Diolch, Llywydd. Last week, I had the opportunity to visit the Republic of Ireland with my colleague, Steffan Lewis, to meet Irish Government officials, policy makers and politicians to discuss the consequences of the UK leaving the EU for Ireland and for Wales. It’s fair to say that they shared our sense of trepidation. But,as with the economic crisis of 2008, they have at their disposal a tool that we do not—independence—and I don’t just mean an independent state, but also a whole raft of powerful executive bodies, established by the state, independent of, but working closely with, the central Government machine to drive economic strategy: the IDA, Ireland’s inward investment agency; the business development body, Enterprise Ireland; and Board Bia, the Irish food board, just to name some of them.

Now, this model has delivered a handsome return for Ireland, as we know—its GDP per capita has more than trebled since the 1980s, while we have sadly stagnated in relative terms. So, can I plead with the Cabinet Secretary, again, in the context of his current review of the Welsh Government’s economic advisory boards, to consider the case for an arm’s-length independent trade and investment promotion agency for Wales? The Republic has one, and Northern Ireland too; so does Scotland, and England through UKTI. Even the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands have one. Can we afford to leave Wales naked in weathering this storm?