Government’s EU Exit Analysis

Deidre Brock Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

This has been an interesting debate, and I appreciate the intent behind it, but we have to be a bit more basic in our expectations. Everybody with any sense of how the world works, or even the tiniest ability to listen to experts, knows that leaving the EU is a disaster in slow motion. It is an omnishambles.

Like a train in a spaghetti western running on to a half-collapsed bridge, we know that the plunge is coming, but the people driving the train are shovelling more coal into the boiler—they have never looked over the side and they are fairly sure the train can make the jump to safety on the other side. Frankly, the blank refusal to look at what is actually happening makes blind faith look like scepticism.

The assertion that we will trade jam with China and scones with Brazil to make up for loss of access to the world’s biggest barrier-free marketplace, and the claim that 27 countries will be crippled without our expertise, is madness, as the right hon. Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry), who is no longer in the Chamber, said.

I do not know what is in the tea in Whitehall, but it is pretty strong. If the analysis is anything like as rubbish as the policy position, its value, as has already been said, will be questionable, but I agree with Labour that it should be published. I am happy to hear that we will get to see the analysis, but it should go further. The people who put us here, and who pay for everything that gets done here and in our names elsewhere, are entitled to know just how much ignorance is at the heart of Government strategy and what the Government’s best forecast is of just how much disaster we are facing.

We all know there is a cliff edge, but none of us knows how high the cliff is. We have seen some analysis, most pertinently from the Scottish Government, and no one is predicting benefits. The best that anyone says is that there might be some way to ameliorate the worst effects, some way to make the pain a little less.

Leaving the EU is bad; walking away from the customs union and the single market is worse. Voters had many reasons for voting to leave. I have heard people offer different reasons, but none of them reckoned that we would end up with better trading relations. The people who will have to suffer the blunt trauma of this exit deserve the scant respect of having these forecasts opened up to scrutiny.

Labour’s motion calls for Members to be allowed to see the forecasts, and I acknowledge the Government’s movement, but I regard that movement as only a good first step on the way to everyone having sight of the forecasts. Frankly, I do not understand why the Labour motion is so narrowly drawn. In fact, I cannot for the life of me understand why there is so little opposition to exiting the EU, the single market and the customs union among Labour Members.

I appreciate there was a substantial leave vote in many of the seats that Labour worries about, and that there was a bit of a UKIP vote against a fair number of Labour MPs, but I cannot understand why an entire party would abdicate the responsibility of leading. Contrary to the Tony Blair doctrine, politics is not always about finding out where people are already heading in order to try to lead them there; sometimes we have to stand and say, “It is this way.” Sometimes we have to say that we believe something is the right thing to do, and the right thing to do now is surely to seek to protect, to the greatest extent possible, our membership of the single market and the customs union.

As we are where we are—heading down a track that comes to an abrupt and uncompromising end—the Government should at least have the courtesy of letting us see what they think are the best-case and worst-case scenarios. On courteous behaviour, I ask the Government to confirm that the analysis will be sent to the devolved Administrations at the same time as it goes to the Chair of the Exiting the European Union Committee.

The public should also be offered the courtesy of a glance at the research. We are told by the Brexit Department that everything is going swimmingly and will be all right if we just have enough faith and patience, so I cannot see why there would be any reluctance to publish the intellectual musings of the Brexit Secretary and the underpinning, in-depth research that I am sure went into those musings.

All might be for the best in the best of all possible Brexits, but we have no way of knowing what kind of Brexit is heading our way, what the great vision of the Government is or what kind of economic disaster zone is heading our way. I have seen nothing plausible to counter those who say that the economic outlook is almost apocalyptic—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I call Geraint Davies.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (Mr Steve Baker)]

This has been a great debate, and I am grateful to all the right hon. and hon. Members who have taken part. I apologise to those whose speeches I was not able to hear today; I know they were listened to closely, and I look forward to reading them in Hansard.

