4. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance: Update on European Transition

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:12 pm on 17 July 2018.

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Photo of Mr Neil Hamilton Mr Neil Hamilton UKIP 4:12, 17 July 2018

I can always end up by asking the Cabinet Secretary if he agrees with what I've said. But I will conclude, because I don't want to take up any more time than I have done.

There are massive opportunities, as well as transitional problems, in leaving the EU. I wonder why the Cabinet Secretary doesn't see at least some glimmer of light in the options that are available to us with the freedoms that we would have if we even had a 'no deal' scenario. As Mark Isherwood pointed out, the Commonwealth is a massive force in the world economically, and growing. The United States under President Trump is clearly very favourably disposed towards the United Kingdom, and he sees the EU as the enemy and, indeed, they have been a hostile power to us in these negotiations. There are massive opportunities there for us, and whatever the transitional problems of leaving—nobody denies that change of this magnitude is going to produce difficulties—nevertheless there are massive opportunities for Britain to connect properly with the rest of the world through free trade deals. The limited effect of tariffs within Europe are massively outweighed by the trade opportunities elsewhere in the world, and President Trump has, for all his imperfections, shown that, in the art of the deal, he is a past master, and he has got for America what the people who voted for him wanted in casting their ballots. What the Conservative Government at Westminster have done is actually to deny the British people, 17.5 million of them, what they voted for in the referendum two years ago.