3. Will the First Minister outline the Welsh Government's concerns about the future of the Welsh agriculture industry in light of Brexit? OAQ51748

For decades, EU policy frameworks have shaped the management of our land, underpinned patterns of food production, and supported farm incomes. Post Brexit, our primary producers will be more exposed to global markets and there will be greater friction in trading systems with significant negative consequences, for the sheep meat sector in particular.

I thank you for your answer, First Minister, but do you really believe that the EU and the common agricultural policy regime has been an unmitigated success story for the Welsh farming industry? Because if so, perhaps you and those supporting our presence in the European Union can explain to me the efficacy of seeing our hill farmers reduced to subsistence level on £12,000 per year while some farmers in the south-east of England have become millionaires under this iniquitous regime. These hill farmers are a symbol of a once proud industry brought to its knees in becoming a begging bowl economy of grants and regulations. Add to this the fact that the common agricultural policy is universally accepted as being an environmental disaster. Surely, the First Minister has to agree that we are better off out.

Well, I'm sure the leader of the Welsh Conservatives would agree with every word that the UKIP Member has said—[Interruption.] I doubt that somehow. CAP has been the method by which we have ensured that farmers are able to survive. It has supported farmers and supported rural economies and their social, cultural, environmental and linguistic development for many, many years. Is he now saying that he does not want there to be any kind of support for farmers in the future? Because I can tell him, as far as environmental schemes are concerned, we had Tir Cynnal, we had Tir Gofal, we had Glastir, we have schemes that help to support the environment. Over £200 million a year comes into Wales in European subsidies. At the moment, there is no guarantee, beyond a certain year, that we'll get a penny of money at all. I invite him to go to any hill farm in Wales and express his view that those farmers are holding a begging bowl out and see what response he gets.

First Minister, when I took an Assembly committee to Dublin and met the Taoiseach, I learnt how Ireland benefits by £2 billion because of privileged access to our beef and dairy markets in the customs union, with a quarter of our beef coming from Ireland. Isn't it the case that outside a customs union it would be our choice either to trade freely and buy beef more cheaply elsewhere, or, if we preferred tariffs, to buy that beef from Welsh and UK farmers instead?

Cheap food is code for undermining British farming. That's what it means, because if you're not prepared to support the farming industry, not even with tariffs, then you end up with the cheapest imports coming in and wiping out our farming industry. That's what will happen. It's simple economics and something that has not been properly explained by those who say, 'We'll just have cheap food and buy it all around the world, no matter where it comes from, and who cares about our own farmers', especially those farmers who will lose the privileged access they have to the European market. Our sheep farmers cannot survive if they find themselves in a position where there are extra barriers in place in terms of them accessing the European market. It is their biggest market; 90 per cent of our food and drink exports go there. We'd be literally mad if we ignored the fact that we need to sort out access to that European single market first before following fantasies elsewhere.

There’s one blessing, First Minister—no farmer has time in the middle of the day to watch these proceedings. When you were over in Ireland recently, I don’t know whether you had an opportunity to buy anything in a shop in Ireland, but if you did, you would have received a receipt, and on the receipt it would have said what percentage of the food and drink produce had been produced in Ireland, and how much you had bought. As we leave the European Union, what are you doing to ensure that we can still sell food and drink from Wales over the border and that it is badged up as Welsh produce with a Welsh stamp, and what are you doing to ensure that we retain the protected geographical indication status, which has increased the export of lamb by 25 per cent since we gained that status?

That is right. There is a question with regard to what will happen to PGI and PDO, and whether there will be a British system. Will that system be on the same terms as the European system, and will it be recognised as such? It's important that we can ensure that we protect the fact that we have lamb, for example, of the highest standard. Welsh lamb is accepted in markets across the world, and the same is true of Welsh beef and a number of other products. What we don’t wish to see is a situation where our competitors can go into the European market on a level that is better than the level that we would eventually have there. We know at present that there are farmers in France and Spain are thinking that there is an invitation for them, if Welsh lamb becomes more expensive in the European market, or an opportunity or them to take advantage of that, and that will not benefit the farmers of Wales. There's no way at all of arguing—and I don't think that the Member is arguing this—that the lamb producers and farmers of Wales will be better outside of the single market. Without that market, the future for a number of our farms will be very bleak indeed.