Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:38 pm on 14 February 2018.

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Photo of Mr Simon Thomas Mr Simon Thomas Plaid Cymru 1:38, 14 February 2018

(Translated)

Thank you for that. I look forward to the launch of the scheme, but I look forward even more to seeing, in two years' time, young people having responsibility for holdings for the first time, and showing the way forward for agriculture in future. I’m very confident that the young farmers of Wales have the ideas to do that.

I will conclude on another aspect of exiting the European Union, which is different in Wales compared to the situation over the border in England, or over the sea in Ireland. I am talking about fisheries. A report on fisheries in Wales was published yesterday by the Public Policy Institute for Wales, and that demonstrated, of course, what’s more important to the kind of fishing fleet we have in Wales, which tends to be smaller and fishes for shellfish rather than fish as such—that they want access to those European markets, and that they want that to be tariff free and open, rather than having ownership of the seas, where it tends to have been steering the debate on CAF and European policies.

When I visited Milford Haven, I was struck by how much processing was happening in Belgium of produce that was gathered in Cardigan bay, much of which is transported back and forth in lorries through Wales. So, what can you as a Government do now to ensure that more processing happens here in Wales and also to ensure, however, that we can still sell that processed food with added value directly into the markets that are still important to us?