Government’s EU Exit Analysis

Peter Grant Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)]

I am grateful for the chance to speak in this debate and I commend the main Opposition party for securing it.

I am wondering why we are here because, yesterday, the Minister’s colleague beside him on the Front Bench, the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), spent over an hour valiantly, loyally and completely unsuccessfully trying to persuade the House that the sky would fall down if this information were shared with anybody. Now we are being told that it can be shared at the very least with 650 people.

Incidentally, part of the reason why relatively few MPs—certainly those in the Scottish National party—went along to the “Kremlin” reading room to look at the sectoral analysis is that, having seen part of the papers, I told a lot of my colleagues not to bother. It simply was not worth their time to go through the security checks to read stuff that they could get by looking online.

Again, we are seeing a symptom of the fact that, despite all the assurances we get that Brexit will restore “sovereignty” to Parliament, this is really about trying to restore the alleged sovereignty of a minority Government over the will of Parliament. Parliament is supposed to tell Government what to do, but every time it looks as if Parliament is going to tell the Government to do something they do not want to do, it causes absolute panic on the Government Front Bench. It also causes a headache for civil servants, as one of their main responsibilities is supposed to be to prevent Ministers from doing anything that causes political embarrassment to the Government—good luck to them. If they can achieve that, they must be quite remarkable people.

[Stephen Kerr]

May I ask the hon. Gentleman a very simple question? Does he condone or condemn the leaking of Government papers? It is an important question.

[Peter Grant]

At this point, the answer is no: I neither condone nor condemn because I do not know what the circumstances were.

I walked away from a potentially successful career in NHS financial management. I wrestled for six months with my own conscience, seeing things that I knew had to be brought to public attention but knowing there was no way I could do that, and knowing that the public were being deliberately misled about what was going on in the health board that I worked in. The only way I could bring it to public attention was to resign and walk away from the job. So I will never, ever condemn anyone who believes they are acting in the public interest by doing something that they are not supposed to do.

I would be very surprised if there is a single Member in the Chamber today who is not at this very moment considering an important constituency case that has been brought to them by someone who technically was breaking the rules by raising it with a Member of Parliament. There are times when the public interest has to outweigh all other considerations, and until I have seen the full circumstances of why this information was disclosed, I am not going to condone or condemn, and I do not think anyone else should prejudice the case by commenting on it now.

[Geraint Davies]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that there is a distinction between a leak and whistleblowing? Whistleblowing is in the public interest. The provisional evaluation of the economic impacts, be it incomplete or imperfect, and given that good is not the enemy of perfect, should be in the public arena. This is a whistle blow, not a leak.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful for that intervention. We have to be careful about language. There is whistleblowing as defined in the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 and it is not clear whether this incident would comply with that.

As a council leader, I sometimes found myself having to respond to information that technically should not have been disclosed. I always took the view that, if the motivation was clearly public interest, we should seek to protect those who did that, even if they had not technically done it in the correct way. The question today should not be about the motivation or principles of whoever disclosed this information into the public domain. The question should be first about what the information tells us, and secondly about what the Government’s determination to hide this information from the people tells us about the Government’s handling of Brexit.

I hope that, when the Under-Secretary of State responds, he will do what the Minister did not do earlier, and tell us when the Government started to prepare this analysis. Is this the homework that the Secretary of State had to confess to a Select Committee he had not done yet when the House asked for it? It looks suspiciously like this is not only the Secretary of State’s late homework but that he copied it off his new pal Big Mike in the high school up the road in Scotland. The similarities between the Scottish Government’s analysis that the Government rubbished two weeks ago and the Government’s own analysis are so striking that it would be a remarkable coincidence if the people who prepared those analyses had not been copying from each other.

[Tom Brake]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is clearly important to get this information out into the public domain or in controlled circumstances. Is he as worried as I am that, despite having information out in the public domain that tells us that Brexit, whatever version we go for, is going to cause us huge damage, not only the Government but, it seems, those on the Labour Front Bench are still going to proceed none the less?

