That distinction, of course, strikes at the heart of the four freedoms, which the EU regards as indivisible. But this distinction simply won’t work in the real world. People who buy goods also buy services alongside them. You buy a car and a finance package to fund it. People who sell goods also sell services with them. In the aerospace sector, the servicing of an engine—a service contract—is an integral part of the sales package and is of greater value than the sale of the engine itself.

And, finally and most intractably of all, Chequers does not yet resolve the Irish border question. This much, at least, is clear, Llywydd: you simply cannot have all three of the things on the UK Government’s wish list at the same time. You cannot have at one and the same time an independent trade policy, no border on the island of Ireland and no border in the Irish sea.

Llywydd, these policy problems are real, but they sometimes pale in comparison to the political challenges which the Chequers White Paper has posed for the Prime Minister. She is trapped between the Scylla and Charybdis of the Conservative Party. Every millimetre she edges towards the ground she needs to occupy to conclude a deal with the EU, she provokes a stream of abuse from the irreconcilables in the European reform group. Every time she makes a hopeless concession to the Europhobic wing of her party, it guarantees that she loses the support of those remainer Tories whose support she needs to get a Chequers-based deal through the House of Commons. Little wonder, then, that so much of her summer has been taken up in a debate about how to resolve a deadlocked House of Commons unwilling and unable to endorse any deal the Prime Minister might conclude.

The Welsh Government’s position was clearly set out by the First Minister in his lecture to the Institute of Government last week. If the UK Government cannot secure a vote in the House of Commons in favour of the deal it has negotiated, then the decision must pass to the people. Our preference as a Government is that this decision is resolved through a general election. If the current House of Commons cannot conclude matters, we need another one which can. If the current rules of Parliament are manipulated to prevent an election, then the case for a second referendum strengthens. Either way, the people must decide. And that decision, Llywydd, will take place against the background of the final great theme of the summer: preparation for a ‘no deal’ Brexit.

Let me say again: for Wales, ‘no deal’ is unthinkable and unworkable. The technical notices published so far demonstrate in starkest possible clarity what a crash-out Brexit would mean for Welsh citizens and businesses, even though some of the most difficult issues are yet to be addressed in those notices. For citizens, for example, it means driving licences that no longer work in Europe, baggage delays at every crossing point, the end of guaranteed surcharge-free mobile phone use in the EU, and passports that cannot be used six months before their expiry date. For Welsh firms, it means new, complex burdens whenever they want to export to the continent. Instead of a single rulebook covering all EU member states, Welsh businesses would have to find and navigate the rules that apply, separately and differently at each border.

There is nothing, Llywydd, in these technical notices that will make life better or easier for Welsh business. They show up instead the disruption and damage to our economy and jobs, which would be the result of the catastrophic failure to reach a negotiated deal with the European Union. In the longer term, such conditions would be a huge disincentive to multinationals with complex supply chains to invest here, and a ‘no deal’ could easily result in many smaller firms that currently export only to the European Union withdrawing from exporting entirely.

Now, Llywydd, because the clock is indeed ticking and because the UK Government is so mired in difficulties of its own making, we have stepped up contingency planning here in Wales over the summer period. We have made allocations from the £50 million EU transition fund, the launch of the Brexit business portal is imminent, we have sent supplementary advice on the technical notices to organisations, and we are in dialogue with the UK Government and partners in Wales on potential civil contingencies implications. I repeat what the First Minister has said so often here: there is no sense in which ‘no deal’ can be reduced to just another point on a Brexit spectrum, where good planning can turn it into a triumph of the fevered imagination of the Brexiteers. Whatever mitigation is possible, however, we will put that in place to respond to the disaster that a 'no deal' represents for Wales.

Finally and briefly, Llywydd, to the detail of the summer period. Ministerial engagement with the UK Government has continued and intensified. More than a dozen formal meetings have been held in London, Cardiff and Edinburgh of the ministerial forum, the Joint Ministerial Committee on European negotiations, and the inter-ministerial group attended by my colleague Lesley Griffiths.

At official level, inter-governmental work on common frameworks intensifies, with one of the first fruits being the announcement that freezing regulations under section 12 of the withdrawal Act will not now be needed at all in respect of funding of agriculture. Our engagement with stakeholders has continued throughout the summer. The European advisory group will meet again on Thursday of this week. Ministers have held face-to-face discussions with key representatives from businesses, higher education, the health service, the rural economy and others to go on ensuring that our approach best reflects the advice we get from those most directly affected by Brexit. The First Minister has opened our new office in Berlin, the latest of a series of new sources of support for Welsh businesses and Welsh public services, as we carry out our determination that Wales will remain open to the world.

Over the summer, we have also continued to publish Brexit policy papers, the most recent being about the financial impact of Brexit, which itself followed a major statement about our approach to the rural economy. And finally, Llywydd, a huge effort continues to identify deficiencies in the current statute book that will need correcting as a result of Brexit, involving hundreds of pieces of legislation.

I am very grateful to the chairs of the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee and the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee and to the Assembly Commission for their close engagement with the Government over the summer on the practical arrangements we will need to achieve a coherent and workable statute book for Wales in a way that safeguards the scrutiny role of the National Assembly.

Llywydd, the coming weeks will bring to a head the consequences of the decision taken in the referendum of June 2016. Our future prosperity, security and influence in the world will be indelibly shaped by what takes place. I am grateful for the chance to have provided Members with this update, as our own new term begins.