The next statement is from the Minister for Housing and Local Government on preparing our public services for a 'no deal' Brexit with regard to potential civil contingencies. So, I call on the Minister to make her statement—Julie James.

Diolch, Llywydd.

With less than 70 days until the UK is due to leave the EU, and with the prospect of a 'no deal' Brexit still firmly on the table, we have a responsibility to take precautionary measures as part our Brexit preparations, and this includes our planning for civil contingencies. A civil contingencies response will normally deal with an event that threatens to damage human welfare, the environment or security. In essence, civil contingencies plans and mitigations are engaged as a last resort when wider business-as-usual preparedness and contingency planning has failed or is unable to deal with the scale or seriousness of an event.

During the course of this afternoon, my Cabinet colleagues have outlined many aspects of our Brexit preparedness work and the escalation of 'no deal' planning. Our intention is to ensure that business continues as usual on 30 March and beyond, whether the UK leaves the EU with a deal or without. Good civil contingency planning will help us to prepare for the reasonable worst-case scenarios, and will help to ensure that our public and emergency services are best placed to continue providing the services that we and the most vulnerable in our communities rely on every day.

The work to assess impacts and put mitigation in place is critical in minimising the need for a civil contingency response. For Brexit and for a 'no deal' Brexit, we are working through a range of partnerships, including the Wales resilience forum, the joint emergency services group and directly with the four local resilience forums across Wales. Specifically, we are building on our established structures to deal with multiple Brexit-related civil contingency issues at any one time, all without compromising our ability to also respond to any non-Brexit-related issues, such as severe adverse weather events. I am grateful to the multi-agency Wales risk group for developing a regional and Wales assessment of the potential Brexit impacts on their areas and on Wales as a whole, and then considering the necessary mitigations and how the risk can be managed.  

This is a fast-moving subject, as the events in the House of Commons over the last week have shown. The assumptions on which the plans have been produced will change as new information emerges or as mitigations are put in place, and all these assumptions underpinning our planning will be fully tested. My Cabinet colleagues have already highlighted work to mitigate some of these working assumptions. For example, the contingency planning has considered how to address potential disruption at ports, how to help ensure food security, and also how to maintain the availability of medicines and supplies.  

We are putting in place our command, control and co-ordination arrangements, and we are currently consulting the local resilience forums about our proposals. The proposed arrangements have been designed to make sure that we create a common understanding of local and regional issues, and also the impacts in key sectors across Wales so we can adjust our planning accordingly. The arrangements will provide a strong support infrastructure to help quickly identify the emerging issues to support quick and effective decision making by all those involved. Importantly, the arrangements will also enable co-ordinated public and media communications about civil contingency matters that will be shared across the public sector.

We will manage our response at a national level through our Emergency Co-ordination Centre (Wales). Plans are in place to mobilise the centre if and when necessary, and Government staff will be called on to assist our core resilience team. The working assumption is that we will operate the centre in a limited capacity during February. This will enable monitoring and reporting arrangements at a regional and Wales level, and ensure engagement with any UK civil contingency arrangements. Senior civil contingencies advisers are being recruited from within the Welsh Government, but their immediate priority will be to support the work of the local resilience forums within their own command, control and co-ordination planning for a possible 'no deal' Brexit.

Our public services are engaged in planning for Brexit as individual services, and many are members of the local resilience forums. Our three fire and rescue authorities are working together with the National Fire Chiefs Council to plan for the consequences of a 'no deal' Brexit, for example. This includes active engagement at the most senior levels of management and with the local resilience forums. The Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust has nominated a senior responsible officer at director level to oversee the organisation’s preparations, and its board is monitoring the position. The trust is also fully engaged with the planning currently being led by the resilience forums across Wales and with the Welsh Government.

Leaving the European Union has created social and political division, and has added to tensions around closely linked issues including migration, race and faith relations, and human rights. The Welsh Government’s vision for Wales is as an inclusive country in which people from all backgrounds are welcomed and where there is no room for xenophobia, racism or bigotry. The Welsh Government is working with a number of partners, including local authorities, police forces and equality and inclusion organisations in the third sector, to ensure that cohesion takes root in all our communities.

