THE UK Government has refused to say whether or not it has analysed the impact of Brexit on Scotland because to do so could undermine the Brussels talks and provoke a "reactionary" response from stakeholders north of the border that could damage Britain’s economy.
The Department for Exiting the European Union’s[DExEU] blanket refusal is given in a response to a Freedom of Information application made after James Chapman, its former chief of staff, claimed it had carried out analysis showing Scotland and the North East of England would lose out most from Brexit.
It follows numerous attempts by MPs and campaigners to make public documents on Brexit's impact through parliamentary questions and FoI requests.
Yesterday during International Trade Questions in the Commons, the SNP’s Hannah Bardell asked the Government to publish the findings of its consultations with business, noting: “At what point will this Government stop governing in secret and publish the reality of the impact of Brexit?”
Liam Fox responded by saying: “We will consult widely, particularly when it comes to new free trade agreements but, of course, the greatest threat to stability, particularly in Scotland, is the insistence of the Scottish Government on threatening a second referendum on independence.”
In its response to the FoI application from the Press Association, the Brexit Department 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 pre-emptive 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," it added.
The response came as David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, and the Treasury were threatened with legal action within two weeks unless they published more than 50 studies on the economic impact of Britain's withdrawal from the European Union.
Earlier this week, Labour's David Lammy helped orchestrate a letter from more than 120 MPs urging Mr Davis to "come clean" and publish his department’s economic analysis.
The London MP 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 the Brexit Department 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.
"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."
The Brexit Department has promised to publish a "full list of sectors" it has analysed "shortly".
Its refusal to comment on whether or not it has analysed the effect of Brexit on the different nations and regions of the UK comes after Philip Hammond admitted the Treasury had a model which looked at Brexit's potential impact on regions.
Questioned by Labour MP Catherine McKinnell at the Commons Treasury Committee on Wednesday, the Chancellor said: "We have a model that can look at sectoral impacts, as well as impacts in bilateral trade pairings with different countries."
Ms McKinnell then asked: "But not particularly regions of the UK?"
The Chancellor replied: "Regions of the UK as well, yes."
He added: "We are constantly using this model. It is not a single assessment; the model is a working tool.
"We constantly use it to test different ideas and potential solutions. For example, output from that model will have informed some of the thinking that has gone into preparing the 14 (Brexit position) papers that have been published," he added.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel