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

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:52 pm on 18 September 2018.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 3:52, 18 September 2018

Thank you, Llywydd. I'll take the final question first. The Member is absolutely right: the £50 million EU transition fund is not simply a pass-on to Wales of money that comes from the UK Government in this regard; we are having to provide money from existing sources in our capital and revenue budgets. We do so willingly because the need is urgent. We are using money that comes from the UK Government, but that is certainly not the whole of it; money is being used from elsewhere in the Welsh Government because we know that the need to prepare for Brexit spans all of our public services and is of real importance to jobs and prosperity.

As far as the future of structural funds is concerned, I welcomed the Chancellor's original guarantee when he provided some assurances in the immediate aftermath of the referendum about structural funds, and I've welcomed his further decision to guarantee structural funds for the whole of this period. That has helped to give certainty to current participants and has given confidence that we will be able to make the best possible use of funds in the current round. It's what lies beyond the current round, in the way that Mick Antoniw asked about the shared prosperity fund where we now need—and urgently need, as time goes by—equal clarity that the money that Wales has enjoyed in the current round will be available to us for those purposes beyond Brexit.

Finally, on the question of workers' rights, of consumers' rights, of citizenship rights and of human rights—all those things that we have gained as a result of our membership of the European Union—the problem here, Llywydd, is this, isn't it: Mrs May says to us that in the event of a 'no deal', all those rights would be guaranteed, but if there is no deal, there will be no Mrs May, and the problem then is that the promises that she has provided will fall to those people on her backbenches who have promoted 'no deal' to deliver. Do we believe that they share those same beliefs? Do we think that a Boris Johnson-led Government would be equally committed to securing the rights that British workers and British citizens have enjoyed through the European Union? Well, of course not; of course we could not have that confidence. When Mrs May says so, I'm prepared to believe her. She said from the beginning that those rights would be guaranteed, and it is perfectly possible to pick those rights up and drop them into UK law so they go on being observed here instead of through EU law. But in the event of a 'no deal', the people making those promises are very unlikely indeed still to be in charge, and that's the danger that is posed for workers and others here in Wales.