[R] signifies the Member has declared an interest.

The next item is the debate by individual Members under Standing Order 11.21(iv). Before we start this debate, I’d like to remind Members of my expectations when it comes to behaviour in the Chamber. This is a subject on which there are strongly held views on both sides on a very topical issue. That should mean that we have an interesting, engaging and passionate debate, but that’s no excuse for heckling or otherwise speaking over speakers or any kind of behaviour that would detract from the dignity of this place. I would also remind Members, given the level of interest in this debate, that I want to call as many Members as possible, so I will limit speakers to three minutes each, with the exception of those opening and closing the debate and the Minister responding to it. As this is an individual Member debate, I will also be seeking to ensure a fair reflection of both sides of the argument, rather than a party-political balance, as I would normally do. Therefore, I call on Eluned Morgan to move the motion.

Motion NDM6020 Eluned Morgan, Dawn Bowden, Dafydd Elis-Thomas

Supported by David Melding [R]

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

Believes that Wales would be stronger, safer and more prosperous if it were to remain a part of the European Union.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Presiding Officer. In over a week’s time, the people of Wales will have a huge responsibility: the responsibility of deciding what kind of future we want for our country. Do we want to live in an introverted, narrow country or live in an outward-looking nation that understands that if we want to have influence in the world we need to collaborate with our closest neighbours? This decision will impact on our future for generations to come, and I wish to underline today that I believe that we benefit in Wales more than any other part of the United Kingdom from our membership of the European Union. We are more prosperous, more secure and more influential because of our membership of the European Union.

Roedd tîm pêl-droed Cymru yn destun cryn dipyn o falchder i ni yr wythnos diwethaf. Maent hefyd wedi ein hatgoffa ein bod yn gryfach gyda’n gilydd. Rydym yn gryfach gyda’n gilydd ar y cae pêl-droed ac mae angen i ni ddeall ein bod yn gryfach pan fyddwn yn gweithredu ar y cyd gyda’n cymdogion agosaf hefyd. Y ffaith yw bod Cymru yn well ei byd yn ariannol diolch i’n haelodaeth o’r Undeb Ewropeaidd. Rydym yn derbyn llawer mwy yn ôl nag a rown i mewn: £79 y pen yn ôl adroddiad diweddar. Mae ein seilwaith wedi cael ei ailadeiladu diolch i arian Ewropeaidd. Mae pobl wedi cael eu hyfforddi—200,000 ohonynt—diolch i gyllid Ewropeaidd a chrëwyd swyddi wrth y miloedd diolch i arian yr UE.

Yn ddamcaniaethol, gallem barhau i gael yr haen uchaf hon o gyllid tan 2020. Rydym eisoes wedi clustnodi’r arian ar gyfer adfywio ein cymunedau, cefnogi’r di-waith ac ailadeiladu ein seilwaith, gan gynnwys cysylltiadau trafnidiaeth fel y metro. Nid oes gennym unrhyw syniad a fydd y cyllid hwn yn dod. Gallai’r prosiectau hyn fod mewn perygl ac nid oes gennyf fi, yn un, unrhyw hyder o gwbl y bydd Llywodraeth adain dde yn Llundain sy’n gwneud cam â ni’n barod drwy fformiwla Barnett yn ein digolledu am yr hyn a gymerir oddi wrthym pe baem yn gadael yr UE.

Mae rhai yn yr ymgyrch dros adael yn gwneud addewidion i ffermwyr er nad eu lle hwy fydd penderfynu. Mae’n amlwg nad ydynt eto wedi deall fod amaethyddiaeth yn fater wedi’i ddatganoli. Ond nid y cyllid hwn yw’r prif reswm economaidd dros aros yn yr UE. Dylem geisio gwella ein cyfoeth fel nad oes angen y cyllid hwn arnom. Ond mae’r sicrwydd o berthyn i’r farchnad economaidd fwyaf yn y byd—500 miliwn o bobl—sy’n rhoi cyfleoedd i ni werthu ein nwyddau ac yn rhoi cyfleoedd nad ydynt wedi dechrau cael eu gwireddu yn y sector gwasanaeth eto, yn bethau na ddylem eu peryglu.

Yr wythnos hon, clywsom fod Cymru unwaith eto wedi cyrraedd lefelau uwch nag erioed o fewnfuddsoddiad. Mae’r cwmnïau hyn yn dewis ymsefydlu yma am ei fod yn rhoi llwyfan iddynt fynd i mewn i’r farchnad sengl honno. Gwyddom fod 150,000 o swyddi yn ddibynnol ar y berthynas honno. Nawr, nid oes neb yn awgrymu bod y swyddi hynny’n mynd i ddiflannu dros nos, ond os ydych yn eistedd ym mhencadlys Ford, yna mae angen i chi wneud penderfyniad yn y blynyddoedd sydd i ddod ynglŷn ag a ydych yn mynd i ymsefydlu yn Sbaen, lle mae ganddynt ffatri hefyd, neu yma yng Nghymru. Os edrychwch ar yr ychwanegiad at y pris sydd ei angen arnoch i fynd i mewn i’r farchnad honno—bron 10 y cant pe baem y tu allan i ardal y farchnad sengl Ewropeaidd—yna mae’n rhaid i chi ofyn, ‘Pa ddewis y maent yn debygol o wneud?’ Faint o’n cwmnïau allforio ein hunain all barhau’n gystadleuol mewn gwirionedd pan fo’r ychwanegiad at y pris bron 10 y cant yn fwy na’u cystadleuwyr Ewropeaidd?

