Can I welcome the statement and, in particular, thank the First Minister for the amused courtesy with which he greeted my presence at his press conference yesterday? From the thunderous look on the face of the leader of Plaid Cymru, I don’t think she was quite so pleased to see me. It was important, I think, that I should be there, because it was an opportunity in addition to today to probe the First Minister on parts of the plan, in particular in relation to migration.

I have to say that I echo the sentiments of the leader of the Welsh Conservatives earlier on that neither his party nor mine has been involved in any discussions with the Welsh Government on how to help take Wales forward in the context of the new reality of Brexit. Particularly in respect of migration, the statistical annex shows that 86 per cent of the people of Wales think that immigration into Britain should be reduced—86 per cent—and yet the leader of Plaid Cymru yesterday, at the press conference, said that she didn’t think immigration was a problem at all. [Interruption.] So, the section of this plan about migration, which the First Minister acknowledges in his statement was the reason why many people voted ‘leave’, is hobbled from the start by his alliance with a party that is in denial about the whole process. It seems, therefore, rather quixotic that he should give such importance to a party that is in denial about the reality, yet he ignores the parties on this side of the house that, after all, were on the winning side of the argument.

I hope that he will agree that although the advanced billing for the arrival of my colleagues and me in this Assembly was that we were going to be disruptors and beyond the pale, we have done our best to play a constructive part in the proceedings of this institution and want to play a part, so far as our political differences allow us to do so, in the process of getting the best outcome for Wales from this process. Therefore, going forward, if he will involve us, insofar as it’s not inconsistent with what the Welsh Government’s political objectives are, I hope that he will do so.

As regards the section of the plan on migration, he did say to me yesterday that he thought that the Norway model was the way forward, but that doesn’t address any of the concerns of the public about uncontrolled immigration from the EU. There are 450 million people outside Britain in the EU who have a legal right to come here for work and residence. If we adopted the Norway model, that would be completely unchanged, because Norway is actually in the Schengen agreement, of course, and therefore has even less control over its borders than Britain has at the moment. Under current EU law, which is applicable in Norway, EU citizens not only have the right to accept offers of jobs in Norway, but also the right to go there in order to look for work. In effect, they can take their dependents with them; therefore, that aspect of his plan is no plan at all, because it doesn’t even begin to address the problem of control of our own borders.

As regards the statement in relation to the customs union, I find that rather bizarre at a time when the President of the United States, our largest individual national trading partner in Wales—yes, the United States is a nation, and it’s our largest single individual nation trading partner—that we rule out the prospect of doing free trade deals with the rest of the world, which is 85 per cent of the global economy. Considering we’ve already had approaches from Australia, New Zealand and many other countries to explore trade deals— other countries that have existing free trade or favourable trade arrangements with the EU, and we are part of those arrangements now—why should we find it so difficult to be able to continue them? The talk of five to seven years of negotiation may well apply to the EU, where you have to get the agreement of 28 countries to a document, but when we’re negotiating bilaterally, everything becomes much simpler, especially when we’re negotiating with countries that are far more spiritually in tune with us and our view of the world than many of those to whom we’ve been shackled for the last 40-odd years in the EU.

I’d like to ask the First Minister one question also about the unremitting gloom of his plan and the statistical basis upon which many of his assertions are based. On page 9 of the document, it says that there is strong consensus among mainstream economic forecasters—which I wouldn’t agree with—that

‘replacing Single Market participation with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules could result in a UK economy up to 8 – 10% smaller than would otherwise have been the case’.

I can’t understand how that could possibly be the case, because if we had no exports whatsoever to the EU, then that would take out 11 per cent of our GDP. So is he actually predicating his plan upon the likelihood that we’d be doing no trade with the European Union at all? Is he expecting there to be a wall built down the middle of the English channel? How could it possibly be the case, given that half of our trade under WTO rules would not be subject to any tariff at all with the EU, and the average tariff under WTO rules would be 3.5 per cent, how could this statistical basis possibly have any credibility?

The last point that I have to make is in relation to the future and the UK Government ensuring that Wales should have every penny of what we currently get of British taxpayers’ money through the EU. In this respect, I am 100 per cent in support of the Welsh Government’s position, and we will do everything we can to ensure that Wales does get its fair share of the proceeds and benefits of Brexit, which include not only the money that we get at the moment via Brussels, but also the Brexit dividend of the £8 billion a year of British taxpayers’ money that is currently being spent in other parts of the EU. So, in that respect, again, there’s everything for us to play for here, if we advocate our cause in the most persuasive way, and the best way to do that is to establish the consensus that the leader of Plaid Cymru claimed that she wanted to see across this Chamber and to involve all the parties that are represented here in this process, so that we can, as far as that is possible, and surely in this aspect at least we can all agree unanimously that Wales must get as much out of this as it possibly can.