[Peter Grant]

Again, this may not be the time for that debate. My position is perfectly clear. We have the results of four national votes and we have to seek to respect those as far as possible. We cannot respect them all because two of us want to leave and two of us want to stay, and the European Union does not allow bits of nation states to stay or go. However, on the Government Front Bench and, to a lesser extent, on the main Opposition Front Bench, there has been a failure to distinguish between leaving the European Union and leaving the single market, the customs union and various other European institutions, which is where the real damage exposed by these analyses lies. It is possible to leave the European Union, to comply with the referendum result, and not to bring down on ourselves, for example, the potential 8% reduction in Scottish GDP as a result. That can only be done if the Government admit that they got it wrong and step back from the red line on single market and customs union membership. There was no referendum about the single market or the customs union. At the moment, we only have unilateral political dogma from the Government, telling us that we have to leave.

The real reason why these analyses were never done and they were kept secret for as long as possible after they had been done is that they show that, in deciding to take us out of the customs union and the single market, the Government got it badly wrong. All we need is for the Government to admit they got it wrong and this whole debate then becomes an irrelevance.

The Government’s behaviour demonstrates again the fallacy of the argument that Parliament holds the Government to account. In effect, we do not have an electoral system that is designed to produce a proper Parliament. We have an electoral system for this place that is designed to produce one winner and one loser, and it does not like it if there is more than one party on the alleged losing side, because the system cannot cope with having more than one big Opposition party. It does not like it if it is unclear who the overall winner is. This place is always in turmoil if a coalition has to be formed and there is a minority Government. The whole procedure of Parliament—the way that Bills are produced, the way that time is allocated and so on—is based on the assumption that the Government decide and just every once in a while Parliament tries to tell the Government that they should have decided something different.

In the discussion we had about the first batch of Brexit papers before Christmas—there have been elements of it again today—we heard that it is disloyal to the country and to our constituents for any Member of Parliament to suggest that the Government have got it wrong and should be doing something different. Whether it is in relation to publishing or not publishing the papers, to handing them over in secret to a Committee or not, to the decision to take us out of the customs union in the first place or to any other decision that the Government take and announce without having the full mandate of the people, it must be open to any Member of Parliament to criticise and seek to change it.

When I keep hearing Members—not so much those on my Benches, because we have a clear mandate from our constituents—on either the Government Benches or other Opposition Benches being denounced as traitors and enemies of the people simply for standing up in this place for what they believe in, we have to ask ourselves what is going on with democracy in these four nations. In some ways, that is even more fundamental than our membership of the EU and its related institutions. We have to get a grip.

It was disappointing to hear comments yesterday from Government Back Benchers about London-based elite remoaners. No one on the Government Front Bench picked up on that and said that that kind of language is not acceptable. There should never be any need to question the integrity or motivation of anybody in the Chamber simply because we disagree, however passionately, with what they are saying.

[Vicky Ford]

I listened to what the hon. Gentleman said earlier about the sector-by-sector reports and I think I heard him say that he had told other colleagues not to bother to go and read them. My understanding is that we need a trade deal that works for all sectors of the economy and especially for areas such as food, agriculture and farming. My memory of those sector-by-sector reports is that that is an area that is enormously detailed, so perhaps he will think again about encouraging other Members to go and look at this detailed information.

[Peter Grant]

Part of the Government’s response earlier today to the disclosure of these documents was that the quotation or citation was selective and incomplete. I am afraid that is what we have just heard from the hon. Lady.

[Joanna Cherry]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Peter Grant]

May I deal with the first intervention first, please?

What I said was that the reason I had told my colleagues that it was not really worth while for them to hand over their phones, make appointments and so on to go and see the documents, was that there was nothing in there that they could not have got quite easily on the internet. Is it really a good use of a Member’s time to go through a security check more severe than at an airport, in order to read in a classified document that Airbus and Boeing make aeroplanes? To read in a classified document that gambling legislation in Northern Ireland is devolved but not elsewhere? These are all things that were in the documents that the Government said they could not disclose. To read in the sectoral report on the electricity industry that lots of people in the United Kingdom rely on electricity for domestic and commercial purposes?

Come on, Madam Deputy Speaker: there may well be information in the latest batch of documents that there is good reason for wanting to keep classified and confidential, but the Government’s attitude is that they tell the people and Parliament as little as they can possibly get away with. We all know that the reason for the change of heart from yesterday to today is nothing to do with the Government’s having decided that, because part of the documents had been published, they might as well give Parliament everything. The Government are not opposing the motion today because they know they would go down badly if they forced it to a Division. They do not have the support of their own Back Benchers; I doubt if they even have the support of their own Front Benchers. Their culture of excessive secrecy no longer has the support of their own people. They are not forcing the matter to a vote today because they know they would not only lose, but lose so badly that it would call into question the continuation of the Government in its entirety.

