Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I formally move the motion in the name of Rhun ap Iorwerth. This is a timely debate, coming as it does on the day in which we’ve had a Brexit-heavy Queen’s Speech, and in the week where formal negotiations between the UK and EU begin. It is also the week when the Welsh Government has elaborated further on proposals first announced in ‘Securing Wales’ Future’, the joint White Paper between Plaid Cymru and the Welsh Government on upholding devolution and creating shared governance structures between the devolved nations and the UK Government following our withdrawal from the EU.

Before going any further, Dirprwy Lywydd, I want to take the opportunity on behalf of Plaid Cymru to set the record straight following exchanges between the First Minister and my party leader yesterday on the issue of single market membership. Yesterday, the First Minister said, and I quote:

‘her party has already agreed that you can’t be a member of the single market without being a member of the EU. That is what we agreed, if she remembers’.

In the strongest possible terms, I want to place on record that that is not true, it has never been true, and it never will be true either. Plaid Cymru’s position, since the day after the referendum last year, has been for the UK to remain a member of the single market following our departure from the EU. On 21 September last year, we tabled a motion in this Assembly calling for such an outcome, which was, sadly, defeated, making this Parliament the first in these islands to back a so-called hard Brexit.

The position of the Welsh Government was that single market membership did not exist outside the EU. That is not a position shared by Plaid Cymru. However, both parties engaged constructively in a process that led to the publication of the joint White Paper, recognising that ‘full and unfettered access to the single market’, the preferred term of the Welsh Government, and ‘single market membership’, the common short-hand term used by almost everyone else, were potentially one and the same in actuality.

That is why, throughout the joint White Paper, a new term, ‘single market participation’, was adopted to accommodate both those positions. That provided the basis for respect and co-operation in the national interest. Llywydd, it is a matter of integrity for me that my position and the position of my party is not misrepresented, and it is a matter of deep regret that it was yesterday.

It is important because the issue of single market membership is now the defining issue of our time. A Tory minority Government in Westminster, with a bloodied nose after the recent UK general election, has provided all of us who seek to avoid a hard Brexit with an opportunity to ensure a future relationship with the EU that upholds our economic interest and ensures a continued political partnership with our continental friends and allies—an opportunity that seemed remote just a few weeks ago. Indeed, I very much welcome a piece published in yesterday’s ‘The Guardian’ by more than 50 politicians, calling for continued single market membership. Its authors included many from Wales, including Madeleine Moon, Stephen Doughty, Lord Hain, Ann Clwyd and Chris Bryant.

Our motion today reaffirms this Assembly’s commitment to the Welsh White Paper, which remains in my opinion the most comprehensive publication published in the UK for a future relationship with the EU, and the framework for defending the Welsh constitution. We note with deep regret that the UK Government to date remains unwilling to properly engage with devolved Governments and Parliaments for a Brexit that works for all. Indeed, it is a reflection of the unbalanced nature of this over-centralised and unequal union that the most important peace-time negotiations in history have commenced without full and proper negotiations between the nations of these islands having even been attempted, let alone concluded.

The UK Government’s wait-and-see approach I believe will be exposed very soon as being unsustainable, unfair, and unsatisfactory to the people of Wales. They cannot afford to wait and see when the fate of their jobs and their communities hangs in the balance.