Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 18 July 2018.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:00, 18 July 2018

Well, the fundamental difficulty with the Member's question is this, is that she blurs the line between the fundamental decision, which is to say that we are leaving the European Union, we will not be members of the European Union after the end of March next year, and the form in which we leave the European Union. It is possible to leave the European Union in a way that does maximum damage to our economy; that is well advocated by people in this Chamber whose prescriptions for Wales would leave us, as I say, with an economy between 10 per cent and 8 per cent lower than it is today, or we can leave it in a way set out in the White Paper that the Welsh Government and Plaid Cymru jointly published in January of last year. That policy offers a way of leaving the European Union that does not, as she suggests, turn our back on the decision of the referendum, but which mitigates to the greatest possible extent the damage that would otherwise be done.