I am sure that we are all proud to be part of one of the world’s oldest parliamentary democracies. It is right that Parliament holds the Government to account for the decisions they make, but Parliament should be careful not to pursue a course of action that would harm Britain’s national interest, or one that would jeopardise the UK’s prospects during this crucial period in her history.

In drafting their motion, hon. Members have highlighted the need for material to be kept strictly confidential and unpublished during the negotiations, and we are grateful for that; but I cannot emphasise enough the importance of maintaining that position, in the national interest. In seeing the analysis, Members of the House will be sharing in the responsibility and obligation that the Government have to ensure the security of negotiation-sensitive materials.

We have reiterated many times that the publication of negotiation-sensitive information would be fundamentally detrimental to the UK’s negotiating position. We would risk undermining the hard work of our tireless officials, seeking to achieve the best deal for the UK in Brussels. The civil service is, quite properly, doing a huge amount of work to support the Government as phase 2 of the negotiations gets under way. As part of that work, analysis is being done as we define the end state. A first draft of that work was being looked at, and Ministers provided comments and asked for further work to be done, and that is the right process.

At this point, I wish to take on some opening remarks in which it was suggested that I had said that this analysis was rubbish. I said no such thing. It was suggested that I had been disrespectful to civil servants. I did no such thing. In fact, I paid tribute to our excellent officials three times in my remarks yesterday, and I am very happy to work with such high-quality, dedicated, intelligent officials, applying themselves to the task at hand irrespective of how they voted at the referendum. To pick up on the themes explored by the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) about the conduct of the debate, I wish to state on the record, in the light of today’s press coverage, my admiration both for the Cabinet Secretary and for the Prime Minister’s Europe adviser, who I am absolutely sure are carrying forward the Government’s policy diligently and properly. They do not deserve the criticism they have received in the press.

In making the critique I made yesterday, I relied on three things: the caveats that Members will see on the face of the analysis itself, historical experience, and my own long-held beliefs, which I believe are well founded—if I do say so myself. I relied on arguments that I have made in this House throughout my years here, whether in the Chamber or in the Treasury Committee, and I certainly do not resile from what I have said.

My hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) picked up on the theme of uncertainty. The point here is not to rubbish all analysis, but to do what I suggested at the end of my remarks yesterday—to ensure that we have a healthy scepticism in this Chamber for reports and for analysis of economics based on the things to which I have referred. Parliament has rightly agreed in this House that Ministers have a duty not to publish anything that could risk exposing our negotiating position. We have an obligation to the people of this country to ensure that we strive to achieve the best possible deal for the UK. Forcing the publication of this analysis would put that at risk. Despite the repeated assertions of Members of this House, this draft document is not an impact assessment or a statement of Government policy; it is a very preliminary draft only seen by DExEU Ministers this week and does not constitute a meaningful commentary on the expected outcome of the negotiations.

As I attested to yesterday, the document has been circulated only to test ideas and design a viable framework for the analysis of our exit from the European Union. As we have said repeatedly, this work is constantly evolving. The report does not consider our desired outcome—the most ambitious relationship possible with the European Union, as set out by the Prime Minister in her Florence speech. All Members must surely agree that the Government cannot be expected to put such analysis into the public domain before it has been completed, particularly when it is sensitive. As I have said before, this Government will not provide a continuing commentary of the analysis we are undertaking. It would be speculative and damaging, especially as the analysis does not reflect the UK’s preferred outcome in the negotiations.

I wish to emphasise that it is the Government’s view that this is an exceptional request today given the misrepresentation in the press of the reporting of this leak. This motion will therefore be agreed to on an exceptional basis, and it does not set any precedent for future action.

[Deidre Brock]

Could the Minister confirm, as I asked previously, that he will undertake to release the analysis, at the same time as releasing it to the Select Committee, to the devolved Administrations?

[Mr Baker]

The Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), has just told me that he has already given that assurance, but what I will say is that we will work with the Chair of the Select Committee to ensure that we comply scrupulously with the motion. In particular, we will need to discuss the requirements for confidentiality to which the House will be agreeing today.