My right hon. and learned Friend knows a lot from his own experience as Chancellor about the confidential information presented to Ministers ahead of Budgets, but that process has to go through a number of stages. As I have said, this information, which is preliminary and not yet finished, was presented to Ministers for the first time in recent days. It is, therefore, not in a form that is approved to go forward in the way he describes.
Despite, and in many cases because of, the points I have made, the analysis remains sensitive. Let me stress that the only reason we do not oppose the Opposition motion is that it makes clear that the analysis is to be shared with the Select Committee and Members on a confidential basis. We are about to embark on exploratory talks with the European Union regarding our future relationship and will be in formal negotiations over the coming months. Having an incomplete analysis such as this in the public domain would not serve the national interest in the upcoming negotiations. I cannot imagine that any reasonable Member of this House genuinely believes that it is in the national interest for the Government to have to publish at the start of the negotiation unfinished, developing analysis of scenarios that we are clear we do not want.
There is, however, another equally important reason that this analysis should not be put in the public domain, and it is simple: the functioning of Government—by which I mean any Government—about which my right hon. and learned Friend knows a great deal. I ask hon. Members who have been Ministers, who aspire to be Ministers or who have ever held a position of responsibility how they would feel about having to publish their team’s work in progress partway through a project. I am sure they would agree that publishing unfinished initial findings can be extremely misleading, and I am confident that they would join me in ensuring that that does not happen on a routine basis.