Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 1:56 pm on 20 June 2018.
Diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Labour now believes, according to their proposed amendment last week to the EU withdrawal Bill, that we should have full access to the internal market of the European Union, underpinned by shared institutions and regulations, with no new impediments to trade and common rights standards and protections as a minimum. It's perfectly clear from the conduct of the negotiations by Monsieur Barnier up until now that he regards the single market as indivisible and it must include free movement of labour. The main aim of Monsieur Barnier's negotiation has been to discourage other EU member states from following Britain's example, rather than to reach a deal that's in the interests of ordinary people in Europe, still less in Britain.
Jeremy Corbyn said, in the days when he was a Eurosceptic just under a year ago, that under Labour there would be no wholesale importation of underpaid workers from central Europe in order to destroy conditions, particularly in the construction industries. Given that full membership of the single market involves free movement of labour, how can those two statements be reconciled?