12:52

To kick off this morning’s cabinet meeting, Theresa May talked her ministers through the government report about the potential economic damage of various Brexit scenarios leaked to Buzzfeed, we were told. This is what May’s spokesman said:

At the beginning of cabinet the prime minister noted media coverage of a report purporting to show the economic impact of Britain leaving the EU. The PM said this was initial work, not approved by ministers, which only considers off-the-shelf scenarios. No analysis was made of the bespoke arrangement we seek as a matter of government policy, as set out in the Florence speech.

There was no wider talk of the report among ministers. Having explained all this, the spokesman then spent much of the rest of the briefing parrying questions on the leaked document he’d just discussed, saying he could not discuss leaked documents.

One interesting element of this was that the spokesman was unable to confirm that Downing Street believes the bespoke Brexit deal the government is seeking will, unlike the other scenarios, prove economically beneficial.

Otherwise, we learned, cabinet discussed measured to combat domestic abuse and violence, and corporate governance in the wake of the Carillion collapse.

