Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:19 pm on 24 October 2017.
Well, really, we need to see progress over the course of the next few months. Time is running out. We have to remember that there needs to be an agreement by this time next year, effectively, because then there’s an ratification process, not just in European institutions, but in every single Parliament, and in some cases, like Belgium, in regional Parliaments as well. That all takes a great deal of time. Just one of them, as we know from the Canadian trade agreement, can derail the process. This has never been done before.
There is some hope because, of course, this is not a situation where two markets come together to agree free access, which have never had that level of access before. We already have free access, so, really, it’s not as difficult to negotiate a free trade agreement with—or shouldn’t be—the EU as it is with other countries with whom we’ve never had—like the US—a free trade agreement. There’s urgency. I’m going to try and be fair here the Prime Minister needs to be able to conduct these negotiations without noises off from within her own Cabinet. That’s absolutely essential. She’s given us a better idea of what she wants to do. I agree. I think that what she outlined in Florence is perfectly sensible, but she needs to have the support of those in her Cabinet, and that, so far, has been lacking.