health Committee and several others—should be in play. Then again, if the Government do a full U-turn and release the information, we should welcome that.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point of order. From his point of view as the Chairman of another Select Committee, he has made his point well. As I said earlier, that is not a matter on which I can make a ruling from the Chair at this moment.

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[Mr Jenkin]

The businesses I speak to in my constituency and around the country are increasingly impatient with the games being played here at Westminster and the games being played by the European Union. They want us to leave the European Union and they want us to get on with this to end the uncertainty as quickly as possible. They do not want a protracted and uncertain future for this country, made worse by the irresponsible tactics of the Opposition.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

The last Brexit promise left standing was the promise to take back control. What we are seeing today is the Brexiteers running away from control.

[Mr Jenkin]

It always struck me as odd that those in the Scottish National party believe in self-determination for Scotland, but want to sell out to a superstate European Union. I have never understood how they reconcile the desire for independence with wanting to be shackled to a superstate in which they would have but a pimple of influence compared to the influence they have in the United Kingdom.

[Angus Brendan MacNeil]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Should we not use the correct terminology in this Parliament? Should we not understand what the European Union is? It is a union of 28 sovereign Governments. It is very far away from being a superstate.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

That is not a point of order. There have been too many points of order and too many long interventions. I am now reducing the time limit for speeches to three minutes, because that is all the time we have left.