Legal powers in use to seek Brexit clarity in Plymouth

The leader of Plymouth City Council is to use of new legal powers to attempt to force the government to reveal the truth about the impact of Brexit on the region.

Tudor Evans is invoking the Sustainable Communities Act to make the government share information concerning what it knows about how Brexit will affect the city, even if it is considered confidential.

Writing to Communities Secretary James Brokenshire, Evans seeks ‘immediate receipt by Plymouth City Council of all government departmental information and analysis pertaining to the impacts upon Plymouth’s communities and businesses of the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union, including any information deemed by the government to be confidential’.

Plymouth is reported to be the first council in the country to use the Act, which was established to allow councils to challenge the government to help the economic, social or environmental well-being of a local area, in this manner.

Evans said: “Like many other cities, there is a big cloud of economic uncertainty hanging menacingly over our heads. Brexit is going to have an impact on Plymouth, that is for sure. But for this council to do the job of protecting businesses and residents, we have to know exactly what the government has planned for us because at the moment, we don’t know.

“We’ve seen various dossiers released in the last few weeks. They have been at best woolly and do not address what Brexit means for individual communities. This must change. They have to give us answers. Whether is going to be hard Brexit, soft Brexit, or even no Brexit. What have the government found out and why are they keeping the answers from us?

“Although we are the first council to use the act in this way, I don’t expect us to be the last. I will be speaking to colleagues all around the country in the next few days to help put pressure on the government for answers. This doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. If there are advantages to Brexit then tell us so we can exploit them. But we must also know where there are disadvantages so that we can temper them.”