[Stephen Kerr]

rose—

[Peter Grant]

I did say I would give way to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry).

[Joanna Cherry]

As usual, my hon. Friend is being modest. He is not explaining to the House that he is a member of the Exiting the European Union Committee and has been part of the project to produce detailed reports of sectoral analysis, so he knows, like anyone who has bothered to read the reports—I see the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) is still sitting beside the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr)—that all the information in these top-secret documents is already in the public domain.

[Peter Grant]

I am grateful for that intervention. I am aware of the time, and I do not want to impinge too much on other people’s—

[Stephen Kerr]

rose—

[Peter Grant]

I will give way once more, but I hope the intervention is a bit more relevant than the earlier one.

[Stephen Kerr]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his gracious approach to my intervention. It is just that he is contradicting himself. He says that the Government are not responsive to Parliament—that Parliament is some kind of constitutional eunuch—and in the next breath he says that the reason there will not be a vote today is that the Government cannot control their own side. He cannot have it both ways. This Parliament is very successfully holding the Government to account and is being very thorough in its scrutiny. In defence of the honour of this Parliament, I needed to intervene to say that.

[Peter Grant]

The reason why Conservative Back Benchers will abstain in this debate is that the Government Whips have told them to abstain. The reason why the earlier motion on the main Brexit sectoral analysis was not opposed was that the Government told their Back Benchers not to oppose it. Since then a number of Back Benchers, sitting in this Chamber, have said that they would have been quite happy to lead a move against that Humble Address before Christmas but the Government Whips told them not to. The fact of the matter is that all too often the Government hold Parliament to account, not the other way around.

We shall not fix that today, but if we appreciate that that is the background against which this fiasco has developed, it is easier to understand how it is that, as soon as there is a Government who do not command a substantial majority in the House, there are problems. The British electoral system has a phobia against minority Governments or coalition Governments, despite the fact that in numerous other places—some of them not too far north of here—there are examples of Governments operating very successfully indeed, either in coalition or as a minority Government.

The Minister, as part of his argument to try to discredit his own Government’s analysis, points out that it is based on average free trade agreements, as opposed to the all-singing, all-dancing with bells and whistles free trade agreement that the Government keep telling us they will achieve within the next year or two. What is that assurance based on? What grounds does this Parliament have to believe that the Government have a snowball in hell’s chance of finding anyone to give the United Kingdom on its own a better trade agreement than they are willing to give to the 500 million people of the European Union single market? Have the Government done an analysis to tell them that they are going to get better trade deals? I hope not, because if they have done such an analysis, that analysis is quite clearly rubbish as well.

Given that analyses that come out of Her Majesty’s Treasury are no longer to be trusted, may we now take it as the Government’s official position that we can no longer believe what was said in the 16 analyses that were done by Government Departments in 2013-14, showing what a disaster a yes result in the Scottish referendum would be? And can we just cut to the chase, and save everybody a lot of time, by getting the Government to admit now that the bucketsful of analysis that they are going to produce next time around are also worthless and incomplete and selective, so they can just not bother producing them and save us all a lot of time?

Madam Deputy Speaker, when you get a Government who have to defend their own excessive secrecy by telling the people of these islands that they cannot rely on information that comes out from the Government, whether it was meant to come out or not—when the Government tell us we cannot rely on information that the Government themselves are producing—that is what undermines Britain’s negotiating position with the European Union. It is not the fact that information might be published that the EU could have put together itself quite easily; it is that the Government’s action in attempting to conceal that information and then seeking to discredit it demonstrates to our EU partners what they probably knew—that they are negotiating with a disorganised, disunited, shambolic and incompetent Government. That weakens Britain’s negotiating position more than any release of Brexit analysis papers could ever do.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

First, may I add to the earlier comments about how good it is to see you back in your place, Mr Deputy Speaker? It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Redditch (Rachel Maclean).

The debate has been conducted in a cordial and respectful manner. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of previous debates about the impact assessments and many of our Brexit debates, when Members on the Government Benches have repeatedly impugned the motives and questioned the patriotism of Members not only on my side of the House, but on their own Back Benches. This kind of conduct has to stop because debate in this Chamber cannot function on that basis.

