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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:23 pm on 17 July 2018.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 4:23, 17 July 2018

Could I thank Jane Hutt for those very important points and give her an assurance that we will certainly be raising these points, as we have already and at every opportunity with the UK Government? I've said already this afternoon, Dirprwy Lywydd, that we would have been prepared to have offered a modest welcome to the Chequers White Paper, in some aspects of it, and one of the reasons we would have been willing to do that is because it does repeat a commitment that the Prime Minister has given previously not to undo the rights that Welsh and UK citizens have gained as a result of our membership of the European Union—workers' rights, citizenship rights, human rights, consumer rights, gender equality rights and so on. But the reason why it's not been possible to do that in the way we might have intended this afternoon is because the White Paper is unravelling in front of us. Yesterday, the Prime Minister agreed to amendments laid down by her hardline Brexiteers that directly contradict the content of her own White Paper, and the things that I said at the weekend were designed to demonstrate that if the UK Government, if the Prime Minister, is prepared to commit herself wholeheartedly to a sensible Brexit, to face down the people in her own party who are not of that view, then we would be willing to offer her some support in that. But if she thinks that the way to navigate ourselves to a sensible Brexit is by continually making concessions to those of a very different point of view, then that's where we have the risks that Jane Hutt has pointed to. That's when we will end up in a position where, in order to compete in the world, there will be people who think that the way to do that is to sacrifice every protection that working people have gained as a result of their membership of the European Union. That's what I meant when I said that working people in Wales and the United Kingdom would be thrown to the wolves in that set of circumstances.