JOHN Bercow’s decision to not hold David Davis in contempt of Parliament over the release of Brexit impact assessments is “clearly unsatisfactory”, according to the SNP.

Peter Wishart, MP for Perth and North Perthshire, went on to accuse the UK Government of not being “prepared to participate fully in the democratic structures of this House”.

Bercow had previously raised concerns about the conduct of the Brexit Secretary over his handling of the reports towards the end of last month.

After caving in and finally releasing reports analysing how Brexit would affect 58 different sectors those reports were found to be redacted to the point of being meaningless. Davis was then ordered to appear in front of the Brexit Select Committee at which he admitted that there had, in fact, been no impact assessments carried out.

The Government has argued that releasing the documents in full would undermine their negotiating position in Brussels. Brexit Minister Robin Walker has said some of the documents would be of “great interest” to the EU.

Yesterday, Bercow made a statement to the Commons revealing that he would not be taking allegations of contempt any further.

“Ministers could, with advantage, have been considerably clearer in their statements – particularly in challenging lines of questioning in select committees which were based upon a genuine misconception,” he said.

“However, from the evidence which I have seen to date, I have concluded that the test which I am bound to apply, that there’s an arguable case that there has on this matter been a contempt of the House, has not been met in this case.

“While it was most regrettable the Secretary of State – a point I made to him privately, I now state publicly – unilaterally excised some material from the papers which he provided, and that it took so long to provide the papers, I also feel bound to pay due attention to the formerly recorded view of the [Exiting the European Union Select Committee] that the Secretary of State had complied with the order of November 1.”

“I have concluded, from the evidence which I have seen to date, that the test I am bound to apply, that there is an arguable case that there has on this matter been a contempt of the House, has not been met in this case.”

Wishart hit back at the Speaker’s decision, saying it ran contrary to “democratic instincts”, adding that the Government’s handling of the impact assessment reports let down the constituents that MPs serve.

“Something has to change, something has to happen, we have to get this House back on to an even keel,” he said. “All these issues and difficulties are down to a very simple fact that this Government are not prepared to participate fully in the democratic structures of this House.

“What we currently have is clearly unsatisfactory, contrary to all democratic instincts and is badly letting down the constituents that we represent and serve.

“When government avoids votes it diminishes the significance of oppositions to hold government to account, bad stuff happens, and bad stuff happened in the context of this – and it has to stop.”

A secure reading room has been set up at Westminster that allows MPs and peers to access the documents, but senior Conservative Sarah Wollaston has suggested they should be released publicly

Wollaston, who is chairwoman of the Health Select Committee, said: “I recently booked an appointment in the reading room and I thought it’d be like an inner circle of hell, that I’d be trapped in there for days to read the sector analysis. In fact, there are only nine pages on health and social care and the entire documents relevant to my select committee took me less than an hour to read.

“I do feel, in the interests of transparency, these are very straightforward documents and they should be in the public domain.”