The EU Transition Fund

Part of 2. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 2:54 pm on 14 February 2018.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:54, 14 February 2018

Well, I'll make two points, Llywydd. The first is that the people who made these estimates are the people that the UK Government chose to make these estimates. They're not some group of people who simply set themselves up for the purpose. They are the people that your Government decided were the best-placed people to give them this advice. Of course, when they come up with advice that doesn't suit you, you think the easiest thing to do is to rubbish the people who provided it.

The second point I would make to the Member is this: that the trade policy that the Welsh Government published recently also contains estimates of the impact on the Welsh economy of different ways in which we might leave the European Union, and there is a remarkable coincidence between the figures that the people who have advised us in producing that report came to and those the people who advised the UK Government came to too. Just because we don't like the figures, I don't think we can simply dismiss them because they don't suit the view of the world that we happen to take.