8. Plaid Cymru Debate: 'No Deal' Brexit

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:38 pm on 16 January 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Adam Price Adam Price Plaid Cymru 5:38, 16 January 2019

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'm very pleased to be able to move the motion in our party's name and also pleased to note that the Government is supporting our motion in the debate this afternoon. We agree, therefore, in rejecting, in any circumstances, an exit from the European Union with no deal, and we agree that, as an emergency measure, the Welsh Government should ask for the UK Joint Ministerial Council to be convened to seek agreement on ruling out such a 'no deal' exit from the EU.

This agreement, I think, between us and the Government, and hopefully with other members here as well, is a good sign that there is an emerging understanding in this place that we must face together the problems that are crowding around Wales and the Welsh economy that threaten a perfect storm. There can be no doubt that the many challenges facing in particular, for example, Welsh manufacturing, and not least the redundancies announced at Ford in Bridgend and at Schaeffler in Llanelli, either flow from—or, at the very least, are being exacerbated by—the continuing uncertainty around Brexit. The most immediate thing that we can do to lessen that uncertainty is to take the threat of 'no deal' off the table. That is what my party in the House of Commons is straining—and, indeed, in the House of Lords as well, in the form of Dafydd Wigley—all its efforts in the coming days to achieve, in seeking collaboration across the parties in Parliament, in Westminster. I very much hope that, in approving this motion, the Welsh Government will convey also as a matter of urgency to the leader of the Labour Party in the House of Commons that he too should seek collaboration with us and other parties in the Commons to put 'no deal' off limits.