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Treasury to publish Brexit deal analysis after rebellion DUP votes against finance bill in further blow to May
(about 1 hour later)
After a backbench rebellion, the Treasury will publish analysis comparing the impact of Theresa May’s Brexit deal with staying in the European Union before MPs vote on it next month, ministers have confirmed. The future of Theresa May’s government has been thrown into further doubt after the Democratic Unionist party, whose 10 votes she relies on for a majority in parliament, abstained or backed Labour in a series of votes on the budget.
The government was forced to promise the forecasts after a cross-party amendment to the finance bill, tabled by Labour’s Chuka Umunna and Conservative Anna Soubry, gained enough support to overturn May’s majority. The DUP is furious about the prime minister’s Brexit deal, and its decision to withhold support from the finance bill raised doubts about the future of the confidence and supply arrangement on which May’s ability to secure a majority is based.
Treasury minister Robert Jenrick confirmed the government would provide economic modelling of three Brexit scenarios compared with the status quo. The DUP’s Brexit spokesman, Sammy Wilson, said the government had reneged on its promises, and “consequences were inevitable”.
He told MPs: “The analysis will consider a modelled no-deal scenario – or World Trade Organization terms – a modelled analysis of a free trade agreement scenario, and a modelled analysis of the government’s proposed deal.” The Government made clear commitments never to undermine the constitutional or economic integrity of the United Kingdom. They have reneged. Consequences were inevitable. pic.twitter.com/I9OB2tzn2o
MPs from both parties are pressing the government to publish as much analysis as possible about the impact of its Brexit deal as they prepare for the momentous “meaningful vote”, which is likely to happen in early December. The prime minister turned to the DUP in June last year when her majority was wiped out in the general election. The agreement the two parties subsequently signed, and which led to more than £1bn of extra resources being directed to Northern Ireland, said that the DUP would support the government on “all motions of confidence; and on the Queen’s Speech; the Budget; finance bills; money bills, supply and appropriation legislation and estimates”.
Labour won a vote last week forcing the government to publish the legal advice underpinning its deal. Monday’s amendment was backed by former minister Jo Johnson, who resigned earlier this month with a stinging warning that the prime minister was offering parliament a choice between “vassalage and chaos”. After it emerged that the DUP had abandoned the Conservatives on a series of issues, including a Labour motion on child poverty, Jon Trickett, the shadow minister for the Cabinet Office, said: “We no longer have a functioning government. With Brexit only a few months away, something has got to give.”
Supporters of a “people’s vote” are keen to prevent May framing the choice facing MPs as her deal or no deal when she brings it back to parliament next month, but the amendment was also backed by the Labour frontbench. DUP sources suggested the decision to withhold their support was a shot across the bows of the government, rather than a signal that the confidence and supply deal is in abeyance.
The government’s concession underlined the challenge now facing May in getting even everyday business through the House of Commons. None of the opposition amendments passed and the DUP could still opt to support the budget at later stages of the legislative process. But, without the DUP’s support, May would find passing any contentious legislation in the coming weeks impossible, and the gesture underlined the depth of the party’s frustrations about the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.
Treasury sources insisted on Monday that the government had always intended to publish such projections – pointing to a letter send by the chancellor, Philip Hammond, to the Treasury select committee chair Nicky Morgan earlier this year, which mentioned analysing the impact of no deal “relative to a status quo baseline”. They also pointed out that the economic analysis would be collated by the Department for Exiting the European Union. Arlene Foster’s party has pledged to vote against May’s deal when she brings it back to the House of Commons, which is likely to be early next month.
Under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act, a defeat on the finance bill, which implements the budget, is no longer formally considered a matter of no confidence that would cause the government to fall, but Downing Street has previously opted to cave in on contentious issues where it risks parliamentary defeat. It has already been forced to reverse plans in the finance bill to delay cutting the stakes on controversial fixed-odds betting gambling machines. The issue led to the resignation of the sports minister Tracey Crouch before the government executed an embarrassing U-turn last week in the face of opposition on its own benches. The DUP objects in particular to the Irish backstop, which it argues would keep Northern Ireland in the regulatory orbit of the EU – and in a different regime to the rest of the UK.
The government had to cave in on the issue of cutting the stakes for addictive fixed-odds betting machines, which prompted the resignation of the sports minister Tracey Crouch, after the threat of a backbench revolt on the finance bill.
In a fresh concession on Monday night, the Treasury minister, Robert Jenrick, announced that the government would publish economic analysis of remaining in the EU, alongside its projections for the government’s Brexit deal, before MPs vote on it.
Jenrick’s concession, made during the debate, came after a cross-party amendment tabled by Labour’s Chuka Umunna and the Conservative Anna Soubry, secured the backing of 11 Conservative MPs – more than enough to wipe out May’s majority, even without DUP backing.
BrexitBrexit
Theresa MayTheresa May
European UnionEuropean Union
Chuka UmunnaChuka Umunna
Philip HammondPhilip Hammond
LabourLabour
ConservativesConservatives
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