Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:37 pm on 31 January 2018.
I thank the Cabinet Secretary. He will be aware, at least, from the press coverage of this analysis, that it looks at three scenarios: staying in the single market to all intents or purposes, leaving under World Trade Organization rules, and a situation where there is some sort of free trade deal of the type that the Prime Minister has been talking about.
Now, the three scenarios look over a period of 15 years, and, in each of those, there is a decline and a reduction in growth over that period of 15 years, varying from 2 per cent under the single market to 8 per cent under WTO. Now, the impact on Wales is going to be very detrimental indeed because we are far more exposed to certain aspects of this, particularly under WTO rules, such as the red meat sector, manufacturing, vehicles and so on, Airbus—just as an example of what can happen here. So, can I ask the Cabinet Secretary what the Government is going to do now in order to get hold of this analysis?
I understand that Westminster today has agreed in one way or another to share this paper with Members of Parliament in a closed room. I don’t think that that’s good enough at all. We, here, need to see this analysis too. We represent the interests of Wales as much if not more than MPs from Wales. And the Welsh Government needs to see the analysis; I want the Welsh Government to ask specifically for that. Of course, as the Scottish Government, and the Mayor of London himself, have commissioned independent reports and assessments of the economic impact of exiting the European Union, why won’t you do that and publish that too?
Now, it is about time that we realised the true cost of exiting the European Union. Yes, a decision to leave the political union has been made, but leaving the customs union and the single market will cost the Welsh economy very dearly indeed.