Caiff 94 y cant o gig oen Cymru ei allforio i’r Undeb Ewropeaidd. A wyddoch chi beth? Mae llawer o ffermwyr rwy’n eu hadnabod wedi dweud, ‘Edrychwch, gadewch i ni droi cefn ar yr Undeb Ewropeaidd, gadewch i ni droi cefn ar fiwrocratiaeth’, ond maent â’u pennau yn y cymylau os ydynt yn credu y byddant yn gallu parhau i allforio a rhwygo’r rheolau a’r rheoliadau sydd angen iddynt lynu atynt os ydynt am gael mynediad at y farchnad honno. Y gwahaniaeth mawr yw na fydd ganddynt unrhyw lais yn y modd y llunnir y rheolau hynny.

Byddai ein prifysgolion yn dioddef yn enbyd o golli cyllid ymchwil a datblygu. Mae’r rhain yn creu swyddi’r dyfodol, y swyddi a fydd yn talu am ein model cymdeithasol, yn talu am ein pensiynau a’n systemau iechyd. A bydd pris i’w dalu ar unwaith. Mae’r Sefydliad Astudiaethau Cyllid wedi awgrymu y gallai’r economi golli oddeutu £30 biliwn pe baem yn gadael—£30 biliwn sydd ar hyn o bryd yn cael ei wario ar ein systemau iechyd ac addysg. Ac nid pobl fel Boris a Gove fydd yn dioddef; y mwyaf agored i niwed a’r tlotaf yn ein cymdeithas fydd yn dioddef baich y toriadau hyn. Nid yw’r ymgyrch dros adael, hyd yn oed ar y cam diweddar hwn, wedi rhoi unrhyw syniad i ni sut beth fydd eu gweledigaeth o ‘adael’. Ni fyddech yn cyfnewid eich tŷ am un arall heb ei weld yn gyntaf, heb fod yn siŵr ynglŷn â’i leoliad a’r amwynderau lle bo’n briodol. Mae’r naid hon i’r tywyllwch yn wallgofrwydd yn fy marn i.

Ac mae’r syniad fod unrhyw wlad unigol yn gallu arwain penderfyniadau yn y byd cynyddol fyd-eang sydd ohoni heddiw yn ffantasi. Pan aeth yr awyrennau i mewn i’r tyrrau, cymerodd funudau iddo effeithio ar ein marchnad stoc. Eisoes mae’r ansicrwydd o beidio â gwybod beth sy’n mynd i ddigwydd yr wythnos nesaf wedi dileu biliynau oddi ar y farchnad stoc; mae wedi gostwng gwerth y bunt. Nid ydym yn rheoli hynny. Mae sofraniaeth yn y gymdeithas fyd-eang heddiw yn rhith. Mae fel dychmygu Tim Peake yn brolio i fyny yn ei orsaf ofod, yn annibynnol, yn gwneud ei benderfyniadau, ond y gwir amdani yw na fyddai yno heb fod llwyth o wahanol gymunedau a gwledydd yn cydweithio gyda’i gilydd, yn gwneud yn siŵr ei fod yn gallu gwneud ei waith.

Nawr, mae’r UE yn bell o fod yn berffaith, ond ar ôl eistedd mewn siambr euraid lle’r oedd pobl yno oherwydd damwain eu geni’n unig, gallaf ddweud wrthych na ddylem daflu cerrig. Wrth gwrs, mae Llafur yn awyddus i weld UE sy’n ymrwymedig i gyfiawnder cymdeithasol, UE sy’n amddiffyn hawliau pobl fel gweithwyr, fel dinasyddion, fel defnyddwyr, UE sy’n deall yr angen i warchod yr amgylchedd, yr angen i fynd i’r afael â newid yn yr hinsawdd a’r angen i barchu datblygu cynaliadwy. Rydym wedi elwa o lu o ddeddfau Ewropeaidd. Mae gennym rai o’r traethau glanaf yn Ewrop. Mae gennym safonau uchel ar gyfer cyfraddau ailgylchu. Mae gennym aer sy’n lanach. A fyddem yn cael caniatâd i fynd ar drywydd troseddwyr tramor, monitro eithafwyr a gweithio gyda Europol? Y ffaith amdani yw nad oes neb yn gwybod.

A chri’r Torïaid heddiw ynghylch ‘biwrocratiaeth’ yw ein cri ninnau dros ddiogelu gweithwyr. Mae’r felin drafod Open Europe, y seiliwyd llawer o ffigurau’r ymgyrch dros adael arni, wedi cyfrifo costau’r fiwrocratiaeth hon. Gadewch i mi roi un enghraifft i chi. Maent yn dweud bod y gyfarwyddeb oriau gwaith, sy’n cyfyngu ar oriau gwaith i 48 awr yr wythnos, yn costio £4 biliwn i’r wlad. Maent yn dweud nad oes unrhyw fanteision iddi. Wel, dywedwch hynny wrth y glanhawr sydd heb lais ynglŷn ag yw’n cael gweithio goramser. Dywedwch hynny wrth y fam orlwythog â gwaith sydd eisiau mynd i weld ei phlant. Dywedwch hynny wrth bobl fel fy ngŵr a oedd, pan oedd yn feddyg dan hyfforddiant, yn gorfod gweithio 110 awr i’r GIG. Fy hun, rwy’n hapus i ildio rhywfaint o sofraniaeth er mwyn sicrhau’r amddiffyniad sydd ei angen arnom ac y gwyddom na fyddwn yn ei gael gan Lywodraeth sy’n benderfynol o leihau hawliau gweithwyr, fel y gwelsom yn eu cyflwyniad i’r Bil Undebau Llafur. Ond rwy’n credu bod rhaid i ni gofio, wrth sôn am farchnadoedd, am hawliau ac am yr amgylchedd, mai’r UE yw’r enghraifft fwyaf llwyddiannus mewn hanes o sefydliad sy’n creu heddwch.

