Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. For more than two years now, the whole country has debated how to approach the circumstances created by the Brexit referendum. The Welsh Government, together with Plaid Cymru, took six months to produce our White Paper, 'Securing Wales' Future', based on a comprehensive economic analysis of Wales's interests. It has taken the UK Government fully two years to produce last week's White Paper on its negotiating position with the European Union. 

Dirprwy Lywydd, it is hard to begin a statement of this sort without commenting on the unparalleled chaos and mismanagement that has now been long apparent in the UK Government's approach and that has brought us to today's sorry position. The UK Government is in a state of disarray, its divisions exposed daily, if not by the hour. Serious questions are raised on all sides about its basic competence. At a time when the UK as a whole faces our most important challenge for a generation, we have a UK Government ill equipped for the work in hand.

It took two years for the Prime Minister to impose a collective Cabinet agreement, but only two days for the Secretary of State charged with delivering that policy to resign. The foreign Secretary—the person whose job it is to represent the UK abroad—swiftly followed, accusing his own Government of flying the white flag. And resignations continue, as we know, on almost every day. All of that, Dirprwy Lywydd, matters to us here in Wales. Important aspects of the UK White Paper, including transport and fisheries, are, of course, within our devolved competence. The UK position on our future economic relationship and mobility framework is of vital importance for Wales and the delivery of devolved services.

At every opportunity, Dirprwy Lywydd, the First Minister, Rebecca Evans through her role on the new ministerial forum and I have continually made the case for a Brexit that protects the interests of Wales. Our position remains as it has been from the outset: one that puts the future of jobs and our economy first. We say that the UK needs to remain in a customs union with full and unfettered participation in the single market. In its White Paper, the UK Government has taken some faltering steps towards the direction we have set out with such consistency. The UK Government now concedes the importance of participation in the single market for goods and agricultural products. We agree. They note the need for dynamic alignment with EU regulations as the European Union continues to evolve and develop a common rulebook. Again, Dirprwy Lywydd, we agree.