Many things were said, which is my point. Some might argue that being in the EEA or a member of EFTA precisely gives one not just access to but membership of the single market—one could call it access if one likes. There was deep, deep confusion in the messaging of the no side, which must be rectified now with proper details on the trajectory of the key economic numbers before more decisions are taken.
I say that we are facing a hard Brexit, and let us understand what has been said. The leaked Treasury document last November suggested that the UK could lose up to £66 billion from a hard Tory Brexit and that GDP could fall by about 9.5% if the UK reverted to WTO rules. I accept that that is a worst-case scenario, but if the circumstances that lead us to that catastrophe occur and we do not have a plan to mitigate it, the guilt would lie with the Government for failing to plan. The final part of that—the “if we revert to WTO rules”—is key, because the Prime Minister has said that a bad deal is worse than no deal. That is very twisted logic, because no deal is the worst deal; it means we revert immediately to WTO rules, with all the tariffs and other regulatory burdens that that implies.
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Of course, the leaked Treasury document was not published in isolation. The centre for economic performance at the London School of Economic published very similar numbers, saying:
“In the long run, reduced trade lowers productivity”.
That is already a huge problem for the UK. It also said:
“That increases the costs of Brexit to a loss of between 6.3% to 9.5% of GDP”.
It puts a range of figures on that, varying between £4,200 and £6,500 per household. When we consider that impact on real people, a substantial measure of strength is added to the argument.
The figures for Scotland, independently produced by the Fraser of Allander Institute, are in line with those other assessments. They suggest a hard Brexit could result in the loss of some 80,000 Scottish jobs within a decade and a drop in wages averaging about £2,000. I do not think any politician, of any party, would willingly say, “Let’s embark on a course of action that will lead to the near impoverishment of many people in society”, but that is where we are with the hard Tory Brexit argument. [Interruption.] I can hear the groans, but year after year we heard “Long-term economic plan”, and it failed at every turn. I think it is better if we argue that we are facing a hard Brexit—a cliff-edge Brexit—and we prepare for it. That makes sense.
In addition to those assessments, we had today’s report that senior executives from the FTSE 500 companies are telling us that the Brexit vote is already having a negative impact on their businesses. That should have alarm bells ringing throughout the Government, but instead there is simply complacency. We have also seen the British Chambers of Commerce report telling us that almost half the businesses surveyed have seen a hit to margins due to the devaluation caused by the fear of Brexit, with more than half suggesting they will have to increase prices. That is all the more reason to assess and understand the trajectory of many of the key metrics and the plans to mitigate the worst impact.
All those things come before we get to the vexed question of the balance of trade. Our current account for the last full year was £80 billion in the red and we had a deficit in the trade in goods of £120 billion, yet we are faced with a Brexit that will make that worse, ripping the UK and Scotland out of the world’s largest and most successful trading bloc. Doing that without the asked-for clear assessment of the damage and any credible plan to mitigate it included in a comprehensive White Paper is an act of wilful economic vandalism.