MNI: UK's Brexit Impact Studies To Be Released Within 3 Weeks

--UK Government Says Will Not Risk Negotiating Position

     LONDON (MNI) - The UK government will release Brexit sector impact studies

within 3 weeks, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European

Union Steve Baker said Tuesday in response to an emergency question in the House

of Commons.

Amid accusations that the government are dragging their feet on the release of

the analysis, and that they could be purposefully stalling for time to alter the

information, Baker said that the government would not risk their negotiating

position and accused the Labour party of being unpatriotic in their demands.

"The information that we have includes commercially sensitive information, it

includes information which is material to our negotiating capital and it

includes advice to ministers," said Baker.

During the question session, Baker responded to calls from the Labour party that

the studies should be released in full, and calls from his own party that the

Brexit Select Committee should be furnished with the complete documents and they

will make the decision on what to release. He noted that it was in fact a member

of the Labour party who suggested that summaries or redacted versions be

released.

     Baker asserted multiple times that the studies did not feature quantitative

forecasts on the impact of Brexit, but rather looked at how sectors of the

economy could potentially be affected.

"The analysis thus has been a wide mix of qualitative and quantitative analysis

contained in a range of documents developed at different times since the

referendum, it examines the nature of activities in the sectors how trade is

conducted with the EU currently in these sectors and in many cases considers the

alternative after we leave," Baker told MP's.

The comments from Baker follow a letter from Secretary of State for Exiting the

European Union David Davis to the head of the Exiting the European Union Select

Committee Hillary Benn on Monday, stating that the documents do not constitute a

"series of discrete impact assessments examining the quantitative impact of

Brexit on these sectors."

--MNI London Bureau; +44 203 865 3809; email: kieran.williams@marketnews.com

--MNI London Bureau; tel: +44 203-586-2225; email: les.commons@marketnews.com

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