Thank you for your statement. My party, the Welsh Conservatives, do believe that Wales must benefit from at least as much funding as we go forward and we’ll continue to make those representations in our discussions here and elsewhere.

You refer to your being pleased that the Treasury has announced that the common agricultural policy pillar 1 funding for farmers has been settled until 2020 but add that, so far as CAP pillar 2 and structural funds are concerned, the Treasury will only guarantee funding for projects formally agreed before the autumn statement. However, the briefing provided to external affairs committee members for the meeting you attended yesterday did include additional information that the Treasury will also put in place arrangements for assessing whether to guarantee funding for specific structural and investment fund projects that might be signed after the autumn statement but while we remain a member of the EU, with further details to be provided ahead of the autumn statement. Given the importance of that statement and the repeated reference to the situation by yourself here and elsewhere, can you reassure us and provide evidence of what discussions you’re having with the Treasury ahead of the autumn statement regarding that commitment made?

Yesterday, again, you were questioned in the external affairs committee about the external advisory group. I think you told my colleague, Suzy Davies, that you would be seeking to involve all parties and various other agencies in that. Could you provide more detail of when that’s going to happen and the basis on which you intend that to go forward? You’ve referred to your visit to the United States and said you’ll do everything to build confidence in Wales and abroad. Clearly, in your speech last Friday, you talked about Wales being open for business, but you did also talk about the risk of needless economic harm to our country and citizens. Correct me if I’m wrong, but, my understanding is that you were on a sales mission. I know from my previous career that people on sales missions—salespeople—sell the benefits, explaining in a confident, can-do way why a post-Brexit Wales will continue to be a great place to do business. I know you had some business experience before, maybe less sales experience before, but do you grasp that fundamental principle of sales and marketing and bear that in mind as you go forward in discussions in the future?

You rightly talk about the importance of continued, unfettered access to a single market and free trade for goods and services. Yesterday, when I questioned you about engagement in pre-trade discussions—given that we know that exploratory discussions with the Australian Prime Minister and the UK Government took place last week and countries such as India, Mexico, South Korea and Singapore have told the UK Government that they want to engage in trade talks with the Government—is it not a little bit too late to wait for the UK Government, after Brexit, to begin formal trade negotiations? Should you not be directly seeking to be involved in those discussions, given the importance to Wales of matters, as we discussed yesterday, such as New Zealand lamb tariffs?

You referred yesterday, and you’ve done it again today, to trade negotiators. My understanding is the UK has somewhere around 120 trade negotiators, as part of the EU Commission team working in Brussels currently, who are returning—I think an agreement’s been reached that they will be working on this with the UK Government. Of course, the UK Government has announced it is recruiting several hundred more internally within the civil service with relevant experience and added training. What effort have you made, or will you make, to seek the appointment of some of those negotiators to have a position to advise, engage and represent the Welsh Government as part of a UK team? Hopefully, the UK Government might respond positively to the suggestion that such a negotiator in that position might be to everybody’s mutual benefit.

You are right, and we agree, that no-one in this Assembly wants to live in a country defined by low wages or poor prospects. When you say that leaving the European Union does not mean leaving Europe and still less does it mean turning Wales’s back on Europe—Wales is and will remain part of Europe—that, of course, tallies with comments made by, I think, the Foreign Secretary, when meeting the Commission in Brussels not so long ago. So, we welcome that. We also place, like you, high value on access to the EU single market, but we recognise that access to markets is a two-way process and that many EU nations, particularly the larger ones, depend heavily on both the Welsh and UK marketplace. Do you therefore recognise that it is a two-way process, and that this is, at present, an early game, with both sides positioning themselves and that what we must play to are our strengths, as will our friends and partners in Europe, towards a situation that will do hopefully no harm to either and act to the benefit of all? If we keep talking about this as mere supplicants at the emperor’s table, that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Clearly, ultimately, our aim must also be to close the prosperity gap between Wales and European countries. It is ironic that access for Wales to some of the EU funding streams, particularly structural funding, is consequent upon Wales’s prosperity gap with the EU and the rest of the UK actually widening since the receipt of funds. So, how will you seek to use both the negotiations and the reconfiguration of polices after the negotiations to maximise the opportunities to turn that widened GVA or prosperity gap into a narrowed gap that reached the communities that, in large part, voted actually for a Brexit? Again, that was something referred to in committee yesterday.

You referred briefly to the Scottish Government and your view that the likelihood of an independent deal was remote because of the sensitivities in Spain and elsewhere. Do you agree with me that, were Scotland to negotiate as an independent nation, they would be required to enter the eurozone as a eurozone nation, which is part of the rules of membership of the club currently?

Finally, I’ll just refer to agriculture—something that’s vitally important but that I haven’t thus far referred to. At the Denbigh and Flint show, the Farmers Union of Wales panel were unanimous in their decision that the decision to leave the EU should be seen as an opportunity to shape a future that suits Welsh farmers, not just those across the English channel. After the discussions, their managing director said ‘There’s no point in looking back, we must now focus on the future and recognise the excellent opportunity for us to shape our own future, one that suits Welsh agriculture and the people of Britain.’ They also said that, if we don’t change our policy in relation to the management of bovine TB in wildlife, our exports to the European Union in a post-Brexit world are under considerable threat. So, what discussions have you or your Government had, or will you have, with the FUW and NFU over approaching discussions on that positive basis and reflecting the real concerns and barriers they’ve identified?