Thank you, Presiding Officer. I move the motion in the name of Plaid Cymru and say how appropriate it is, I think, at this time that we discuss the importance of the rural development plan as part of the way in which the Government is dealing with rural communities and how important it is to deal properly and appropriately, as we leave the European Union, with the way in which the rural development plan works. We have discussed quite a lot in this Senedd the assistance that farmers get, but it’s important to remember that the other part of this support that comes from the EU is that which is broader under the rural development plan for making the agricultural industry more competitive, to ensure that there are sustainable and developmental resources, which are against climate change, and also to develop an economy that is balanced in rural areas.

This money is very valuable to Wales. It’s nearly £1 billion for a three-year plan from 2014 to 2020, and about half of that money is coming from the Welsh Government itself. I think that the best way that we can discuss how important this scheme is just to describe what I did on Monday in visiting the Blaencwm farm, Cynllwyd. I was welcomed by the Jones family there. It’s a mixed farm, about 5 miles from Llanuwchllyn—a sheep farm and a farm where there is a variety and a number of new enterprises that have been developed by the family over the last few years. They have a timber industry and over the last few years they have put biomass heaters there in order to use the wood chippings to heat the homes and to dry out the timber in the first place. They’ve used Glastir, the efficiency grant, to have a new storeroom for slurry, and a shed that goes alongside that in order to extend the number of calves that they can keep. In the wake of that, of course, the slurry is stored better and is distributed better on the land as well. In terms of improving the landscape, the grass and the hedges, there are all kinds of things coming together, from the traditional farming methods, if you like—it’s an upland family farm, which has been in the same family for 10 generations, by the way—to the most new and traditional methods to sustain the habitat for biodiversity and preventing climate change.

Now, in that context, I think it is important that farmers such as the Joneses in Blaencwm have an assurance about what’s happening with the rural development plan. Until now, the Government has only drawn down about £30 million of the money, which, as I said, is up to about £1 billion over six years. So, in two years of a six-year plan, only about 10 per cent—a little bit more, perhaps, if you include the money from the Government as well, but it can’t be more than 10 per cent of the money that has been spent. With the decision to withdraw from the European Union, we need to ask what the Government is going to do now to ensure that that money is spent and used in the most appropriate way in the years to come.

The Government has already said that it wishes to keep to any plan that has been formally approved by January 2017. But since they’ve said that, the Westminster Government has said that the money that it expects to be available for the environmental and agricultural funds will be in place until Brexit happens in 2019-20. So, I hope today that the Cabinet Secretary will be able to confirm that the Government wants to continue with the rural development plan in its present form until at least the time when we withdraw from the European Union.

There are two other elements to the motion that we have today. The first one underlines how important the membership of the single market is in terms of the current situation. Without anyone having made a better offer in terms of our relationship with the rest of the European Union, which doesn’t include quotas or any tariffs on Welsh agricultural produce, Plaid Cymru is still of the opinion that membership of the single market is vital. That opinion has been endorsed by the consultation that we undertook over the summer with the agricultural industry and the broader industry, the environment bodies as well, which feel that two things should continue: agricultural legislation and also the ability to be a part of a system without quotas and tariffs under the single market. In the absence of any other proposal by the Westminster Government or the Welsh Government in terms of the relationship with the EU that continues with those characteristics, Plaid Cymru believes that membership of the market is vital at present.

The final part of the motion is to do with the movement of people. We’re in the situation that Plaid Cymru, the national party, as people call us—or people call us the ‘narrow nationalists’ sometimes too—is the only party that believes in the movement of people across borders and believes that borders shouldn’t prevent people from contributing to the economy in different areas. It’s true to say that the evidence, for example from the Wales Governance Centre, shows that there wasn’t a real effect in terms of the people from outside the UK in terms of the agricultural sector within Wales. That is something to remember. We’re in a situation now where the Home Secretary wants to list the foreigners who work for companies. I wouldn’t have thought that the Conservative Party, which used to believe in the free market, would enforce this on companies, but that’s the sad situation we’re in. And unfortunately, the Labour Party is going along with that disgusting attitude towards outsiders or people from outside the current country.