Politics

Ministers threatened with legal action over impact of Brexit studies

Brexit secretary David Davis after speaking to the ECR 'Deal or No Deal' conference in Central Hall Westminster, London, as the Brexit battle returns to the Commons after key Cabinet players agreed Theresa May should offer the EU a bigger divorce bill settlement to speed up trade talks. With the prime minister facing a fresh crunch vote on landmark Brexit legislation in Parliament, Mrs May secured top-level backing to try to end the log-jam on exit negotiations PICTURE: Philip Toscano/PA
Brexit secretary David Davis after speaking to the ECR 'Deal or No Deal' conference in Central Hall Westminster, London, as the Brexit battle returns to the Commons after key Cabinet players agreed Theresa May should offer the EU a bigger divorce Brexit secretary David Davis after speaking to the ECR 'Deal or No Deal' conference in Central Hall Westminster, London, as the Brexit battle returns to the Commons after key Cabinet players agreed Theresa May should offer the EU a bigger divorce bill settlement to speed up trade talks. With the prime minister facing a fresh crunch vote on landmark Brexit legislation in Parliament, Mrs May secured top-level backing to try to end the log-jam on exit negotiations PICTURE: Philip Toscano/PA

MINISTERS are facing a fresh threat of legal action unless they release a series of internal Whitehall studies on the economic impact of Brexit.

Green MEP Molly Scott Cato and Jolyon Maugham QC of the Good Law Project have said they will start judicial review proceedings in the High Court unless 58 sectoral impact studies are released within 14 days.

They are also demanding the release of a Treasury report comparing the possible costs of leaving the European Union with the potential benefits of striking new free trade agreements with other countries.

The move comes after Labour successfully used an arcane parliamentary procedure to pass a Commons motion earlier this month calling for the impact assessments to be provided to the Commons Exiting the EU Committee.

Brexit minister Steve Baker told MPs on November 7 that the government would release its assessment of the potential economic impact of Brexit within three weeks – although he warned that it did not exist in the form of 58 separate studies as the motion suggested.

Brexit secretary David Davis has indicated ministers would seek to withhold confidential or commercially sensitive information as well as analysis that had been developed to underpin advice to ministers on their various negotiating options.

However, in a letter sent to Mr Davis and Chancellor Philip Hammond, lawyers for Ms Scott Cato and Mr Maugham said they were calling for the release of the information in full.

Mr Maugham, who raised £60,000 through crowd-sourcing to fund the challenge, said: "The government's desperate desire to hide the reality of Brexit from its own people will not work.

"Our old-fashioned, home-grown common law gives us the right to see these documents – not just whatever's left after a minister, desperate for secrecy, has gone at them with a thick black marker pen."

Meanwhile, Brexit Secretary David Davis said the UK was prepared for the possibility of not securing a deal with the EU.

He said: "While I have said I'm confident that we can get a deal with the European Union, of course, the alternative is possible, not probable, but it's possible, that we don't get a deal.

"The department I run, Dexeu for short, isn't called the department for getting a deal come what may, it is the Department for Exiting the European Union.

"And, whatever happens, we are leaving the European Union and delivering on the instructions of the British people.

"I don't think it would be in the interests of either side for there to be no deal.

"As a responsible government it is right that we make every plan for every eventuality."

Mr Davis was speaking at a Brexit conference entitled Deal Or No Deal in London, and stumbled as he left the stage.