UK Parliament / Open data

Government’s EU Exit Analysis

Proceeding contribution from Keir Starmer (Labour) in the House of Commons on Wednesday, 31 January 2018. It occurred during Opposition day on Government’s EU Exit Analysis.

Before I give way, I will make one further point about the line of defence of rubbishing the analysis. It is deeply discourteous and disrespectful to the civil servants who have worked on those papers and are presumably continuing to work on them, often in difficult circumstances. In my experience, having been a civil servant, and having had civil servants as staff, they do a very good job whether or not they agree with the instructions given to them. To glibly answer

that they are always wrong was deeply disrespectful to them. I hope the Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, the hon. Member for Worcester (Mr Walker), who will speak for the Government today, will take the opportunity formally to apologise to the civil servants who prepared those papers in good faith, and assure them of the support we all have for the work they are trying to do.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
635 c829 
Session
2017-19
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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