Wyddoch chi, 75 mlynedd yn ôl, tua dwy filltir i ffwrdd o’r union fan hon, cafodd tŷ fy nhad ei ddymchwel yn llwyr gan fom Almaenig. Pwy all ddychmygu braw’r plentyn hwnnw druan a phlant eraill o’i gwmpas? Roeddent yn meddwl eu bod yn ddiogel yn eu cartrefi yma yng Nghymru a daethant yn darged i’r gelyn. Yn y byd hwn sy’n llawn o ansefydlogrwydd, o fygythiadau, o heriau byd-eang newydd, gwae ni os cymerwn yr heddwch hwnnw’n ganiataol. Gobeithiaf y bydd pobl Cymru yn meddwl yn ofalus iawn yr wythnos nesaf ac yn dewis pleidleisio dros ffyniant, dros heddwch a diogelwch a thros barhau i fod yn rhan o’r Undeb Ewropeaidd.

Mark Isherwood.

Oh, heck. Diolch. Apologies, Presiding Officer. We don’t need to be in the EU to co-operate with European partners. Wales in Britain must be a sovereign partner of Europe not a province of the EU as part of an outward-looking global community. If we leave, nothing immediately changes during the first two years. Both farm support and structural funding would then be a matter for the UK Government in consultation with the devolved administrations. Because the UK is a major net contributor to the EU, more money would be available.

When the EU Commission planned to allocate structural funds for the period 2014-2020, it sought cuts for Wales of around 27 per cent. The UK Government reallocated part of the funding for England to rebalance some of that shortfall. With Wales out of the EU, future funding will be determined by politicians accountable to the Welsh electorate.

The UK subsidised its farmers before it joined the EU and would do so after we vote ‘leave’, with the Welsh Government responsible for replacing badly designed EU farm regulations with new policies to help farmers. The UK farming Minister made it clear that a UK Government would continue to give farmers and the environment at least as much support as they get now. Even the Prime Minister has made that clear.

Thank you for taking the intervention. Of course, I listened to the interview that person actually made, and when he was challenged on it he said he couldn’t give any guarantee. Are you saying he could give a guarantee or do you agree with him that he cannot give a guarantee, just a wish list?

As a Minister he can bring forward proposals and if the House of Commons passes it as the sovereign body with elected politicians it will happen, and the Prime Minister himself made that commitment. After all, non-EU countries like Switzerland and Norway actually give more support to their farmers than the UK and Wales do.

The EU is a shrinking market for the UK, with exports of goods and services to the EU falling from 54 per cent in 2006 to just 44 per cent today. Over 60 per cent of Welsh exports are now to non-EU countries. In 2014, the share of UK goods exports going to countries outside the EU was higher than every other EU member state except Malta. The UK-EU balance of trade has favoured the rest of the EU every year since we joined except 1975, and the UK now has a record trade deficit with the EU. The UK is the EU’s largest export partner, guaranteeing millions of EU jobs. It is overwhelmingly in the EU’s interest to agree a friendly UK-EU free trade deal.

As the former deputy director of the International Monetary Fund’s European research department said two weeks ago, when we go back to core economic principles,

‘Economics is neutral on whether to leave or remain’.

In supporting a European federal union, Churchill stressed that Great Britain could never be a part of it, stating,

‘We are with Europe, but not of it. We are linked but not combined. We are interested and associated but not absorbed.’

Well, it’s time to put sovereignty before the scaremongers, democracy before the doomsayers and freedom before fear. It’s time to take our United Kingdom back.

Llywydd, I’m a big fan of The Clash. I remember seeing them at Sofia Gardens when I was 17. I can’t get into those size 28 leather trousers any more—if I ever could—though the ringing in my ears, and there is, is a constant reminder that I may have overdosed on loud music at those concerts—Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Damned, Tom Robinson and, of course, The Clash. So, it’s good to hear one of their totemic tracks, ‘Should I Stay or Should I Go’, on the airwaves and in the news so much lately. From Radio 4 to Radio Wales to opinion pieces in ‘Time’ magazine and the Norfolk ‘Eastern Daily Press’. I bet they never thought that this punchy punk rock track would end up as a backdrop for a debate on the future of the UK and EU membership.

