A former Foreign and Commonwealth Office perm sec has questioned the usefulness of the controversial sector analysis documents produced by Brexit secretary David Davis published by the Committee for Exiting the European Union following a long-running battle with Whitehall.
The Commons committee yesterday published 39 sector analysis documents received from the Department for Exiting the European Union after weeks of wrangling with Davis over the existence of impact assessments on the effect leaving the EU would have on different elements of the UK economy.
But the documents, called “sectoral reports”, are essentially overviews of UK industrial sectors that refer to location and global markets. While they recognise current trading arrangements and regulation, they generally do not take views on the impact of the UK’s decision to leave the European Union. The documents as delivered to MPs and members of the House of Lords contained sector views on Brexit and details of stakeholder engagement in the process triggered by June 2016’s referendum result.
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The acting chair of the Lords’ EU Committee, former Foreign Office permanent secretary Lord Michael Jay of Ewelme said panel members had reviewed the documents and had found them to be “variable in length and inconsistent in approach, and in the use of statistics” and called on the reports to be published in full by Davis.
Jay, who was permanent under-secretary at the FCO from 2002-2006, said he and his colleagues felt that the representation of stakeholder views in the so-far unpublished versions of the reports was “patchy” and in some cases had been drawn from evidence submitted to select committee inquiries.
“There is little over-arching analysis by the government: no conclusions are drawn with regard to the UK’s future relationship with the EU,” he said.
“We have not identified any material in the sectoral analyses that could be regarded as ‘negotiation sensitive’.
“In light of these findings, we can see no reason why the sectoral analyses should not be published in full.”
Jay said the so-far-unpublished sector views on particular Brexit options, such as single market membership, differed across sectors, but in most cases there was a “wish to minimise disruption and uncertainty”.
He added that common concerns included access to EU labour; the minimisation of tariffs and regulatory barriers to trade; data sharing; mutual recognition of qualifications; access to cross-border services; and the importance of EU research and development funding.
Brexit secretary Davis came under fire from MPs on the Committee for Exiting the European Union last month because the 850 pages of analysis that the documents comprise were not the “impact assessments” they had initially requested.
Despite having previously suggested that Whitehall was awash with impact assessments on leaving the EU, Davis subsequently claimed that no impact assessments existed.
DExEU perm sec Philip Rycroft subsequently told the Committee for Exiting the European Union that the sector report documents released to MPs had been offered up to them to meet the spirit of their request.
Committee chair Hilary Benn said Davis had been consulted before the documents were released yesterday.
“After providing this material to the committee, the secretary of state for exiting the European Union told us on December 6 that the government have not undertaken any impact assessments on the implications of leaving the EU for different sectors of the British economy,” he said.
“Since that evidence session, we have sought to clarify with the secretary of state whether there is any specific material in the documents provided that he would prefer the committee not to publish on the grounds that it is commercially, market or negotiation-sensitive information.”
The 39 reports, are understood to have been boiled down from 58 earlier incarnations which overlapped sectors. Each is headed with a disclaimer that it is drawn from a “wide mix of qualitative and quantitative analysis contained in a range of documents developed at different times since the referendum” and has been created in response to the select committee’s request.
“As the government has already made clear, it is not the case that 58 sectoral impact assessments exist,” the disclaimer says.