Brexit analysis must be shared

Michael Russell, The Minister for UK Negotiations on Scotland’s Place in Europe, has today written to David Davis, the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, to ask for the UK Government’s analysis of the economic impact of Brexit across a range of industrial sectors to be shared with the Scottish Government and other devolved administrations. 

The full text of the letter is set out below.

I have seen your letter this week to Baroness Verma in response to the House of Lords EU External Affairs Sub-Committee’s report Brexit: Trade in Goods. In that you indicate that the UK Government is undertaking analytical work on EU exit across 58 industrial sectors. 

As you and David Mundell have noted in recent public comments, we agreed at the recent Joint Ministerial Committee on EU Negotiations that officials of the UK Government and the devolved administrations should hold further discussions on analysis of sectoral issues in each part of the United Kingdom. 

It would be positive step to have that engagement under way before the next meeting of the JMC (EN). To that end I am writing to ask you to share with the devolved administrations the analysis you have undertaken to date and your plans for taking it forward so that we have a collective understanding of the analysis available to support negotiations and decisions about the UK position for those negotiations. 

I am copying this letter to Damian Green, First Secretary of State, Mark Drakeford, Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government in the Welsh Government, and David Sterling, Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service. 

MICHAEL RUSSELL