For Wales, for south Wales, for my constituency of Ogmore, there are clear reasons why it’s better not to have the door of the EU slammed in our faces, and the first is the spending power. One of the benefits of the EU is that funds can be allocated towards regions of greater need, so we are, inarguably, better off financially in the EU because we receive structural funds for the Valleys and for rural development funds and so on well beyond what we put in—well beyond what we put in. And yes, this is our money, but it’s our money coming back with even more added into south Wales and the west and the Valleys. Anyone arguing for Leave is arguing (a) for less regional and rural development money coming to west Wales and the Valleys and rural communities or (b) has had secret talks with the Chancellor to guarantee that he’ll bolster the block grant for Wales to replace the lost moneys and, as we just heard, there is no guarantee.

Some £1.8 million of those funds went into the regeneration of Maesteg market, also supported ably by the Labour local authority. They went into the Bridges into Work scheme, benefiting up to 2,000 people in Ogmore and throughout the south Wales Valleys, improving training and mentoring for skills into work. And £1.7 million went into the STEM Cymru scheme, promoting careers in science, technology, engineering and maths to our young people. And, for a rural wards—and that’s all but two of the wards in my constituency of Ogmore—it goes into real improvements in the places we live, through the EU-funded Welsh Government-administered rural development programme, creating things like a community gym in a refurbished church hall in Blaengarw or renovating the Llangynwyd village hall, turning it from a semi-derelict unused shell into a thriving community space that brings people together and provides a lovely cup of tea and cake as well. It’s the extension of this with the new Bridgend Thriving Rural Communities scheme, promoted by Bridgend’s Labour council, offering support and grants of up to £100,000 for ideas to improve and regenerate our communities. I could go on.

So, should we stay or should we go? Well, maybe there is a hint in the song itself, subtly tucked away. In the fury of the rock riff and the belted out lyrics, it’s easy to miss the fact that the chorus is being sung in sync in Tex-Mex and Castilian Spanish by Joe Ely and the late, great Joe Strummer. Castilian Spanish in a quintessentially British punk rock classic. Maybe it’s trying to tell us something: we’re better off staying together.

Labour Members don’t seem to have caught up with the news that project fear isn’t working. Look at the opinion polls. The public don’t believe you any longer. Of course, the truth of the matter is that every single penny that is spent by the EU on all these great projects that we’ve heard catalogued this afternoon is our money. And, on top of that, we’re sending £10 billion a year to the EU that they’re spending elsewhere. That £10 billion could be added to all the projects that have been described today. The truth of the matter is that the EU is an economic dead-end. In 1980, it accounted for 30 per cent of world trade; today, it accounts for only 15 per cent and declining. The EU is the only part of the world—the only continent—that has had zero growth in this century, apart from Antarctica. All the other continents in the world have been roaring ahead. As regards trade between the UK and the EU, the idea that this is going to come to a stop if we were to leave after the vote on 23 June is just complete nonsense.

I don’t suppose that Labour Members have caught up with the other news this week that we had a £24 billion trade deficit with the EU in the first quarter of this year alone. That’s a £100 billion-a-year trade deficit. Why on earth would the EU want to erect trade barriers against us when they gain so much from trade with us, unless they’re acting irrationally? And if they are acting irrationally, why would we want to be shackled to people who are not rational? The whole thing is nonsense. Our exports to the EU in 2000 were 60 per cent of our total exports worldwide. Today, as Mark Isherwood has pointed out, they are only 44 per cent. That’s because the eurozone is a total disaster, and for those poor people in Spain, in Portugal, in Greece, in Italy and in France who see their countries going down the tubes, then it’s certainly no cakewalk for them because they are paying the price of euro madness.

The idea that we’re going to be excluded from European trade is just nonsense. Even if we came to no trade—

Thank you for taking the intervention. Of course, one of the arguments that you haven’t mentioned is the importance of workers’ rights protection through Europe. You were a member of the Thatcher Government in the 1980s that devastated trade unions, that smashed workers’ rights, that smashed the National Union of Mineworkers and the coal industry; do you not think that before there can be any confidence or belief that your campaign will do anything to support workers’ rights, you should apologise for your role in the Thatcher Government in the 1980s?

Well, this just goes to show how far Labour is living in the past—doesn’t it—that we’re arguing today about what happened 30-odd years ago rather than what’s happening in the world today. But, what I note is that the Labour Government for, I think, the last 30 years, did nothing to repeal any of the measures that that Tory Government of the 1980s introduced. So, so much for that argument.

But to return to the point that I was making about access to the single market if we were to leave, we would have to jump over a tariff of an average of 3 per cent, which is nonsense. This is all about taking back control of our own country and giving the control of public policy to people who we can elect and dismiss, not unelected, faceless bureaucrats in Brussels whom we can’t even name.

I suppose we all have experiences that help us to reach a particular view on the question of our membership of the European Union. In my case, I draw upon 30 years’ experience as a trade union official before being elected to this Assembly. I know from first-hand experience that workers in Wales and their families are better off because the EU provides for a basic range of workers’ rights. These include—and these are not exclusive; this is not an exclusive list—the transfer of undertakings regulations; the minimum leave entitlements; anti-discrimination laws; maternity and paternity rights; a limit on maximum working hours; guaranteed rest breaks; health and safety regulations and equal treatment for temporary, agency and part-time staff, including access to pensions, which, incidentally, we had to fight for through the European courts. Many voices in the Brexit camp see these minimum standards as so-called red tape or costs to business. We are told that, if the UK could remove these minimum standards, then things would somehow and magically improve for workers.