Through its EU transition fund, the Welsh Government is expanding its regional community cohesion programme. The additional funding will be used to build on the existing network of regional community cohesion co-ordinators to undertake specific work to mitigate potential community tensions relating to Brexit. Our hate crime criminal justice board Cymru has also considered the possible impacts of Brexit and of hate crime targeting ethnic and religious minorities. The £1.3 million EU citizens' rights project funded from the EU transition fund will ensure EU citizens have access to appropriate advice services, are protected from exploitation and exclusion, and are encouraged to continue living in Wales and fulfil their potential.

We are continuing to work with local authorities to identify and plan for impacts across all services, and the Welsh Government is funding the Welsh Local Government Association to support councils to prepare for Brexit. This includes funding the Grant Thornton toolkit, as well as further support. The toolkit provides a straightforward guide to the questions local authorities need to consider in order to be able to plan effectively across the range of their services and responsibilities. These include workforce issues, financial impacts, regulation, local economic impacts and support for vulnerable people and community cohesion.

I have set out some of the current work towards minimising the risk of the need for a civil contingency response. We are under no illusions about the impact of a 'no deal' Brexit, and while civil contingencies planning cannot address every issue related to a 'no deal' Brexit, we are fortunate that we do have a well-established structure and partnership in Wales on which to build so as to mitigate that impact.

It is important to emphasise that civil contingencies planning is a normal feature of our business and we are used to planning for adverse weather and for major events like the UEFA Champions League final in Cardiff in 2017, for example. It is inconceivable that we would not plan for the potential impacts of a 'no deal' Brexit. Our civil contingency planning is no way signalling that we expect an emergency, but rather that we want to work effectively with our public services and other partners to ensure they are prepared for a 'no deal' Brexit and that measures and mitigations are in place, as far as possible, to minimise the impacts of that 'no deal'.

In doing so, our aim is to minimise the likely need for a civil contingencies response. In these uncertain times, Members can take assurance from the fact that, as a responsible Government, we are taking the need to plan seriously and that, as a precautionary measure, we are putting plans in place to monitor any potential civil contingency issues and to respond quickly if necessary. Diolch.

I welcome particularly your comments at the end that this is a precautionary measure and that your civil contingency planning,

'is no way signalling that we expect an emergency, but rather that we want to work effectively with our public services...to ensure they are prepared', and that your aim is to minimise the likely need for a civil contingency response. I'm sure that that is an approach that we would all wish to very much share with you.

We've heard today and many times previously—admittedly, you didn't include this in your statement personally—that the Welsh Government respected the result of the 2016 referendum. But, of course, the subsequent White Paper with Plaid Cymru then proposed measures that would've ensured that it was Brexit in name only, with no control over borders, money, laws, trade, or what have you. So, be honest, tell people that's the case and then let them decide, but let's not pretend that it's a Brexit alternative.

In that context, what consideration have you given to the potential impact on civil order were there to be a second referendum, or, for example, were your White Paper commitment to remain in the customs union to bare fruit and result in us not being able to make independent—by 'us' I mean the UK and Wales, hopefully, within the team—trade deals with other states or economic regions across the world, because, of course, many other parts of the world have their own regional economic arrangements?

On the day when we heard that the UK unemployment total has reached a record high, we should remember that the Prime Minister has consistently stated that she wants a customs arrangement; she does not want a 'no deal'. In fact, the deal she's negotiated includes a 21-month implementation period, giving time for businesses to prepare for the future UK-EU arrangements and to ensure a smooth and orderly Brexit process, and the transition period is part of the UK Government withdrawal agreement but will only exist if a deal is agreed. So, those who seem to think, in Westminster, that voting down any deal will then enable them to use a transition period to negotiate, perhaps need reminding that that's not the case.

