Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 1:37 pm on 18 July 2018.
I thank the Member for that question. Indeed, she is a very experienced and formidable negotiator in my experience of being on the opposite side of the table to her. I agree that the chaos in the UK Government is deeply alarming. She proposes extending the article 50 deadline, and that may yet be needed, although I think we should be under no illusions about the difficulties that would lie in the path of achieving that. The real solution is for the Prime Minister to come forward, vigorously defend an approach that clearly embraces participation in the single market and the customs union, which would resolve the issue of the Irish border and the damage that that is doing to the potential withdrawal agreement. The withdrawal agreement has another deadline in it as well, Llywydd, which we discussed on the floor of the Assembly yesterday, and that is the deadline around the transition period. It makes no more sense to have a cliff edge in December 2020 than in March 2019, and we need flexibility on that issue as well.