Well, I remember many of those same voices who opposed the national minimum wage and, when asked about discrimination legislation, said they would remove most of it. So, I, for one, will take no recommendation from them when it comes to workers’ rights in Europe. My message to workers across Wales is this: the big issue in our economy is fighting the conditions that allow the continuing exploitation of workers, not removing the rights that those workers currently enjoy. The last thing workers in Wales need is a Tory Government at Westminster being given the opportunity to embark on another attack on hard-won employment rights. Left to their own devices, what Tories deliver are draconian laws like the recent Trade Union Act. What more would follow if we vote to leave the union on 23 June?

Llywydd, I’d like to now turn to the economic benefit of EU membership in my own constituency of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney. In Merthyr Tydfil alone, EU-funded projects have helped over 4,000 people into work, with another 2,000 plus benefitting from EU-funded apprenticeships. The EU has contributed towards a number of projects that have benefitted the local economy, including the town centre regeneration, creating the Penderyn square, the redevelopment of the Redhouse and the Taff Bargoed regeneration area. We have the Bike Park Wales, the riverside walk in Rhymney, the Winding House museum—all great attractions to enjoy, funded partly by European money.

On transport, we welcome the ongoing investment in the Heads of the Valleys road, the upgrade of the Rhymney station and the investment in the line from Merthyr to Cardiff, providing a basis for further work to deliver the metro. And, of course, in the current context of the excitement around the Welsh football team, it would be remiss not to mention the redevelopment of Merthyr Town FC’s Penydarren Park.

For me, at the heart of this EU debate is a basic question, and it is this: do you really feel that a Tory Government would provide the level of support that we currently see for communities like Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, and enjoy the same workers’ rights across the UK, if we were not in the European Union? Llywydd, my conclusion is that we would not.

Holiday pay was thanks to Neville Chamberlain. Equal pay at work was thanks to the women of Dagenham, and to Barbara Castle. Presiding Officer, campaigns reveal character. As we speak, the First Minister stands side by side with David Cameron—united against people governing themselves, united for free movement and unlimited immigration, united with a Prime Minister who tried to protect the EU budget in real terms, until he lost a vote in Parliament. Later, he lost some seats in Parliament, although he won mine back. Indeed, he spoke about this today, at what may prove to be his last Prime Minister’s questions. ‘Happy days’, he said, as he reminisced about my defeat. We may soon reminisce about his.

He and his Chancellor want to remain, whatever the price to truth, and whatever the price to other people’s jobs, because they want to protect their jobs, and their positions. I may have an insight into why the Chancellor acts as he did. I first met the Chancellor at freshers’ week in Oxford. I spoke in a debate, arguing for no confidence in a Conservative Government that had just joined the European exchange rate mechanism, to crucify our economy at the altar of its European project. Afterwards, George Osborne said to me that, while I might be right about the economics, he would always support Europe, because he felt more in common with the European aristocracy than he did with the British working class. Next Thursday, that British working class may bite back, because we will be better off out, because we are good enough to govern ourselves, because we are more than a star on somebody else’s flag.

Will you take an intervention?

Rhun ap Iorwerth.

Are you going to mention Wales at all in your speech, or are you just betraying the fact that you are just using Wales as a vehicle to push your own agenda?

Wales, more, I think, than any part of our United Kingdom, I am pleased to say, will be better off outside the European Union. We get from the EU £600 million or £700 million, some argue on that side, yet, in per capita terms, our contribution is £1 billion a year, compared to perhaps £16 billion that we pay in tax to the UK Treasury, compared to £32 billion we get back in spending—a gap of £16 billion, perhaps, compared to, at best, £200 million or £300 million, one way or the other. Yet, his party wants to leave this United Kingdom, when we will be better off as independent Britain, in a community of the globe, raising our eyes to the horizon, better off out—[Interruption.]—trading with Europe—

He’s not taking an intervention.

[Continues.]—but governing ourselves.

Thank you. Jenny Rathbone.

Campaigns do indeed reveal character, and people living in the past are the leavers, not the remainers. I’m in the strange position of today agreeing with George Osborne, who says that, if you are wealthy and don’t use public services, then you can afford to toy with the idea of harking back to a bygone era, when Britain ruled the waves, and the sun never set on the British empire. Because that is the direction that the leavers want to take us. They want to take us back in a time capsule. Remember 60 years ago, to the dirty days of the 1950s, when the pea soup fogs were so thick you couldn’t even see your own front door? Yes, it was the Clean Air Act 1956 that started the clean-up, but it is now the 2008 air quality directive that is going to hold Boris Johnson to account for having fiddled the figures on air pollution in the capital city.

Fifty years ago—let’s go back 50 years to the disaster of Aberfan. Impossible today, as a result of the 2006 management of waste from extractive industry directive, which actually quotes the Aberfan disaster as one of the things underpinning it. Let’s go back 40 years ago, where our beaches were full of raw sewage, and today, since the 1976 bathing waters directive, we now have clean beaches and many, many of them in Wales, of which we can be proud.

