Brexit: Release of Impact Assessments

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Tuesday 28th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan]

My Lords, consistent with the result of the referendum we will be leaving the single market and we will be leaving the customs union.

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister confirm what I think I understood from his answer to one question, which is that the 850 pages form a completely different document to that which the Government put together on the basis of 58 sectoral analyses? If he does confirm that, can he explain why it was that in the debate in the other place on revealing the 58 studies, nobody from the government side explained that they were being asked, as he said, for something that did not exist?

[Lord Callanan]

No, they are not completely different documents. Much of the material is the same as it was in the original documents. Some of them were drawn up two years ago and some more recently. We thought that they should be updated and the information in them is often more current. There is more information in them than in some of the original documents. We think it is in a more accessible and open format.