5. 4. Statement: Brexit and Devolution: Securing Wales's Future

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:17 pm on 20 June 2017.

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Photo of Mark Isherwood Mark Isherwood Conservative 4:17, 20 June 2017

Diolch. Given your references to Ireland, particularly, and David Rees’s reference, as Chair of the external affairs committee, to our visit yesterday—he referred to Irish Government officials and Ministers who are obviously speaking to their counterparts in the other 26 EU member states regarding the negotiating position of the Commission—how do you respond, given your statements and concerns, to the statement made by a Minister that the common travel area issues should be resolved without any real problem, and from, finally, the Irish Marine Development Office, which acts on the aegis of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, that Brexit won’t close the 18-hour advantage of the land bridge to the continental markets through Welsh ports after the detailed modelling they’ve done based on the likely customs check and customer arrangements that will exist, as they hypothesise, after exit, if there’s a soft border between the north and south of Ireland but a Brexit border on the Welsh coast?