12. Statement by the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs: The Impact of a 'No Deal' Brexit on the Environment, Agriculture and Fisheries

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:10 pm on 22 January 2019.

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Photo of Mike Hedges Mike Hedges Labour 6:10, 22 January 2019

Two quick points. The first one is: if people had told me that, when we put article 50 in and we triggered it, almost two years later, we wouldn't have got anywhere near a deal, I wouldn't have believed them. We also talk about public procurement a lot. If we want to get more public procurement in Wales, it's not about rules, it's about the size of the contracts. The larger the contracts you put out, the more likely they are to be won by large companies. You make the contracts smaller and local firms win them. That works in highways and agriculture, or almost anything else.

In 2017, 50 per cent of the food consumed in the UK came from the UK, 30 per cent from Europe and 20 per cent from the rest of the world—to put the rest of the world and Europe into some form of context regarding Britain. This morning, Mr Roberts of the FUW said:

'We do not know what tariff rates will be charged on imports from other countries after March, as the draft tariffs will not be published until the end of February and need to be approved by parliament—so deals with importers must be reached with no knowledge of the additional costs likely to be incurred at ports.'

That's not really a good way of running anything, is it?

Of course, as well as tariffs, there are also environmental checks on any agricultural or fisheries product being exported. With a number of our exports, such as shellfish, being time-sensitive, any slowing down of exports—instead of taking them to market, we'll be taking them to the tip.

I've got two questions for the Minister. Can the Minister explain how we can gain beneficial agricultural trade deals now that we could not do before 1973? The second thing is: can the Minister see how a free trade deal covering lamb with New Zealand could not be disastrous? I'm not forgetting, of course, the west Wales farmer who was looking forward to exporting his lamb to New Zealand.