Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:36 pm on 18 September 2018.
Well, Llywydd, let me say at the beginning: I hope there will be a deal. I hope the Prime Minister will negotiate a deal that delivers what she says she wants to deliver and that she can bring it back and that she can persuade the House of Commons to support it. What Frances O'Grady was referring to, and what I've referred to this afternoon, is what happens if she can't do such a deal—and then the things that the TUC have said that were very largely reflected in what I've said this afternoon—in those circumstances, then it is right that people should have a chance to decide.
On the shared prosperity issue, let's be clear: Wales benefits from our membership of the European Union to the tune of some £660 million a year. We qualify for that money by the rules, we get money because we have needs that need to be met and we get funding from the European Union to help us to do that. Those needs will not have disappeared the day after Brexit and the funding must therefore flow to Wales to allow us to continue to deal with the issues that have been identified here.
If the Conservative Party think that a shared prosperity fund is about taking money that comes to Wales today and sharing it out to other people, so that we are worse off as a result of our membership of the United Kingdom than we have been as a result of our membership of the European Union, then they are on a very foolish path indeed, and I make that point whenever I have the opportunity.