The UK Government's draft deal also secured good access to the single market but not staying in the single market, because that would have meant large amounts of money continuing to go to the EU in perpetuity, with no control over borders, and regulations in which we would have no hand in creating. Now, whatever people's individual views are about that, that's not respecting the referendum.

The Welsh Local Government Association website enables you to download a Brexit 'no deal' briefing for councils, produced by the UK, or England, Local Government Association. This refers to the Cabinet Office's civil contingency secretariat and the communities and local government's resilience and emergencies division having had discussions with local resilience forums to ensure preparedness for key issues, with councils, local authorities contributing and doing their own scenario planning at an organisational level to ensure preparedness. What, if any, role have you or the Welsh Government had in that process, given that, as we've heard this afternoon, many of these services that could be impacted are devolved but many are not, and there would need to be mutual support and co-ordinated delivery were the worst-case scenario to arise?

You do refer to a response at a national level and Wales through your emergency co-ordination centre in Wales, involving fire and rescue authorities and the fire chiefs, but how would you go beyond that to involve, potentially, police or even soldiers? Because we know that the UK Government has drawn up contingency plans with the National Police Coordination Centre, with the Home Secretary saying that the public shouldn't worry—the departments, like you say, just have to prepare for all possible outcomes.

The National Police Coordination Centre is saying,

'The police are planning for all scenarios that may require a police response...we have no intelligence to suggest there will be an increase in crime or disorder.'

Nonetheless, aspects of policing, particularly community safety, are devolved and we also know in terms of emergency planning that the Welsh Government routinely engages in such matters. Similarly, we know that the Ministry of Defence has announced, I think, 3,500 soldiers, with 10 per cent of those being reservists, to ensure that welfare, health and the security of UK citizens and the economic stability of the UK are not damaged in a worst-case scenario. We know that there are many reservists in Wales, and no doubt, were there to be a problem, we would also be reliant on planning joined up on that basis. So, I would be grateful if you could address that.

From a civil contingencies viewpoint, we know that the Secretary of State for Wales wrote to the First Minister a couple of weeks ago, inviting him to attend the new EU Exit and Trade (Preparedness) Committee, a Cabinet sub-committee in Westminster that's brought together all their 'no deal' Brexit planning committees when shared issues are on the agenda. They're also asking whether the UK Government could sit on the committee, or the regular planning meetings, that they know the Welsh Government are also taking forward. Are you able to tell us whether there's been a positive response to that so that both sides are seen to be working together on preparedness to help ensure a co-ordinated approach on any challenges that might be shared in future?

Again, we heard references earlier in the day to ports. I know that ports are not in your brief, but, potentially, civil contingency issues could arise, so the same letter asked the Welsh Government to share with the UK Government conclusions around work on Holyhead and Pembrokeshire ports, replicating their trials around Kent and whether, again, that has been shared with the UK Government to ensure a joined-up approach, because we know that north Wales is used as a land bridge by Ireland and is a well-used route, but again the wider points were addressed earlier.

What plans does the Welsh Government have to put in place to enable local authorities to hit the ground running in relation to the procurement of essential goods and services in the immediate aftermath of a 'no deal' scenario, God forbid there were one?

And, actually, I think I'll stop there, because I've gone on long enough, and give you time to answer. [Laughter.]

Thank you for that series of comments. The Member will not be at all surprised to discover that I disagreed with almost all of the first third of his remarks. I'm always very astonished by how sure people are what people voted for exactly. So, I don't know how you're so sure that people didn't vote to stay in the customs union and the single market. I, personally, am not sure of that. I have met a very large number of people who voted 'leave', who voted 'leave' for a variety of different reasons, some very trivial, some very serious and the whole range in between, so I don't share the Member's certainty that I am aware of all of the nuances of that. Nor do I share his certainty that people want what he suggests they want. So, I admire his certainty, but I certainly don't share it. I personally think that the United Kingdom would be far better off inside the European Union and, if we are to leave the European Union, then clearly we should leave it as set out in our White Paper that we produced alongside Plaid Cymru. That remains the best deal for Wales, and I have heard nothing during the whole of the last two years that has made me change my mind on that point.

