Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:47 pm on 16 May 2017.
Can he not see that, handled badly, doctors and nurses will get the impression that the UK does not want them? It’s already there. It’s already there because the issue of mutual recognition of residency rights has not yet been dealt with. Nobody—nobody—wants to see people not be able to stay in the UK, or UK citizens unable to stay in the rest of the EU. Nobody wants that, but there is no agreement on it yet, and it’s hugely important that that is done as quickly as possible, to my mind, in advance of the substantive negotiations over Brexit. But it is hugely important that we’re able to recruit from abroad. My great fear is that we end up with a cap on immigration every year, that there is a cap in each sector, that the city gets the lion’s share in order to protect banking and finance, and we end up, because of that cap, unable to recruit doctors and nurses into Wales. That, I think, would be a foolish way of dealing with the issue.