When we take our Oath of Allegiance of office, we swear to act in the national interest, in faithful service to those who elected us, and we do so on the understanding that everyone else in this place does the same. Although I may believe that other Members err in what they hold to be in the best interests of our country, I would never for one moment doubt or question the sincerity with which they hold those views, I would never question their patriotism and I would never impugn their motives.

The contest of ideas that illuminates and enlivens this Chamber is one of different solutions, predicated on a common understanding that we all place the interests of our country first, even if we differ over what best serves those interests. Without that common understanding, our democracy breaks down.

That is just one part of a worrying shift in our political culture, however: one where parliamentarians simply trying to do our job are dismissed as traitors or saboteurs; and where the civil service is told, “We’ve had enough of experts,” because they do not give Ministers the answers they want. The job of civil servants is not to tell Ministers what they want to hear. It is to tell them what they need to hear—to speak truth to power.

Parliamentarians requesting information are not betraying our country. We are simply trying to do our job and stand up for our constituents. So when we call for the release of these documents, it is not about undermining the process; it is about improving the process. Parliamentary government requires an informed legislature. That means we must have access to this information. It is not good enough to tell us to wait until October, because by then it will be too late, as we are entering a crunch-point in the negotiations right now.

Earlier this week, we saw the EU agree its transition negotiating guidelines in just two minutes and, as we have seen, once Mr Barnier gets his marching orders he does not deviate from them. In about six weeks the EU will agree the negotiating directives for the final trade deal phase of the withdrawal talks. We should let that sink in for a moment: in six weeks, we will be asked to make the most important choice in our post-war history.

We talk of the fantasy Canada plus plus plus, but these leaked reports give the game away. They do not have anything on a Canada plus plus plus scenario, because such a scenario does not exist. It cannot exist. The “plus plus plus” is presumably supposed to mean the services sector, which accounts for over 80% of the British economy, but just two weeks ago at the Brexit Committee we heard from Christophe Bondy, the lead Canadian negotiator on CETA—the comprehensive economic and trade agreement—who said there is no way for services to be part of a CETA-type deal. The fact is that a Canada-style deal would be about as much use to this country as a chocolate teapot.

It is crystal-clear that the most seamless and secure Brexit—the Brexit that is best for Britain—is an EFTA-a EEA-based Brexit. That is the only Brexit that protects jobs and opportunities, while also delivering control and influence. An EEA-EFTA Brexit ensures maximal access to the single market, being an internal market with the majority of the single market. It therefore protects jobs and investment, strengthens our hand in taking on multinationals such as Google and Amazon when they fail to pay their fair share, and protects vital workplace rights.

[Peter Grant]

Given the hon. Gentleman’s desire to retain access to the single market, can he explain why he does not want to just stay in the single market? Would not that provide the best possible access?

[Stephen Kinnock]

One of the key issues in the referendum was the free movement of labour and, as I shall go on to explain, there is an important provision in the EEA agreement that enables the application of an emergency brake on free movement. That is an important distinction between the EEA and the single market and it is one that we should look at seriously.

An EEA-EFTA-based Brexit would let us take back more control. It would end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice and direct effect, ensuring that British courts had sovereignty. It would also allow us to shape the rules of the internal market through the EEA joint committees and veto those that did not work, with the right of reservation as enshrined in the EEA agreement. An EEA-EFTA Brexit would allow us to reform free movement by triggering articles 112 and 113, following the protocol 15 precedent, potentially allowing us to introduce a quota-based system to manage the inward flow of labour.

Above all else, an EEA-EFTA Brexit would allow us to reunite our deeply divided country. The Brexit referendum was won on a narrow margin, but the result was clear, and that was why I voted to trigger article 50. The Prime Minister then called an election, hoping to secure a mandate for a hard Brexit, but she had her majority cut substantially. The country said no to a hard Brexit. Any rational Government would accept that decision and commit to a sensible Brexit, rather than ploughing on through this fantasy hard Brexit land of rainbows and unicorns. The country said no to a hard Brexit. It said yes to a Brexit that bridges the divide. Our future relationship with our most important commercial, diplomatic and political partner is on a burning platform, and we have only until the end of March to put out those fires. I therefore urge the Prime Minister and her Cabinet to show some leadership, get off the fence and commit unequivocally to an EEA-EFTA Brexit.