In terms of the specific things that he asked, we have a completely tried-and-tested set of local resilience fora and a hierarchy. Those fora are already engaged in civil contingencies planning. All we've done is made sure that they include some of the additional preparedness for 'no deal' Brexit planning. They include the liaison—as Mark Isherwood rightly points out, they ought. We are fully engaged with that. My ministerial colleagues—in particular the Counsel General and the First Minister, but other ministerial colleagues as and when—engage fully in the JMC process. My colleague Kirsty Williams met with a range of other ministerial colleagues across the piece very recently. We have a whole range of those. That's the point at which we share the various contingency arrangements, and the discussions are structured in such a way as to deal with particular areas at particular times. We fully engage in that.

I'm told that we have not yet any details of the overarching co-ordinating committee that he referred to in terms of the letter that we've had. We await the details of that. We have a full set of preparedness sharing, including the kind of supply chain planning that he suggested we ought to do, and clearly we ought to do that. And I would emphasise: this is not in any way to suggest that there's any need to panic or anything else, but clearly, as a responsible Government, we need to be prepared for any eventuality that arises, and this preparedness is very much part of that, and it includes all of the escalations you would expect if there's civil unrest in any circumstance. I'm not anticipating we will need that, but clearly we'd be irresponsible not to have planned for it.

I thank the Minister for her statement. The fact of the matter is that we are facing the greatest threat to our society since the second world war, and while I welcome the preparations laid out by the Minister, specifically the £1.3 million EU citizens' rights project fund, encouraging EU citizens to remain in the UK through offering various packages of support, there is one thing that I think has been largely overlooked, and that being the rise of far-right activity in recent months. Now, the yellow jackets are a prime example, harassing pro-remain MPs and supporters outside the Houses of Parliament, going largely unchallenged, and this, of course, comes after a spike in hate crime following the referendum. We know that in times of crisis far-right groups become bolder, and history shows that they will take advantage of Governments who are spread thin or who are in a state of chaos themselves. So, my question to the Minister on this point is: what will the Government do to stem any violent actions from far-right groups against any peaceful protest or any actions that they might take against any EU citizens or the wider multicultural communities that we have based here in this country?

Further, I think that it's clear that austerity has been overlooked in this debate. For 10 years, public services have suffered from cutbacks, and for 10 years, people have seen their quality of life deteriorate. These cuts, of course, are set to deepen even further with a 'no deal' Brexit, and these are serious issues to be considering now. How will the Welsh Government look to mitigate the effects of austerity in the event of a 'no deal' Brexit and beyond? Austerity has damaged the very fabric of our society, and a 'no deal' Brexit looks to do irreversible damage. 

Finally, people are stockpiling food in preparation for a 'no deal', but in the Minister's statement, I see very little mention of safeguarding supply lines with regard to food. At the very least, prices are likely to increase, putting people in a seriously precarious situation. So, what preparations have been made by the Welsh Government to safeguard food supplies and prices? And that's a question that's pertinent to whether we leave with a 'no deal' Brexit or not.

Well, I very much agree with the tenor and the content of the Member's remarks. In terms of far-right activity, I did say briefly in my statement that we are reinforcing the community cohesion arrangements that we have in place. We already fund the regional community cohesion co-ordinators. They're very much part of the resilience fora and the preparedness, for exactly the reason that she sets out. We very much want to be sure that our local authorities and our local resilience fora—and that includes all of the blue-light responders—are aware of any increased tension. We have no intelligence, other than the general increased tension she mentions, that we have any specific issue in Wales, but the fora are very much preparing for that and we have reinforced the funding for those regional community cohesion posts, in order to emphasise that.

