Leaked Government Report Says North East Will Be Among Hardest Hit By Brexit

30 January 2018, 07:13 | Updated: 30 January 2018, 07:15

The North East economy will be one of the hardest hit by our departure from the EU, according to a leaked Government report.

The PM is now facing demands to publish the Government's impact assessment - which says Britain will be worse off because of Brexit, no matter what the final exit deal is.

The analysis, prepared for the Department for Exiting the EU, concluded growth would be lower under a series of potential scenarios, according to a leaked copy seen by the BuzzFeed News website.

It warns every region of the UK would lose out, with the North East, the West Midlands and Northern Ireland facing the biggest loss of growth.

And it's doubly bad for anyone who works at Sunderland's Nissan plant, one of the North East's big shopping centres or airports.

Sectors like car-making, retail and aviation are those the report says are most likely to struggle.

Key Figures

Even if the UK is able to make a trade deal with the EU - the report says growth will be down 5% over the next 15 years.

That would rise to 8% if Britain left without a deal.

Alternatively, if the UK were to retain access to the single market through membership of the European Economic Area the loss would be just 2%.

A Government spokesman said: "We have already set out that the Government is undertaking a wide range of ongoing analysis in support of our EU exit negotiations and preparations.

"We have been clear that we are not prepared to provide a running commentary on any aspect of this ongoing internal work and that ministers have a duty not to publish anything that could risk exposing our negotiation position."