In our White Paper agreed with Plaid Cymru, 'Securing Wales' Future', we set out a Welsh plan for Brexit. We set out clearly how the right Brexit for Wales requires agreement for participation in the single market and a customs union. That was our position 17 months ago and no evidence has emerged to challenge our conclusion. Llywydd, in that document, we were clear that this might involve UK membership of the European Free Trade Association and, through that, the European Economic Area or a bespoke agreement to secure full and unfettered access to the single market. Now, clearly, participation in the EEA or EFTA would not, on its own, be sufficient, and that's why the Government will not support amendment 4. There's no contradiction, as suggested by that amendment, because we also need to be part of a customs union and we need barrier-free access for agriculture and fisheries, but it's telling that the European Commission has openly discussed a Norway-plus model for the UK.

So, in January 2017, we set out a viable informed position based on evidence and we've stuck to it. Because, Llywydd, the evidence is clear and compelling: nearly £3 in every £4 earned by Welsh businesses from overseas exports depend on our relationship with our EU partners. The latest statistics published on 7 June show that Welsh exports to EU countries increased by £649 million, or 7 per cent, over the last year. The EU is and will continue to be our most important trading area. Through the EU, we also access free trade agreements with more than 70 countries. With a hard Brexit, it would take decades to replicate that.

Businesses up and down Wales are working hard to grow their export markets, demonstrating that Wales is an open and outward-looking country, but these efforts risk being undermined by the chaotic approach to the negotiations by the UK Government. We are, of course, a little over nine months before—as a default—we leave the EU on 29 March 2019. You would have thought that, at this point, the UK Government would have a clear strategy in place. Instead, we have chaos and confusion on the vital question of our future economic relationship with our biggest and most influential market. On an almost weekly basis, we get a new statement from a Cabinet Member on some element of the deal that they want, only for that to be contradicted or toned down a day later. Two years after the referendum, this is simply not good enough.

In her Mansion House speech, the Prime Minister acknowledged that, for many sectors, particularly goods, the interests of industry within the UK require continued regulatory alignment with the single market and a frictionless relationship with the customs union. This alignment on both elements is essential for the frictionless borders that businesses up and down Wales need to make and to sell their goods. Only last week, the retiring president of the Confederation of British Industry said that without a customs union, entire manufacturing sectors that rely on just-in-time supply chains will simply disappear—his words, not mine. Llywydd, we in Wales know about the devastating effect of wholesale closures of key industries and we should have no trust whatsoever in those who are prepared to risk such an outcome in pursuit of an abstract ideological set of priorities. Yet the UK Government remains committed to their red lines that the UK will leave the single market and the customs union, even though these issues were never raised specifically in the referendum. 

On the customs union, it's becoming increasingly clear, even to the UK Government, that their two alternative proposals to resolve the conundrum of how to retain an invisible border, both land and sea, between the UK and Ireland are still to be free to have different customs regimes. Well, that simply does not work. You cannot have one entity in the customs union and one entity out of the customs union and an open land border between them. Two weeks ago, the UK Government published their technical paper on the proposed temporary customs arrangement, designed to provide clarity to their position—the so-called backstop. Now, I understand that the original title for this was the 'customs and regulatory alignment period'—would you believe that acronym—which would've given rise to what is, perhaps, a more appropriate description of the situation. But they had to drop this title, because while the paper proposes that the current customs arrangements remain in place, it's silent on the regulatory alignment required to achieve frictionless borders other than to say that this will be subject, and I quote, 'to further proposals'.

Following a tussle over who it is in the Cabinet who has hold of the steering wheel as the Brexit car careers towards the cliff edge, these arrangements are proposed to be time limited. So, instead of clarity, we had a half-baked solution to half of the problem, with the prospect of a self-imposed cliff edge. And the response from the European Commission? Well, they say key questions are unanswered. They say that this doesn't cover regulatory controls leading to a hard border and questions as to whether this is a backstop, given the proposal is time limited. Well, that's not good enough. The UK is having to put all its efforts into keeping its own troops in line, and is simply ignoring the fact that it is the EU we need to be negotiating with, not with Dominic Grieve and Jacob Rees-Mogg.

So, two years after the EU referendum, there is no viable proposal on customs, despite the implications for Northern Ireland, no clarity on alignment of the single market and no sign of the trade deals that we were told the world would be lining up to give us. We have silence and delay, confusion and chaos, when we need serious answers. Throw into the mix the abandonment of collective responsibilities, where Cabinet Ministers are seemingly free to air views that not only contradict, but are contemptuous of UK Government policy, and you have a potent mix that undermines the UK negotiating position and risks a hard Brexit that will result in lower investment, fewer jobs and depressed living standards, where a senior member of the UK Cabinet suggests that his own Prime Minister should be replaced with Donald Trump, and that person is still in the Cabinet.

That's why, Llywydd, the Government will not support amendment 1 proposed by Paul Davies, or amendment 2 proposed by Caroline Jones. The UK Government needs to deliver a clear position, and one that does not risk our future economic prosperity. Nor will the Government support amendment 3. The Cabinet Secretary for Finance has written to all Assembly Members, I trust, on this matter, addressing the many misconceptions regarding the inter-governmental agreement.

Now, Llywydd, we hear a lot about how inflexible the EU-27 are, but the European Commission has been clear that if the UK Government moves away from its red lines, a much more generous deal can be negotiated. So, the UK Government needs to face up to realities and face down the Brexit lunatic fringe. The UK needs leadership on the most important issue of the day, and deserves better. We have the opportunity, with this debate this afternoon, to call on the UK Government to go back to the drawing board, to rub out the red lines. Wales, and the whole UK, needs a Government that will argue for a dynamic and positive relationship with the single market, where the UK makes a positive commitment to working with the EU-27 to retain alignment with the single market as a regulatory space, and a new, durable customs union with the EU.

Llywydd, 'Securing Wales' Future' still provides the best basis for securing the right Brexit for Wales and, indeed, the whole of the UK. There is no evidence—there is literally no evidence—that has been adduced to support any other outcome being better than being in the customs union. So, Llywydd, I invite this Assembly to reiterate its support for the approach that we have outlined.