The people who really, really want to leave the EU are the industrial polluters, the tax evaders, the food adulterers, the irresponsible and exploitative employers. I note that the leave flotilla up the Thames included a fishing trawler called the Christina S, guilty of a £63 million fishing scam in Scotland. These are the sorts of people who want us to leave, and, sadly, a conversation I had the other day with a senior civil servant, who told me privately that if we vote ‘leave’, we can turn this country into a tax haven, so we can attract all the hot money from around the world. Scarily, I don’t think he was joking; even more scarily, he was a retired judge. Contrast him and all the other greedy, selfish people at the top of the establishment who never need to use public services, apart from the bin collections, with people who are struggling in austerity Britain, who somehow think, misguidedly, that voting ‘leave’ will ameliorate their suffering. For example, the unemployed graduate I spoke to last night, who’s planning to vote to leave—he thinks, tragically, his situation will improve when, in fact, the opposite is the case; also the people in my constituency on zero-hours contracts, who’ve had their wages frozen for the last several years, and who are fearful that more immigrants will lead to even lower wages for them; the pensioner who thinks that by leaving, their grandchildren are going to get a house that they currently can’t get. This is an argument for building more housing, not for leaving the EU. The ‘leave’ lot have lost all the economic arguments, so that they are now using the sorry spectre of immigration to peddle their poison. This is absolutely—

Can you bring your conclusions to an end now?

Yes. Anyway, just to say that I think that we need to recognise whey we formed the European Union—to ward off the return of fascism and to represent the democratic future we all need to have. We need to lead on Europe, not leave it.

I just want to say a few words about the single market, which I believe to be a singular British achievement and something that continues to offer great opportunities to Wales, and even greater as it extends more to services, having been based initially on goods. We’ve heard a lot of talk about somehow things will almost be the same if we leave, only we’ll have much more control over resources and over our democracy. Well, things will change, otherwise it’s hardly worth leaving. I don’t think the markets will react with equanimity to a decision that they’re routinely telling us would be damaging to the British, and therefore, the Welsh economy. Something will happen to the pound, and nearly everyone says it will go down. In fact, some leavers are welcoming that because of the fact it would make our exports cheaper. But these facts have to be faced. They’ll have a profound effect on the British economy, and the Welsh economy in the next few years.

And we do hear from some—there was a hint of it in what Neil Hamilton said—that the single market will still be there for us to take advantage of. Well, whatever else happens, our access to it will not be as profitable as it is today. The single market also offers London great opportunities, and if we withdraw from the European Union, the future of London, as the first and still the premier global city, will be affected, and I believe the economy of south Wales needs to attract more and more resources from an overcrowded London, and an expanding London, as we see our own services strengthened, particularly in the professional sphere, and all that would be put in peril and the potential of Cardiff, and the area around Cardiff, as an economic magnet would be much, much weakened.

The single market was invented in the 1980s by the Thatcher Government. I think this is perhaps part of the guilt problem that certain Conservatives have—that it worked: it transformed Europe because we pushed through the principle of majority voting. It was a Conservative idea to get Europe going and, boy, it not only got Europe going, it then absorbed eastern Europe into the current European Union. What would have happened if eastern Europe had become a string of failed states, like we see now around the Maghreb and the middle east? What sort of world would we be living in if that had happened?

There’ve been huge successes in the European Union, not only in the single market, but also expansion and we should give thanks that we live in a more secure world as a result, whatever our challenges, and we do face challenges. But, frankly, to face your challenges without your neighbours is, in my view, a very reckless strategy indeed. Also, to say that you want to be open to the world, but as your first step to that openness, you’re turning your back on your neighbours, is a flat contradiction and I hope the electorate see through it a week tomorrow.

First of all, there is no such thing as European money—it’s British money coming back to us after they’ve purloined half of it. But I’d like here to perhaps pause and reflect on Wales’s constitutional position within Europe. As we all know, Brussels only recognises Wales as a mere region within Europe; it has no national status, whilst the very existence of this Senedd is testament to our growing state of nationhood within the United Kingdom. So, I put it to you—[Interruption.] I put it to you that only a fool would exchange being a nation in a union of nations we call the United Kingdom for that of a region in a vast conglomeration of regions that stretches from the Baltic to the Aegean and soon to be extended to the far side of the Bosphorus.

Would you take an intervention? Thank you for taking the intervention. So, if your argument, constitutionally, is that you support an independent UK, do you also then support an independent and separate Wales?

No, I don’t, because what I’m telling you is that we within Wales have a wonderful relationship with the other nations within the United Kingdom that has benefited us. There is no benefit to us within Europe. [Interruption.] There is no benefit to us to be in Europe.

Given this constitutional deficit, why is it that those who make up this institution feel that we will not get our fair share of the Brexit financial bonus? [Interruption.] I guessed you might be saying that, but there is going to be a Brexit financial bonus. And are they saying that the 40 Welsh MPs in Westminster would fail to carry out their duties in securing those funds for Wales? The majority of those MPs are, of course, Labour MPs.

Members have made much of workers’ rights. What rights do those on agency contracts or, worst of all, zero-hours contracts have—the most iniquitous form of employment since dockyard workers turned up at the dockyard gates to be hired for a single day’s work or not? So much for workers’ rights under the European Parliament. Labour, truthfully, has sold out to big business, bankers and the political elite of Europe. Thank you.

I’d like to express my support for those who are campaigning for a ‘remain’ vote in this referendum. It’s not for me to criticise those who wish to leave, but to make a positive case for why I’ve made a different decision after much thought. First and foremost in my mind is the well-being and prosperity of the people of Caerphilly. The chief executive of Catnic, a company based in my constituency, told me that approximately 30 per cent of their trade is with Germany, France and the Benelux region, and the EU enables that trade. That is a direct quote from them. A decision to radically change our trading relationships will directly impact negatively on Catnic.

