5. 3. Statement: EU Transition

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:03 pm on 13 September 2016.

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Photo of Mr Neil Hamilton Mr Neil Hamilton UKIP 4:03, 13 September 2016

Or a Welsh one for that matter, yes, except that your own party doesn’t even believe in independence anymore, so that’s not on offer. So, the opportunity that this gives us is not just, of course, to do a free trade deal with the EU but also free trade deals with the rest of the world, and they are queuing up to do these deals with us. I can’t understand the First Minister’s pessimism about the time this is going to take. So, what I’m asking him to do is to get further behind this idea of a free trade solution to the negotiations that are now ongoing.

As regards other negative things he said, why is he still giving house room to the idea that it’s possible for us to discriminate against EU nationals post Brexit, when he knows that the rights of EU nationals are fully protected under the 1969 Vienna treaty on the rights of nationals of signatory members? There’s no going back on that and the UK Government, I believe, has already made that position clear.

And as regards the future of tariffs within the EU, I can’t understand why he can think that it is actually a serious threat to us that there will be tariffs on imports and exports between Britain and the EU. If we just take Germany as an example, we export £29 billion-worth of goods to them every year, but they export to us twice that—£57 billion. So, he’s been talking about his negotiations with the UK Government, what about setting up some arrangements to talk to the German Government and other Governments that are sympathetic to a free trade solution for themselves as well as for the UK within and beyond the EU? What moves has he made to enter into discussions with the German Government, because next year there is an election in Germany and I don’t think that the German Chancellor will want to go into that election saying that there’s a possibility there’ll be a 10 per cent or 15 per cent tariff on BMW, Mercedes, Volkswagen et cetera exports to the EU. So, what I’m asking the First Minister is to become more positive, concentrate on the opportunities that lie ahead so that we can make the best of the outcome of the referendum.