6. 6. Plaid Cymru Debate: The Agriculture Industry and Brexit

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:03 pm on 7 June 2017.

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Photo of Mr Simon Thomas Mr Simon Thomas Plaid Cymru 4:03, 7 June 2017

Thank you, Presiding Officer. Well, for an election that was called to decide Brexit, we’ve had no illumination at all about what sort of trade deal farmers in Wales will get out of this. I can’t accept that Theresa May has said anything relevant about Welsh farming. The most memorable thing she’s said about farming is that she used to trample down the wheat, like some sort of Thatcher in the rye, and we’re left with this—. A dreadful, dreadful, dreadful pun, I know. We’re left with the actual thing that she said when she came to Wales. What did she actually say? She said that there’s no guarantee on support for farmers after 2020. That, directly, is a quote from her visit to Wales only yesterday. Tim Farron came to mid Wales, and what did he talk about? He talked about social care policy in England—nothing to Welsh farmers.

I’m grateful that the Cabinet Secretary has reiterated her Government’s own commitment to the White Paper between ourselves, Plaid Cymru, and, let’s remember, the Liberal Democrats as well, even though they claim that they’re not part of this. But it is the truth that the UK Labour Party has also said nothing about what sort of trade deal we will get. Keir Starmer, who is the more sensible one, has made no mention at all about what this should be. The fact is that, as Paul Davies did point out quite correctly, we are supported by EU funds at the moment. If that were to be Barnettised, we would significantly lose our support here in Wales. That just underlines how, I’m afraid, David Rowlands’s comments were borne out of ignorance and spoken with no illumination in the Chamber today—[Interruption.] Well, no; I haven’t got time. I’m already out of time, I’m sorry, but I thought you showed you understood nothing about agriculture at all.

Neil Hamilton—we have made the same speech too many times in the same place at the moment, but the one thing that Neil Hamilton did say in the hustings on Monday night in Llandeilo that I though was honest, but I don’t accept it, was that his position was that he would accept a cost for leaving the European Union. I’m not prepared to do that, and neither is Plaid Cymru. Tomorrow, we’ll decide what will happen in the UK as a whole. Whatever happens, we will have elected one of the weakest Prime Ministers we have seen since the second world war, whoever wins that election, and I think we’re in for a very, very bumpy negotiation with the EU.