DAVID Davis's department has refused to say whether it has analysed the impact of Brexit on Scotland because doing so could provoke a "reactionary" response that could damage the economy.

The Department for Exiting the European Union (DExEU) said confirming or denying the existence of a report could "impact the national and regional economies by precipitating preemptive and reactionary assumptions from stakeholders in the respective regions".

It was responding to a freedom of information (FOI) request following claims by the department's former chief of staff, James Chapman, that it carried out analysis showing Scotland and the North East of England would lose most from Brexit.

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It came as the Brexit Secretary and Treasury were threatened with legal action within two weeks unless they publish more than 50 studies on the economic impact of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union.

The department's refusal to engage on whether the regional analysis even exists comes after repeated attempts by MPs and campaigners to make public documents on Brexit's impact through parliamentary questions and FOI requests.

DExEU's response said: "In this case, the disclosure of whether information is held or not held may give insight which could in turn undermine the UK's negotiations with the EU or adversely affect the UK's national and regional interests.

"By confirming or denying whether we held this information, we could similarly impact the national and regional economies by precipitating preemptive and reactionary assumptions from stakeholders in the respective regions.

"This, again, may undermine the success of the bilateral negotiations and consequently damage the UK economy."

Earlier this week, Labour's David Lammy helped orchestrate a letter from more than 120 MPs urging Mr Davis to "come clean" and publish DExEU's economic analysis.

He said: "DExEU need to stop keeping Parliament and the public in the dark and come clean about all the Brexit impact assessments they have carried out.

"The public have a right to know what analysis has been done and this analysis has to be published in full so the impact of Brexit is set out and we can have a full and frank debate with all the facts and analysis out in the open.

"It is unacceptable to prevaricate and evade questions and freedom of information requests when our economy, jobs and living standards are on the line."

Solicitors acting for the Good Law Project and Green Party MEP Molly Scott Cato have threatened the Government with a legal challenge through judicial review proceedings unless DExEU and Treasury economic impact assessments are published within 14 days.

Conservative former attorney general Dominic Grieve, who was ex-prime minister David Cameron's top legal adviser, has joined calls for the information to be published.

He told the House magazine: "If the Government has prepared these impact assessments I would be very keen to read them, and I find it difficult to see why they shouldn't be made available to the public.

"I think it's important that the public should understand how the Government's own advisers see the consequences that Brexit will have."

The former Remain campaigner added: "I can't escape the fact that it's always seemed to me that the decision we took when we had the referendum last year was unfortunately taken on a lack of information."

DExEU has promised to publish a "full list of sectors" it has analysed "shortly".