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David Davis has admitted the Government has not assessed the impact of Brexit on Britain’s economy and that it could be as big as the 2008 financial crash.

The Brexit Secretary confirmed that no impact assessments had been conducted by the Government on the likely results of Britain’s exit from the EU for individual sectors, such as automotive, aerospace or financial services.

Mr Davis had previously said during an appearance on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show in June that the Department for Exiting the European Union had “50, nearly 60 sector analyses done”.

He last week gave the House of Commons Exiting the EU Committee 850 pages of what he terms "sectoral analyses", looking at the condition of various parts of the UK economy and their current involvement in the EU market but making no forecasts on the likely impact of Brexit.

Speaking to the committee on Wednesday morning, Mr Davis said that leaving the bloc will provoke a “paradigm change” in the UK economy in a similar way to the financial crash of 2008.

He added that instead, officials will "at some stage" during the forthcoming second phase of Brexit negotiations, dealing with trade, conduct work to quantify the effects of different possible outcomes, such as a free trade agreement with the EU or moving to World Trade Organisation rules.

Labour MP Hilary Benn, chair of the committee, said in an astonishing exchange with the Brexit Secretary: "So the Government hasn't undertaken any impact assessments on the implications for leaving the EU for different sectors of the British economy?

"So there isn't one for example on the automotive sector?"

"No, not that I'm aware of," Mr Davis said.

Mr Benn asked: "Is there one on aerospace?"

Mr Davis replied: "Not that I'm aware of."

Mr Benn said: "One on financial services?"

Mr Davis replied: "Well I think the answer is going to be no to all of them."

Mr Benn continued:"... on the most fundamental change we are facing as a country, you've just told us the Government hasn't undertaken any impact assessments at all."

Former shadow cabinet minister Mr Benn, described the decision not to carry out any impact assessments as "rather strange" when Brexit was the most fundamental change Britain had ever faced as a country.

"You have said there are no impact assessments," said Mr Benn.

"You were hoping that at the October (European) Council, the door would be open to phase two of the negotiations, where the question would be asked 'What does the UK Government want?'

"Are you actually telling us that the Government hadn't at that point - and still hasn't - undertaken the assessment?"

Mr Davis, who was appearing before the Committee to defend his refusal to hand over full details of the Government's analysis of the economic impact of Brexit, said that assessments had never been carried out in the form suggested when Parliament demanded their release.

"You don't need to do a formal impact assessment to understand that if there is a regulatory hurdle between your producers and a market, there will be an impact," he told the committee.

"It will have an effect, the assessment of that effect is not as straightforward as people imagine.

"I'm not a fan of economic models because they have all proven wrong. When you have a paradigm change - as happened in 2008 with the financial crisis - all the models were wrong. The Queen famously asked why did we not know.

"Similarly, what we are dealing with here in every outcome - whether it is a free trade agreement, whether it is a WTO outcome or whether it is something between that on the spectrum - it is a paradigm change.

"We know not the size, but the order of magnitude of the impact."

Mr Benn asked him: "Doesn't it strike you as rather strange that the Government undertakes impact assessments of all sorts of things all the time, but on the most fundamental change that we are facing as a country, you've just told us that the Government hasn't undertaken any impact assessments at all on the implications for various parts of the economy?"

MPs complained that the material had been heavily edited by officials before being released to them, with some suggesting the Brexit Secretary could be in contempt of Parliament for failing to respond adequately to its demand.