Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 1:49 pm on 13 June 2018.
That was a very informative reply, and I'm very glad to hear that the Cabinet Secretary has taken those steps. The other area that the industry is very concerned about, of course, is the impact of controls on the movement of labour between the EU and the UK. We all want to see the maximum degree of flexibility in this respect, without prejudicing overall immigration controls. Where skilled workers are concerned, nobody in his right mind would want to see the opportunities diminish to have people from abroad to plug the gaps in skills that we have currently. Sixty-three per cent of abattoir staff, I gather, come from the EU, and about 90 per cent of slaughterhouse vets are European. So, these people do play a vital role in the UK and Welsh agricultural industry and every encouragement should be given to them to remain in employment. Regardless of one's views on the desirability of Brexit, I think there'd be a widespread consensus for that view.
But, as in relation to import substitution with goods and food products, clearly, we do have the opportunity with increased training and so on to kit out our own people with the kinds of skills that currently we don't have enough of. So, can the Cabinet Secretary also tell us what she's been doing recently to prepare, again, for a Brexit where we don't have a sensible deal with the EU because they won't come up with one and because the British Government has made its policy perfectly clear that they want to see as little friction as possible both on movement of labour as well as on movement of goods? It's the EU that is currently the impediment, and Monsieur Barnier himself is a personal roadblock to agreement, and that is part of its negotiating strategy. But it is vitally important—I don't want this question to turn into a speech—it is vitally important that the Welsh Government should do what it can to improve training opportunities, particularly in those areas where there are currently skills gaps, and if the Cabinet Secretary could give us an update on that I'd be grateful.