In her speech to Parliament this evening, Seema Malhotra MP urged the government to put Country before Party, and to publish the sectoral impact assessments that she and others have been demanding for some months.

Seema Malhotra MP, said:

“In two years the Secretary of State has gone from saying that FoI information is withheld from the public for no good reason, other than to “spare the blushes of the powerful” to saying the government need “safe spaces” for policy development.

“He’s gone from saying “We have far more to gain than we have to lose, while the opposite is true for the EU” to telling the EU lords select committee yesterday that Britain’s Brexit withdrawal agreement will “probably favour“ the EU.

“In six months he’s gone from declaring that no deal is better than a bad deal us to we will have a we will have a basic deal , “a deal without the bits we want”.

“This confusion at the heart of Government must not now get in the way of the nation now planning together for the huge challenges for our economy that lie ahead. Ministers should now listen to the nearly 200 MPs of all parties who have called for these reports to be published. Where there is a need for confidentiality those procedures can and must be agreed between the Government and Parliament.”