Part of 1. 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:46 pm on 17 October 2017.
We have an EU exit working group that is working on different scenarios, but I have to say that no deal—there is no mitigation for no deal. There is nothing literally we can do in the short term if we find there’s no deal. In the longer term, it’s possible to look for new markets, but, in the timescale we’re talking about, it’s impossible. If we look at farming, particularly sheep—. Dairy farming is in a less vulnerable position, but sheep farming particularly—sheep farmers face a triple whammy, in effect, of (a) finding that what they produce is now 40 per cent more expensive in their main target market, (b) seeing a question mark over their subsidies post 2021, and (c) a potential free trade deal with another country with a large sheep meat industry like New Zealand, for example, that is then allowed to come into the UK without any restriction at all. In those circumstances, no matter how much subsidy can be made available for farmers, much of what they produce will not be sellable, and that’s why it’s hugely important that our sheep farmers, our manufacturers, are able to access the single market in the same way as they do now. It’s perfectly possible to leave the EU and yet still have access to the single market. Norway have done it; Norway is a European economic area country. Nigel Farage himself was using Norway as an example of what we could be, and, in that sense, if in little else, he’s right, because the last thing we want to see is no deal, because there’s no amount of preparation that can prepare the Welsh economy for what is bound to be bad news if we cannot access properly the market where we sell nearly two thirds of our goods.