The Trading of Goods

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 2:07 pm on 20 June 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Reckless Mark Reckless Conservative 2:07, 20 June 2018

I'm amazed the Cabinet Secretary should absolve the EU of all responsibility for the horse meat scandal. Extraordinarily, he describes Jenny Rathbone as 'absolutely right' when she refers to us having to impose tariffs, but, Cabinet Secretary, isn't it a choice for this country whether we impose tariffs? Given that we've had a free trade area with the EU, we could maintain that unilaterally for up to 10 years without having to change our World Trade Organization tariffs elsewhere. And is it not the case that, in the scenario where we did go to WTO tariffs, which I certainly do not support, there would be positive implications for many sectors? We currently have—. A quarter of our whole beef consumption is supplied by Ireland. If we suddenly see a 50 per cent tariff on dairy and beef coming from Ireland, will that not give huge opportunities to the beef and dairy sector in Wales?