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Exclusive: the government was about to publish a plan for monitoring and evaluating free-trade deals in December. Then it signed the Brexit deal, and the plan was shelved 1/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/u-k-holds-back-trade-scrutiny-plan-after-johnson-struck-eu-deal?sref=yMmXm5Iy
In an internal email seen by Bloomberg, the Department for International Trade was due to publish this document - Free Trade Agreements: Monitoring and Evaluation Framework - in the w/c Dec. 14, just before the Brexit deal was concluded on Christmas Eve 2/
It commits the government to detailed scrutiny of new FTAs it signs -- biennial monitoring reports, and a full evaluation report within five years 3/
The document has not been published. An official source said it was held back because the government didn't want the level of scrutiny outlined in the plan to be applied to the EU trade deal 4/
Another official source said work on evaluating trade deals was stopped because it coincided with the signing of the Brexit accord 5/
I asked DIT: 1) Why was the document held back? 2) When will it be published? 3) Will it be applied to the U.K.-EU trade deal? Their reply: `We do not comment on leaks' 6/
The context here is that the government has said it won't publish an impact assessment of the UK-EU deal, despite having done so for other major FTAs, like the deal with Japan 7/ https://twitter.com/Joe_Mayes/status/1359154118837813248
DIT is also facing criticism from opposition MPs for deflecting Brexit questions to other departments - see latest letter from @EmilyThornberry 8/ https://twitter.com/EmilyThornberry/status/1361340770033270785
So will this trade scrutiny plan ever emerge? Will we get biennial monitoring reports and an evaluation report of the Brexit deal within 5 years? Let's see... ends/ https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-17/u-k-holds-back-trade-scrutiny-plan-after-johnson-struck-eu-deal?sref=yMmXm5Iy
