4. 4. Statement: ‘Securing Wales' Future’: Transition from the European Union to a New Relationship with Europe

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:44 pm on 24 January 2017.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 4:44, 24 January 2017

I thank my colleague for those comments. At the heart of this is the issue that will face us over the next few years, and that is that Brexit must not be done in such a way that, as Britain leaves the EU, in future Britain no longer exists because the UK is fractured. We must make sure that those divisions are healed. There is no better way to make things worse than for Whitehall to try to take powers from the devolved administrations or to interfere in the internal devolved affairs of Wales. I do not believe the UK will survive that kind of approach.

So, we do need to make sure that the UK's machinery adapts to the reality of the twenty-first century. That does mean submitting to a system of independent arbitration where there are disputes. The point’s been made that, well, if we're within the single market, we may be subject to the judgments of the ECJ, but the reality is that we will still be subject to the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights. We will certainly be subject to the World Court. If we enter into a free trade agreement with any country, then we surrender an element of sovereignty, because we will surrender that sovereignty to an independent arbitrator. The ECJ is simply, in many ways, an arbitrator in a series of agreements. And so, if the UK has 50 free trade agreements, it will have 50 different arbitration mechanisms for dealing with those agreements that would override the UK Parliament. Again, it's not something that's been thought through as far as free trade agreements are concerned. And so, for me, what we need to work on is: to establish what is in effect a UK council of Ministers; to strengthen or build on the existing machinery of the JMC; for Whitehall to accept that, in fact, there are many areas in the future where there will need to be agreement not imposition—in farming and fisheries. Fisheries access is a major and complicated issue in terms of where access is granted, how much quota Wales will have, and, indeed, what sort of boats will have that quota, because Welsh fishing interests are entirely different to Scotland's and, for example, the north-east of England’s. All these issues will have to be resolved. They can only be resolved through a proper mechanism where resolution and agreement can be achieved, where there is an independent arbitration system outside of the UK Government and the Treasury, and in doing so, I believe that will help not just to preserve the single market of the UK, but help as well in terms of good relations between the nations of the UK itself.