Labour MPs write to chancellor saying public have right to see documents examining range of outcomes of Brexit

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Philip Hammond has come under pressure to publish another set of hidden documents relating to how a series of possible Brexit outcomes, including no deal, will impact on the economy.



Twenty-five Labour MPs have written to the chancellor demanding that he release the studies, which have so far been kept confidential, after he told a select committee that the work had been done.



“The public have a right to know what the impact of Brexit will be for them and for their families,” the politicians, who all support the Open Britain campaign, claimed.

The move comes after a similar suggestion by David Davis that his Brexit department had carried out 58 sectoral analyses resulted in immense pressure to publish the findings.

The Brexit secretary was heavily criticised after putting out documents that he admitted had been stripped of commercially sensitive material and anything considered detrimental to the UK’s negotiating position.

Davis avoided being charged with contempt of parliament over the controversy by persuading MPs that 58 separate impact assessments had never existed in that particular form.

Timeline What did David Davis say about the Brexit impact papers, and when? Show Hide After months of saying they had been carried out in 'excruciating detail', David Davis eventually told parliament the UK government had produced no forecasts on the likely impact of Brexit on various sectors of the economy. Here is what he has said in public on the subject since June 2016. To the House of Lords select committee on the EU “It will take some months to analyse many of the industrial and commercial effects of various options, and to do the analysis on the negotiating balance – where our allies might and might not be. We will take some time – the process has already started.” To the House of Commons foreign affairs committee “There is the sectoral analysis. They [staff at DExEU] are working through about 50 cross-cutting sectors: what is going to happen to them, what the problems of those industrial groups are, and so on.” In the House of Commons “The government continue to undertake a wide range of analysis covering all parts of the UK to inform the UK’s position for the upcoming negotiation with the European partners … We currently have in place an assessment of 51 sectors of the economy." In the House of Commons “We are carrying out an extensive programme of sectoral analysis on the key factors that affect our negotiations with the European Union.” To the House of Commons exiting the European Union committee “We are in the midst of carrying out about 57 sets of analyses, each of which has implications for individual parts of 85% of the economy. Some of those are still to be concluded.” In the House of Commons “We continue to analyse the impact of our exit across the breadth of the UK economy, covering more than 50 sectors – I think it was 58 at the last count – to shape our negotiating position.” On The Andrew Marr Show “In my job I don’t think out loud and I don’t make guesses. Those two things. I try and make decisions. You make those based on the data. That data’s being gathered. We’ve got 50, nearly 60 sector analyses already done.” To the House of Commons exiting the European Union committee “She [Theresa May] will know the summary outcomes of them. She will not necessarily have read every single one. They are in excruciating detail.” Statement attached to a letter from Davis to Lady Verma, chair of the House of Lords EU external affairs sub-committee “We too are conducting a broad range of analysis at the macroeconomic and sectoral level to understand the impact of leaving the EU on all aspects of the UK, including the agriculture sector.” Written statement to parliament “It is not the case that 58 sectoral impact assessments exist.” To the House of Commons exiting the EU committee “There is no systematic impact assessment.”

Now a fresh push for more transparency on the government’s Brexit preparations has emerged because Hammond told the Treasury select committee this month that the government had “modelled and analysed a wide range of potential alternative structures between the European Union and the United Kingdom”.

He said the work “informs our negotiating position”.

In a new letter, Labour MPs including Chris Leslie, Catherine West and Maria Eagle asked the chancellor to publish this analysis so their constituents could know what the impact of Brexit would be on themselves and their families.

“Without access to the latest taxpayer-funded analysis and research, parliament will be hamstrung in its ability to scrutinise the government’s approach and to present the facts to our constituents,” they said.

“It is vital that light is shed on the modelling and analysis that the Treasury has carried out. The best way to achieve that would be for the analysis to be published in its entirety.”

They claimed that leaving the EU would result in “profound and wide-ranging economic consequences”, so it was right for the public to understand what could happen.

Their letter was sent after questions surrounding what “end state” the government was aiming for rose in prominence as Theresa May and her cabinet embarked on their first formal talks about the issue.

Two meetings of May’s Brexit inner cabinet and then of the full ministerial team began with a presentation by the senior civil servant, Oliver Robbins. His work is likely to have to drawn on internal research assessing how each possible Brexit outcome is likely to hit the economy.

The discussions are critical as British and EU negotiators prepare to enter the second phase of Brexit talks, on an implementation period and then the future trading arrangement.

The controversy surrounding Davis concerned how British sectors would be affected by Brexit, while the information referenced by Hammond refers to the overall impact of different trading outcomes.

The Labour politicians, also including Alison McGovern, Stephen Doughty and Stella Creasy, said parliament needed that information now as Brexit legislation made its way through parliament. In their letter they asked:

Has this work been carried out independently by the Treasury?

Does the analysis differ significantly from the Treasury’s pre-referendum analysis?

Has the Treasury shared the analysis with DExEU and No 10? If not, how can it be said to be informing our negotiating position?

Has the prime minister read the conclusions of the analysis of each modelled outcome?

In response, the Treasury pointed to Hammond’s comments at the time of the select committee hearing earlier this month.



Asked by a committee member, Catherine McKinnell, if the information ought to be placed in the public domain given that it would help inform the public and parliament about the final outcome, Hammond suggested that it ought to be published but at a later date.

“When we get to the point where we have a deal negotiated and agreed, and it is being put before parliament, at that stage the maximum amount of analysis being placed in the public domain would be helpful,” he said.

“At this stage, when we have not even begun the negotiation yet, I am afraid that to put our analysis in the public domain would be deeply unhelpful to the negotiation. There is no decision for parliament to make at this point. Parliament’s decision point will be when the government have negotiated a deal and are presenting it to parliament for endorsement.”

But a Labour MP, Leslie, argued that that would be too late as MPs would by then be faced with a single option. He said: “MPs are weighing up vital issues right now – on the withdrawal bill, the customs bill, the trade bill and so on. Only revealing the need to shut the gate after the horse has bolted would be the height of irresponsibility.”

The MPs also pointed out that Davis had been disparaging about Treasury work during the referendum itself.



“The Treasury carried out analysis during the referendum of different possible outcomes, including continued single market membership, completing a Canada-style free trade agreement, and falling back on to WTO [World Trade Organisation] terms. However, in March, the Brexit secretary dismissed this analysis, saying the Treasury’s forecasts had been shown to not be ‘robust’,” they wrote.

Davis’s comment, in front of a select committee, was in reference to modelling by government officials that was used by David Cameron and the remain campaign team in 2016.

The Brexit secretary added that May’s government had not by then (March 2017) forecast the likely impact of a no-deal scenario but would try to quantify the impacts of different outcomes.

By December he said the government would “at some stage … do the best we can to quantify the effect of different negotiating outcomes as we come up with them”. The next day Hammond suggested that much of that work had already been done.