I will come back to the hon. Lady later, because I suspect she wants to address environmental issues and I will come to those in my speech.
Our programme of analysis is important in enabling us to seize the opportunities and in ensuring that our EU exit is a smooth and orderly process. As we discussed yesterday, the Joint Ministerial Committee on exit negotiations was set up to develop a UK-wide approach to the forthcoming negotiations. I know that analysis has been and can be exchanged confidentially through
that forum. The Committee should be in no doubt that policy relating to EU exit is underpinned by rigorous and extensive analytical and assessment work. As with all internal analytical work in government, it is not the standard practice to give a public commentary as the analysis develops.
We have said all along that we will lay out as much detail as possible on EU exit, provided that doing so does not risk damaging our negotiating position. The House voted on a motion that confirmed that there should be no disclosure of material that could damage the UK in negotiations. In any negotiation, information on potential economic or financial considerations is very important to the negotiating capital and position of all parties.
Most of the new clauses and amendments would require the Government to publish analysis or assessment work before the process of negotiating with our European Union partners begins and, indeed, before the Prime Minister provides a notification under article 50, as Government Members have pointed out repeatedly. Those include new clause 5, which stands in the names of the Leader of the Opposition and many other Members; new clause 49, which stands in the names of the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Owen Smith) and many other Members; and new clause 143, which stands in the name of the hon. Member for North East Fife (Stephen Gethins) and many other SNP Members; as well as more than 40 other proposals that I do not intend to list. The common requirement is that we publish information at a time when it could either delay the triggering of article 50 or jeopardise the UK’s negotiating position. That runs contrary to the approach that has already been accepted by this House. For that reason, I cannot accept those new clauses and amendments.
I want to touch briefly on amendments 24 to 26, which were tabled by the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) to ensure that the Government take account of our responsibilities to represent the interests of Gibraltar, the Crown dependencies and the overseas territories. I assure him that we are doing exactly that. The amendments are not necessary. I met the members of the Joint Ministerial Council for the overseas territories this morning to take their views on board in this process.