Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:41 pm on 5 July 2016.
I thank you for that answer, First Minister. Now, in a different meeting that I attended yesterday in Cardiff, I heard from a representative of one of the sectors that will be heavily affected by the Brexit vote. We were told that the further education and skills sector could lose £760 million of future funding if that money isn’t replaced. If and when that funding doesn’t materialise, the young people who are most affected will be those who are furthest away from the employment market. That’s just one sector of Welsh civic society, and it shows how important our EU membership is and the benefits that are there and that they shouldn’t just be discarded.
Do you agree with me that those voices from civic society deserve to be heard when the Brexit terms are negotiated, and will you draw up an official Welsh negotiating position, to be agreed by this National Assembly and sent to the incoming UK Prime Minister? And, if you are unable to hold the new Tory leader in Westminster to account for the promises that were made in the EU referendum campaign, can you tell us how those apprenticeship places, the training courses and the back-to-work schemes that are currently benefiting some of the most disadvantaged people in some of the most disadvantaged communities in Wales will be available to those people in the future?