2. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:44 pm on 8 January 2019.

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Photo of Rebecca Evans Rebecca Evans Labour 2:44, 8 January 2019

Thank you very much for raising that issue and drawing our attention to the Bevan Foundation report, which really does place some significant importance on building a resilient and inclusive economy, which is something that we certainly would support and something that we're taking forward obviously through our economic action plan, which is injecting some really fresh thinking into the way in which we do business in that part of Government, through the promotion and encouragement and delivery of responsible practices—economic contracts, for example. You referred to economic forecasting, which always will carry a large margin of error, but what we can obviously say already, with some certainty, is that Brexit has already extracted a significant economic cost from Wales and across the rest of the UK, with gross domestic product somewhere between 2 per cent and 2.5 per cent lower than would have been the case otherwise. Multiple credible studies suggest the Brexit penalty will increase further under any Brexit scenario over the next years, and the penalty will be proportionate to the degree of access that we retain to the customs union and single market. So, against that background of relatively poorer economic prospects, it is inevitable that public finances will come under further strain, limiting the resources available to reduce poverty and limiting the resources that we're able to inject into our core public services as well. So, I know these are all issues that Members will be keen to raise with the economy Minister when he takes questions next week.