Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Thursday 14th December 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Baker]

As the hon. Gentleman will know, the purpose of the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill is to bring EU law into UK law in the state it is in at our point of exit. Beyond that, in the implementation period, things are a matter for negotiations.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I recently booked an appointment in the reading room. I thought that it would be like an inner circle of hell, and that I would be trapped in there for days reading the sectoral analysis. Indeed, I was there with the hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh). In fact, there were only nine pages on health and social care, and the documents relevant to my Select Committee took me less than an hour to read in their entirety. I believe that in the interests of transparency, these very straightforward documents should be in the public domain. Will the Secretary of State publish them?

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

The sectoral analysis has already been made available to the Select Committees, as per the motion of the House, and to all Members of this House through the reading room. The documents contain a range of information, including sector views, some of which would certainly be of great interest to the other side in these negotiations.