Exiting the EU: Sectoral Impact Assessments

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 1st November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I am going to press on, because I have barely got a sentence in. I will give way later but I am really not making much progress at all.

The list of sectors was initially not disclosed, but it was then disclosed on Monday. In her freedom of information request of 30 August this year, my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston also asked for the scope and the terms of reference of each sectoral analysis. This request too has been rebuffed, in a letter of 29 September. This time, the Secretary of State’s Department relied on two grounds: first, that to disclose the terms of reference would prejudice relations between the UK and another state; and, secondly, that it would prejudice the formulation and development of Government policy. The first of those grounds seems a bit far-fetched, to say the least. The scope and the terms of reference are not even being disclosed.

The second of those grounds is surprising, coming from the current Secretary of State. Back in December 1999, he was Chair of the Public Accounts Committee when the freedom of information legislation was before Parliament. Then, when he was on the Back Benches, he intervened strongly in the debates. He said:

“I do not approach the issue from the perspective of a freedom of information enthusiast…my test is whether it makes democracy and government work better.”

He then said:

“The class exemption applying to all information relating to formulation and development of Government policy, including factual information, is a ludicrous blanket exemption.”—[Official Report, 7 December 1999; Vol. 340, c. 774.]

Today, from the Front Bench, he relies on that ludicrous blanket exemption that he rallied against from the Back Benches.

I shall now turn to the analyses and reports themselves. In a joint letter dated 11 October this year and supported by 120 Members, my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) sought the disclosure of all the sectoral analyses. I salute their work in pressing the Government time and again on this issue. The Government have responded by saying that the impact assessments could not be disclosed because to do so would undermine the UK’s negotiating position. That is an important consideration, and I have accepted all along that the Government should not put into the public domain any information that would undermine our negotiating position. However, this requires some probing and testing.

The House will recall that when we, the Opposition, were calling for the Government to publish a Brexit plan this time last year, our request was initially refused. It was claimed that—guess what?—to do so would undermine our negotiating position. Thus, in an exchange on 7 November last year, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn) pressed the Secretary of State to reveal the Government’s plan. The Secretary of State said:

“It is no good creating a public negotiating position, which has the simple effect of destroying our ability to negotiate—full stop.”—[Official Report, 7 November 2016; Vol. 616, c. 1264.]

The Prime Minister then coined the phrase “no running commentary” and stuck to it like glue. And so it went on until 7 December last year, when we won an Opposition day motion calling on the Government to publish a plan. The publication of that plan has not undermined our negotiating position, although its contents might well have done so.

On the claim that any disclosure will undermine our negotiating position, I also bear in mind what the Secretary of State said to the House of Lords EU External Affairs Sub-Committee last night when he was pressed on this. He said:

“I don’t think you should overestimate what’s in them. They’re not economic models of each sector, they are looking at how much of it depends on European Union markets versus other markets, what other opportunities may be, what the regulatory structures are, all those sorts of things that inform the negotiation, but they are not predictions. So I wouldn’t overestimate what they are.”

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that we might ask how the Ministers even know whether the reports would undermine our negotiating position given that last week they told the Exiting the European Union Committee that they had not even read them? One does wonder why on earth they are now going to such lengths to protect them.

[Keir Starmer]

I am grateful for that intervention and will come to that very point. Playing down the significance of the reports last night, while playing up the need to keep them absolutely secret, is an interesting strategy that needs to be tested. The Government’s claim about not disclosing the reports or any part of them also raises some pretty fundamental questions. First, who has actually read the 58 reports? On 25 October, the Secretary of State, under questioning from the Brexit Committee, indicated that the Prime Minister will know the summary outcomes, but she will “not necessarily” have read them. Later in the same sitting, he indicated that the Cabinet had not seen the analyses, saying:

“They will have seen summary outcomes. That is all.”

The impact assessments that we are debating this afternoon have not been read in full by the Cabinet.

--- Later in debate ---

[Peter Grant]

I suspect that it may have been all the above and more reasons besides.

Is it not ironic that yet again, in response to a decision that was supposed to restore sovereignty to Parliament, for those who believe in such an idea, it now appears that even the Parliament that exercises sovereignty on behalf of Her Majesty does not have the right to instruct the Government to make representations to Her Majesty on our behalf? We can ask, and the Government can simply ignore—well, they cannot ignore, but they can say, “No, we’re no’ doing it,” which apparently is not the same as ignoring. What an utter shambles of a way to run a sweetie shop, never mind a country.

I have been a very long-standing supporter of open government and freedom of information. I remember as an opposition SNP councillor being in the strange position of enthusiastically supporting legislation proposed by the then Labour-Lib Dem coalition in the Scottish Parliament against complaints from Labour councillors that it would somehow undermine the working of the council. I believe that improved public availability of information always leads to better government. Occasions when information needs to be restricted, or some information needs to be redacted, should be seen very much as the exception rather than the rule.

[Caroline Lucas]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman is aware that there is a legal case pending, which my colleague in the European Parliament, Molly Scott Cato, is leading. Does he agree that rather than going through all the extra work, time and taxpayers’ money involved in fighting a legal case, the Government should just show us what it is in the public interest to show us now?

[Peter Grant]

I was going to say that, not having seen the information, I am at a disadvantage compared with the Cabinet, but I am not convinced that I am, because I do not think most of them have seen it either. I am perfectly prepared to accept that some of it—perhaps quite a lot of it—cannot be made public, but I do not think a document exists that cannot be made public in some form. If the Government really want to give the public information, there are always ways in which details can be removed.

The comment has been made that we are talking about public information, paid for by the public and produced by a public organisation, which exists only for the benefit of the public. I always take the view that information should be disclosed where possible and withheld only where necessary. My view of freedom of information was eloquently expressed 250 years ago, and I am pleased that Madam Deputy Speaker is still here to hear this, although she is no longer in the Chair:

“Here’s freedom to them that wad read,

Here’s freedom to them that wad write,

There’s nane ever fear’d that the truth should be heard,

But they whom the truth would indite.”

I appreciate that for some Members, that might be a difficult thing to think about just now.

I have always been convinced that far too many public bodies have hidden behind statutory exemptions in freedom of information legislation, not to protect the interests of the public but to protect the interests of those who withhold the information. That seems to have played a significant part in the Government’s thought processes in this instance. A member of the Government originally claimed that even to confirm that the analyses existed would somehow fatally undermine the UK’s negotiating position with the European Union. It is hard to see how anybody could make the UK’s negotiating position any more untenable than it already is, but let us look at how making any of the information available might weaken the UK’s position.

It seems to me that there are three possible scenarios. In scenario 1, the secret information shows that the UK’s position is a lot stronger than any of us suspected—I do not know; that might be possible—so instead of negotiating from a position of weakness, the UK is negotiating from a position of considerable strength. How does it weaken our negotiating position if those on the other side of the table think that we are strong, rather than weak? It does not, so in scenario 1, it is in the UK’s interests for the European Union to have the information.

In scenario 2, the analysis simply confirms what everybody knows and what analysis from everybody else under the sun has already indicated, which is that leaving the European Union is seriously bad for the UK economy, that it is seriously bad for us socially and culturally, and that it will weaken our reputation worldwide, emboldening other potential trade partners to push for ever more difficult and damaging trade deals and ensuring that we have to go cap in hand to look for them.