4. Will the Cabinet Secretary clarify the terms and conditions for the £50 million EU transition fund? OAQ51762

We are developing the detailed operation of the EU transition fund in partnership with Welsh businesses, public services and other key organisations, to help them prepare for Brexit. Discussions of potential terms and conditions of the fund formed a major agenda item at last week’s meeting of the European advisory group.

Well, I welcome that response, Cabinet Secretary. I also welcome the Welsh Government's proactive engagement in securing Wales's future, not just with the announcement of the £50 million EU transition fund, but also the regional investment and trade issues plans. I'm also very pleased to be part of the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee, which provides constructive scrutiny of the Welsh and UK Governments in the Brexit negotiations. But I have to say, last week, I asked, in my capacity as a member of that committee, to have sight of the so-called leaked document on the impact of Brexit on the economy. We were asked to go to a separate UK Government building, not on the Assembly estate, and book an appointment from a selection of very limited and specific time slots in order to enter a guarded reading room. I understand that the Brexit committees in the Houses of Parliament have full access to this report. This cannot be right. Extensions to this week are neither acceptable nor convenient. I'm squeezing in a time tomorrow, which is going to be extremely inconvenient. The report should be made public not just for us, but for our constituents and our stakeholders.

But what's more important is what the report says, and I do understand that this official analysis by the UK Government shows that Wales would suffer a 9.5 per cent hit to gross domestic product if the UK leaves the EU without an exit deal. Furthermore, the study also reveals that Wales would see a 5.5 per cent reduction in GDP even if the UK leaves with a free trade deal, and that there would still be a 1.5 per cent reduction if the country stayed in the single market. The predicted losses are understood to cover a 15-year period. So, given these low-growth scenarios and also current uncertainties about the terms of a transition period, has this had an impact on your planning and arrangements for the Welsh Government EU transition fund?

I thank the Member for what she's had to say. We had earlier questions this afternoon, Llywydd, about the way in which the UK Government organises itself around the Brexit matter. The sorry story of access for Members to the so-called leaked reports would have disgraced Clochemerle, let alone a UK Government. I share the view of Anna Soubry, myself. [Interruption.] I share the view of Anna Soubry—that Conservative Member of Parliament who described the UK Government's performance on this issue as farcical. It treats the Parliament and this Assembly, and the Scottish Parliament, as though we belonged in the nineteenth century. We are taken to locked rooms to look at documents that we can't even take notes on, while members of the public are reading it on the internet. It's entirely farcical and it's disrespectful, and it does not add to confidence that the UK Government is capable of discharging these responsibilities.

Llywydd, may I apologise for the discourtesy of having missed a question in the previous session?

I'm not sure whether the Cabinet Secretary has been with David Melding and Jane Hutt to read these reports, but he may also be able to tell us whether the report about leaks or otherwise on the reshuffle will be published, given his new commitment to openness and transparency in public life. Can I also ask him, when he considers these reports from the UK Government, will he consider that the forecasters who have written these extraordinary large estimates of potential output loss are, in the main, the same ones who said there would be an immediate recession if we voted on 23 June to leave, and there would be 0.5 million job losses across the UK when, actually, there have been 0.5 million new jobs?

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.