Much of the future deal, of course, is still unclear, and this presents us with some challenges when it comes to identifying the opportunities and being able to communicate them to businesses. The UK Government, unfortunately, has not yet shared with the Welsh Government the supposed set of 58 sectoral impact studies, and neither has it shared with us a post-referendum overall economic assessment of the impact of Brexit on Wales. We’ll continue to press for any relevant analysis to be shared with us.

We do continue to engage with businesses on EU transition through our established mechanisms, such as the council for economic development, and EU transition is a standing item on the agenda for the council. We’ve also established a sub-group concerned with this very subject. While we await further information from the UK Government on what the future deal might look like, we continue to engage extensively, not only with businesses throughout Wales, but with key organisations that will be incredibly important to future trading relationships, and one of those organisations, of course, is the World Trade Organization.

I visited the WTO at the end of October with the specific intention of building relationships between Wales and the organisation. As the UK leaves the EU, it’s essential that we can represent Welsh interests at the WTO level. The WTO is an extremely important trade organisation that facilitates trade relationships between countries, as well as providing a set of trade rules for countries to abide by and a place for them to settle trade disputes. The UK will need to re-establish itself as an independent member of the WTO when we leave the EU, so it’s absolutely vital that Welsh interests are considered as part of the process of leaving the EU and becoming a member in its own right again of the WTO.

In the absence of clear facts on the Brexit deal, I do believe that it’s important to focus some of our efforts on providing SMEs with advice on how to access support and how to begin to prepare for some of the changes, whether they be challenges or threats, that may lie ahead. So we’re looking at delivering a Brexit portal for businesses. This would provide SMEs with a digital diagnostic that will signpost access to support in key areas, and the actions that SMEs can take to mitigate the risk and to maximise the opportunity, wherever they may be. The diagnostic would be updated as further information becomes available.

Promoting Wales’s place in a globally competitive world is also at the core of our international strategy. We will aim to protect our share of European trade during the Brexit negotiations, and indeed beyond, while supporting businesses looking to enter new and expanding markets around the world. We are a world-facing country, and as we prepare for a future outside the European Union it’s more important than ever before to sell Wales to the world, and to meet with potential investors right around the globe. We embrace the world and its horizons, and when new trade opportunities open up, we will work with businesses to help our economy prosper.

The UK Government launched its trade White Paper preparing for our future UK trade policy document in October, and has since published the trade Bill and the taxation Bill this month. But at this stage of the EU-UK negotiations it’s still unclear whether the Welsh Government’s priority of maintaining full and unfettered access to the EU single market is fully compatible with the UK Government’s desire for an independent trade policy and the creation of new free trade agreements across the globe.

We are particularly concerned that an independent trade policy in all likelihood would mean leaving the customs union with the EU, and this would likely lead to trade barriers at the border, and issues with the border in Northern Ireland. So, we’ll continue to push the UK Government on these points. In addition, a soft border in Northern Ireland, as we all know, could create issues for Welsh ports as there may well be an incentive to route goods through Northern Ireland.

We're not convinced that leaving the customs union with the EU would be of benefit to Wales—at least not in the short term—and yet we are yet to see any evidence from the UK Government to suggest otherwise. More than 60 per cent of identifiable goods from Wales go to the EU, and that level of trade would not be easy to replace. So, Deputy Presiding Officer, our position is that trade with new markets should be in addition to trade with the EU and not an alternative. We continue to be clear, above all, that a 'no deal' scenario would not be acceptable to us.