Think-tank disputes reporting bias in Treasury Brexit studies

The controversy over leaked assessments of the economic damage of Brexit has deepened after a right-leaning think-tank was forced to deny it told ministers that supposedly independent civil service studies on the matter were deliberately skewed. Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform said in a statement on Thursday that he recalled discussing Treasury research into Brexit with minister Steve Baker. But “I did not say or imply that the Treasury had deliberately developed a model to show that all non-customs union options were bad, with the intention to influence policy”, he added.

The statement came after an exchange in the House of Commons in which arch Eurosceptic MP Jacob Rees-Mogg asked Mr Baker to confirm whether he had heard from the CER that the Treasury has “deliberately developed a model to show that all options other than staying in the customs union were bad and that officials intended to use this to influence policy” - a move that would breach the impartiality demanded and expected from the civil service.

Mr Rees-Mogg’s Tory colleague Mr Baker said that was “broadly correct”.

“At the time I considered it implausible because my direct experience is that civil servants are extraordinarily careful to uphold the impartiality of the civil service,” he added. “I think it would be quite extraordinary if it turned out that such a thing had happened.

”Mr Baker also hit out at the work of civil servants on Tuesday during an Urgent Question on the analysis leaked to BuzzFeed this week, which suggested the hit to the UK economy from Brexit could vary from 2 per cent to 8 per cent, with the impact deepening as the UK set itself further apart from the EU.

Asked whether he could name a single civil service forecast that had ever been accurate, Mr Baker said: “They are always wrong and wrong for good reasons…I look forward to the day when we continue to prove economists wrong when they make horror story predictions.

”Mr Baker said the BuzzFeed article was a “selective interpretation of a preliminary analysis”, and “an attempt to undermine our exit from the European Union”.

Mr Grant disputed the account of his discussion on the matter with Mr Baker:“I recall saying to Steve Baker at a Prospect lunch at the Conservative Party conference that I was aware of research that the Treasury had done. This apparently showed that the economic benefits of the UK forging FTAs with third countries outside the EU were significantly less than the economic costs of leaving the customs union,” he said.