I’ve also spoken to small business employers, who’ve used, for example, Jobs Growth Wales to hire staff, and they fear that the ending of £396 million of European funding will limit their ability to hire and train. That is directly from a small firm in my constituency. I simply, as Eluned has said, do not believe Boris and Gove when they say that they will make up that funding if we leave. I do not believe it.

But there is, undoubtedly, in Caerphilly an anti-EU feeling, which we have to say that UKIP have done their best to capitalise on. People in my constituency have told me that they feel—[Interruption.]—that the EU elite is—. I’m not going to take an intervention, because I’ve only got three minutes; I want to get through it. People in my constituency have told me that they feel that the EU is literally and figuratively distant from the day-to-day experiences of our community. If we vote to remain, this must change, and I will work to change that.

Indeed, I recall 20 years ago, when I was in sixth form in Bargoed, an academic from Cardiff University came to talk to us about joining the euro. He held up a pound coin and he said, ‘How can any of you have an emotional attachment to this piece of metal because the Queen’s face is on it?’ I remember, at that time, feeling incredulous and patronised. I can imagine Leanne Wood would feel the same; she’s looking at me right now. He completely failed to address though, in my view, the key problem with the single currency, and that is that interest rates are set for Germany, and that will not help Greece. Yet, we never joined the euro. Our parliamentary democracy and our sovereignty in Europe were strong enough to withstand this grandest of follies and this is one of the reasons I am confident in being a member of the European Union and confident we should remain.

Similarly, when we elected a Conservative Government in 1992, much to my dismay, they were able to exempt us from EU law based on principles of fair pay and equal rights, which Dawn Bowden has already mentioned. However, in 1997, when we had a Labour Government, we then signed up to those. Again, that was democracy. That was a democratic choice by the people of this country—a sovereign choice. Which brings me—and I do feel that these democratic decisions have partially fuelled right-wing campaigns to vote ‘leave’.

Which finally brings me to immigration. We must engage with these concerns. I believe that leaving the EU will lead, at best, to very little change in our ability to control our borders and we may make things even worse. Not only will a Europe without Britain be a less stable Europe, it will also remove any incentive countries like France have to police and protect our borders.

We must make a positive case for remain, one that encompasses the benefits for our economy, our democracy and our borders. I therefore urge Members to vote for ‘remain’ today.

I now call on the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, Mark Drakeford.

Diolch yn fawr, Lywydd. Can I thank those Members who have brought this important debate to the floor of the Assembly this afternoon? My job is to set out the position of the Welsh Government, and that position is absolutely clear. Our continued membership of the European Union is pivotal to our future in all its fundamental dimensions.

Now, we’ve heard a series of contributions this afternoon that set out just that case in criminal justice, in environmental protection, food security, employment rights and protection from discrimination. I want to begin by just reminding us of the cultural case: Wales is a European nation. The fact that two languages are in daily use in Wales puts us firmly in the European mainstream. The fact of being Welsh means to be comfortable with multiple identities. ‘O ble ti’n dod?’ ‘Where do you come from?’—the first question we ask each other. We understand that that answer can be the town or the village, the nation or, indeed, the continent to which we belong. We understand that we can belong to more than one place at one and the same time.

As well as those cultural affinities, as we’ve heard, the European Union brings us advantages that are social, economic and political. Socially, we on this side believe in a Europe of solidarity, a Europe of protected and extended rights for working people and the strong defence of the socially vulnerable. We heard from Dawn Bowden and others of just the practical way that those social rights bite in the lives of working people here in Wales.

Economically, as many people in this debate have said, the European Union is fundamental to us in Wales—in agriculture, in industry, in structural investment, in university research. Eluned Morgan began by outlining them all, and others, such as Huw Irranca-Davies, have gone on to place those practical economic advantages directly in the communities that we represent.

The direct funding to Wales from the European Union is worth more than £500 million every year. Over 500 companies from other European countries have their operations here in Wales, and those operations provide more than 57,000 jobs. A vote to leave the EU would inevitably cause major concerns about that sort of international investment. It is absolute nonsense to suggest that leaving the European Union would have no impact here on the economy of Wales. It would. It would begin to happen the day after such a decision was made, and the impact would be deeply damaging.

But, Llywydd, perhaps politically—and this is a political forum, after all—the case for the European Union is the most powerful of all. All of us in this Chamber are hugely fortunate to have lived for more than 70 years without a war between the nations of Europe. Just as we heard from Eluned at the start, I think of my own family. Both of my grandfathers were combatants in the first world war. I vividly remember, as a child in primary school, being told by eyewitnesses of the sight of Swansea burning from Carmarthen, 30 miles away. When I heard that story fewer years had gone by since those awful events than have gone by since the first opening of this National Assembly. The notion that conflict is a matter of the distant past, that 70 years of peace is somehow more typical than 1,000 years marked by warfare, is simply to fly in the face of history. The European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor of the union today, was set up in 1951 explicitly to ensure that the sinews of war, as they were called—coal and steel—would never again be used for wars between European neighbours. Today’s Europe, with its guarantees of shared democratic values and fundamental human rights is also our guarantee that differences are solved by politics not by force. It is unfathomable that we should be at a moment of risking that advantage in the pursuit of some embittered turning away from the world.

