Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:43 pm on 20 November 2018.
First of all, I also want to reiterate how shameful it is that Wales has not been consulted meaningfully on the withdrawal agreement. It's not good enough, as the Cabinet Secretary for Finance said yesterday, just to listen to what we say and then go away and we hear no more. The last of the Labour Party's six tests is: does it deliver for all regions and nations of the UK? And it certainly does not. Does the First Minister believe, in fact, that the withdrawal agreement meets any of those six tests that the Labour Party has put forward?
The withdrawal agreement lays out how EU citizens and families and UK citizens will be protected after we leave the EU. Those are people who have chosen where they would live under the freedom of movement, which, up to now, has been our right, within the EU. Now that we're losing the right of freedom of movement, does he not agree that the uncertainty about who is going to be able to stay in this country and who will come here in the future is causing great uncertainty for businesses? I had a meeting yesterday with a company director from Cardiff North of a medical products manufacturing company who relies heavily on European staff. He was telling me, in fact, how much he felt for those staff at the moment, because they were so uncertain—they felt so uncertain about their future. And, of course, we have had some information laid down in this withdrawal document today, but we don't know what the future will hold. He is very uncertain about how his company, which is a very valued company in Cardiff North, will prosper in the future, with the future proposals for immigration and no freedom of movement, and, of course, we do know what the CBI's view is about the Government's plans for immigration.
So, doesn't he agree as well that some of the rhetoric that has been used around the immigration issue does not foster good relations—Theresa May's words were that her deal will stop EU nationals 'jumping the queue'—and how unnecessary it is to use that sort of expression? It's building up division again, and I think we had such a spike in hate crime when we had the referendum, and there are more hate crimes now being reported than have ever happened before, and I think it behoves us, all of us politicians, that we must be very careful with the words that we use in order that we, in this very, very difficult time, don't increase the feelings of insecurity that many of our citizens have as a result of this very divisive vote and the very divisive politics that we're experiencing at the moment. So, has the First Minister got any comments he could make about that particular issue?