This isn’t quite correct. It doesn’t talk about EFTA and EEA membership, it says EFTA and/or EEA membership. I think my party would be very happy, indeed enthusiastic, for EFTA membership, but not for EEA membership. The amendment is confusing. Every other part of it, I don’t think we have any problems with. And/or EEA membership, yes, we’re happy with EFTA membership. But what support of the amendment does is allow the First Minister to continue the confusion of his party as, ‘Do they want membership of the single market?’ i.e. the EEA—possibly with the confusion of the Conservatives that you might be outside or inside the customs union—or is he saying, with us, that we should have a free trade relationship, trying to maximise our access to the single market from outside? That really is the matter he needs to decide.

I don’t think the facts have changed. The people voted to leave the EU. Certainly, UK Government policy is changing, but I think people learn more about the complexities of the EU and consider the matter and, yes, perhaps change their view over time, but I’m not so sure that the facts have changed to that degree.

The difficulty with the Plaid issue is they talk about full and unfettered access to the European single market, but I’m not sure there is any such thing. We don’t have full and unfettered access at the moment. In many areas services aren’t liberalised. In goods they got rid of—. Basically the Cassis de Dijon principle of mutual recognition that the EU used to have has been supplanted by, ‘Well, let’s agree politically one, single, top-down standard everyone has to meet in order to be able to sell at all.’ I don’t call that full and unfettered access. And, in the same way, they actually used the applicability of EU law to try and prevent our access when they looked at, say, banning euro clearing—if you weren’t in the eurozone, it was EU law they were trying to do. In the same way with the port services regulation—they would sort of split up and have internal markets in every port in the UK and it would be completely ridiculous and would fetter our access to the single market as well as other markets. That would, again, be done by EU law. We want the maximum possible access, consistent with restricting free movement, and deciding who comes to our country. We’re not going to have a hard border, we’re not going to want to check every lorry that comes across the Irish market, we’re not trying to stop people from the EU visiting the UK; we’re trying to stop them working in the UK on a completely unfettered basis to drive down wages for people at the lower end of our labour market who compete with them. That’s what our motion is saying, and I wish the First Minister would come and bring some clarity by supporting our motion, rather than supporting the Plaid thing, which continues the ambiguity and uncertainty that’s been a feature of other parties’ positions in this Chamber. Thank you.