Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:35 pm on 14 September 2016.
You’re absolutely right. I agree, and of course, we have the deep ports, and the Haven in Pembrokeshire as well, where construction can be taken immediately out to sea without the UK investment that was needed in the north-east. That was seen as regional development, but it also opened up the north sea for offshore wind, and that’s been very successful. I think that’s a very good example, and any pressure that can be brought now in the next couple of crucial weeks to ensure that the tidal lagoon is seen as a huge potential for Wales—. We can be, again, a world leader in energy, renewable energy, and I would like to see this opportunity—whether we want it or not, this is our opportunity to use it to recast our nation in that way.
The second aspect is around agriculture and the environment, and whatever we’ve thought in the past of European agriculture rules, there’s been a clear tendency over the last 10 years to move away from supporting merely paying for food production into a situation where we support the whole environment and food production and processing as part of that. We have this opportunity, rather than, as Llyr Gruffydd mentioned, going through every five or six years, recasting our programmes, to have a very much more long-term view of how we can use these resources now to support our rural communities, but also to achieve more effective, more sustainable and, indeed, more environmentally productive food production. Certainly, Plaid Cymru is consulting our farming communities at the moment, and I hope that anyone who is interested in contributing those ideas will join with us in doing that.
The key to how we move forward is the unresolved question of whether we have some kind of access to the single market through some kind of free trade arrangement, which could include tariffs, or membership of the single market. Adam Price mentioned that we’ve had at least three different policies. I asked the environment Secretary in committee this morning which policy the Cabinet actually had, and I think it’s fair to say that the Cabinet has no policy. The Cabinet has no policy at all regarding whether it’s membership, or access or whatever. Now, we can see that these are difficult times, and uncertain times, but I think we need to see a vision, and I think we need to see the Welsh Government setting out very clearly where it wants Wales to remain. Plaid Cymru is clear and I’m quite clear; I want, long-term, Wales to be a member of the European Union, because I want Wales as an independent country willingly participating in a union of other countries working together for the environment, and for society and for the economy. If that’s not to happen now—and I accept the result of the referendum, of course—but if it’s not to happen now, then what are the steps we’re taking to protect Wales in the meantime, and secure access, which is vital, to that single market for our farmers?