Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 28 March 2017.
As I said, much of what she said is basically what I said the week before and in the weeks before that. We’re in no different a position in terms of that. Well, let me explain: first of all, I am not as optimistic—probably the wrong word, but as optimistic as she is that there will be any money post 2020. I’m not convinced there will be any money to replace structural funds. I’m becoming increasingly unconvinced that there’ll be any money to pay farming subsidies. More and more, we are hearing that the common agricultural policy is a problem. We heard it from Iain Duncan Smith. That means farming subsidies could well disappear—they could well disappear. That is my greatest fear. We know what that would mean for the economy of rural Wales.
As she will know, on many, many occasions, I have said that this process will only work if all four nations agree to the final settlement. I don’t believe it’s in any way possible to get a final settlement by March 2019, because it would have to be concluded by the autumn of next year, and that is a tall order. Of course, in order for the internal single market of the UK to survive, there need to be state aid rules within the UK; they have to be agreed by the four nations, not imposed by the UK Government; and there has to be an independent adjudication process to police those rules. I think it’s workable then. But, my greatest fear is that this is not well understood at Whitehall. On Thursday, we’ll see the White Paper on the so-called great repeal Bill. If it focuses solely on preserving the existing acquis of European law, that’s sensible. If, however, it strays into the territory of suggesting something like, ‘Well, EU powers should come back to Whitehall on a temporary basis and then there’ll be a discussion about where they go,’ that would not be acceptable, because I don’t believe that the ‘temporary’ would mean temporary. We will see on Thursday whether the UK Government is serious about working to ensure that the UK continues to work as a partnership.