Llywydd, campaigns reveal character. I bring no advice for the Welsh working class from the freshers’ fair at Oxford. [Laughter.] But, I do know that the group of right-wing zealots who lead the campaign to take Wales and the United Kingdom out of Europe are gathering around the gambling table. It is our futures—those of our children and our country—that they are prepared to gamble away. Let the message go clearly from this Assembly this afternoon: Wales is better in Europe. Wales belongs to Europe, and that is the choice we need to make next week. [Applause.]

I call on Dafydd Elis-Thomas to reply to the debate.

Thank you very much, Llywydd. It’s a very difficult task to respond or even summarise a debate such as this, but I am grateful to all Members for us having a reasonable and relatively rational debate in the contributions made. We started with Mark Isherwood referring to the agricultural arguments and the kinds of arguments that I have heard a number of times in the area that I represent, and across west Wales: this concept that we can secure a future for Welsh agriculture and fisheries by returning to a regime that many of us well remember, before we had things such as the European lamb regime to develop and safeguard our industry, and likewise our fisheries are now protected through the system that we have in place. Because what’s important to bear in mind about the European Union is that it’s a union that has changed and reformed across the years. That was emphasised by Huw Irranca-Davies in terms of the importance of the investment in his community, the contributions of the structural funds to the economy of the Valleys of Wales time and time again.

Then, we came to the interesting and amusing contribution, as always, from Neil Hamilton, where he tried to emphasise on the one hand that ensuring that the United Kingdom were to actually exit the European Union would somehow ensure that there would be greater control over what happens in Wales, in England, in Ireland and in Scotland. This is an argument that I have failed to understand, because it seems to me to reject the most important argument about what the European Union provides us with. We live in a globalised world. That is the nature of what has developed across the globe. We have huge economic regions across the globe. Yet, you see this argument that’s put forward that for us as a kingdom to be outwith that global region would somehow be beneficial to us. I can’t accept that argument that the trade deficit between the European Union and the continent and the UK will be any sort of guarantee that we can have a new free market within the single market.

That’s what’s important, I think, that we bear in mind, that there are four main freedoms that are fundamental to the European Union: the freedom of movement of goods; the freedom of movement of services; the freedom of movement of capital; and the freedom of movement of people. This is where the debate on immigration confuses people more than any other, because it is not immigration when people come from the continent of Europe, which is part of the European Union, to work in Wales. That isn’t immigration. What that is is fellow citizens of a whole continent sharing work opportunities, as I can do if I were to go out to work within the European Union, or as our students working from Bangor University, where I—

David Rowlands rose—

Yes, I give way.

Iawn, fe gymeraf ymyriad.

Thank you. It beggars belief to me that two so-called socialist parties that care about the working classes are those parties that advocate a huge number of people pouring into this country. They did not take chief executives’ jobs. They didn’t take top civil servants’ jobs. They didn’t take bankers’ jobs. They took working-class jobs. Where they didn’t take those jobs, they have forced the price of labour down to such a level that the living wage is now the standard wage. Disgraceful—for all of you.

The only thing I will say to you, David: without those people, what would happen to the fresh meat industry in Wales? And the NHS?

If they paid—

No, the Member is not taking a further intervention. Dafydd Elis-Thomas.

Dawn Bowden emphasised the basic issue here of workers’ rights and standards, and I was very pleased to hear that argument. Then we came to Mark Reckless, who gave us edited highlights from his biography. I’ve always regarded autobiography as a work of fiction, so we’ll leave it there. Jenny Rathbone emphasised the importance of the environmental contribution, in terms of air quality, clean beaches and, of course, mine waste safety.

Yna, fy nghyfaill David Melding. Mae David Melding wedi arwain yn glir ar y cwestiwn Ewropeaidd ar hyd y blynyddoedd. Fe wnes i gamgymeriad yn y refferendwm cyntaf. Er gwaethaf ymgais Dafydd Wigley ac eraill i’m mherswadio i, fe bleidleisiais i yn erbyn aros i mewn yn 1975, ac rwyf wedi difaru bob dydd ers hynny. Mae David, yn hollol iawn, yn dadlau mai prosiect Ceidwadol Prydeinig yw’r farchnad sengl, a bod cyfraniad Llywodraeth Thatcher i hynny wedi bod yn gyfraniad sylweddol.

David Rowlands also gave us a lecture on the constitutional position of Wales. I’m afraid I do see this slightly differently, because I was sitting in the Chair there for a period and spent a lot of time discussing with European regions. Europe is a Europe of the regions, and it will continue to be a Europe of the regions, wherever Wales decides to place itself. And, in the Committee of the Regions, we have been represented very ably by my close friend here, Mick Antoniw, who was able to speak from personal experience during the crisis in Ukraine.

And, finally, I come to Hefin David’s contribution, where he mentioned the anti-EU feeling that is about in Wales. And, you know, if we lose this one, we’ve lost it, it’s the political class in Wales that lost it, because we haven’t made the argument strongly enough and have not particularly made the argument that Mark Drakeford, our Minister, ended with—the argument for multiple identity.

Yn yr Undeb Ewropeaidd, y mae’r Gymraeg yn iaith gyd-swyddogol. Nid yw’n gyd-swyddogol yn San Steffan. Dyna ddigon o ddadl i mi i aros yn Ewrop am byth.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] I will defer voting, therefore, under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.