In terms of the austerity issues, we are doing some regional planning across Wales, across all of the statements that colleague Ministers have mentioned today, to see whether there are hotspots where particular impacts of a 'no deal' Brexit impact in layers on a particular community or in a particular region of Wales so that we can put preparedness in place to mitigate as much of that impact as is possible to do. But, as repeated Ministers have said, we make no pretence that it's possible to mitigate the impacts of a 'no deal' Brexit. We are simply trying to do as much as anyone could do. We don't want to feel that we have left any stone unturned, but the idea that we can mitigate it—it's not possible to mitigate it. I agree with her; it's the biggest issue that we will ever face other than war. So, all we're doing is making sure that all of the processes we have in place are as resilient as it's possible to be, given where we might be.

That includes the supply chain issues. I would just like to reassure people that there's no need to stockpile food, but we are looking to make sure that supply chains for things like school meals or elderly persons facilities or whatever are still able to get all of the ingredients they would normally have, or they're able to do menu planning to ensure that, where the supply chain looks as if it might be impacted, they can put something else in its place. So, it's that level of planning. It's not anticipating widespread shortages, but there may be ingredient shortages and we need to be able to plan for that.

So, it's very important to get the balance of this right. It's important to be prepared, it's important not to set a hare running about shortages where we are not expecting any to exist. So, it's that supply chain planning that we're looking to mitigate. So, just to repeat, we're not expecting any widespread food shortages of any description. People should not stockpile food. We do expect public authorities that have vulnerable people that they prepare food for to ensure that their supply chains are uninterrupted in those circumstances.

Thank you very much for your statement. We've heard earlier that DEFRA has a food chain emergency team that Lesley Griffiths is liaising with. I just wondered what consideration is being given to how we ensure local authorities have the raw materials for making school meals, as well as hospitals and nursing homes and residential homes, to ensure that vulnerable people are being properly fed. My concern is that London is the centre of distribution of food and, were there to be hiccups, the further down the line you are from there, the more likely you are to be affected. I just wondered what the Grant Thornton toolkit advises local authorities should be doing to mitigate this possible risk.

The Member makes an important point. At the partnership council that I chaired very recently to discuss the possibility of a 'no deal' Brexit, this issue was very much a topic on the agenda, to ensure that, as I said in response to Leanne Wood, the supply chain is looked at in detail for the preparation of things like school meals or meals on wheels and those kinds of provisions—care homes, residential homes and so on—that they have their supply chain sorted out and look at their menus, frankly, to just make sure that we have got a range of options in place.

I would like to just reiterate that we are not anticipating widespread food shortages and people should not stockpile food, because obviously that can cause the shortage in and of itself, so it's a very important line. But the partnership council were fully on board with that. That is what the resilience forums are looking at. Each local authority is asked to look at that and colleagues across the Government have mentioned it in their contributions this afternoon in terms of their particular sectors. I'm looking at the whole piece, if you like, just to make sure that we have the co-ordination in place. But I cannot emphasise enough that we need to get the planning right without setting any hares running about food shortages. 

Minister, thank you for your statement today on how the Welsh Government is working closely with local government and partners in public agencies to maximise the preparations for civil security contingencies planning in the event of a 'no deal' Brexit. A 'no deal' Brexit should just be called a hard Brexit, because that's what it is; it is the worst possible economic slap in the face for the Welsh people and it will impact on the most vulnerable users of our public services disproportionately, as they use our public sector most. I do believe that you as the Minister, along with the Counsel General, have been meeting local government leaders to discuss the prospect of a 'no deal' Brexit.

So, a hard Brexit or cliff-edge exit means a lot for our public agencies, as they are already, as has been said, under huge stress from austerity and cuts to Wales. So, every lever possible must be utilised to counter any 'no deal' potential impacts—on jobs, whether it's food price rises, homelessness, medicine availability, overseas travel insurance, our citizens living abroad and their health reciprocality, and also national security data sharing. Like Mark Isherwood, I could go on, but I won't.

The extraordinary meeting of the local government partnership council saw representatives of local government, community and town councils, the Welsh Local Government Association, police and fire authorities and national park authorities get around the table, so it's right that this intensive collaboration and face-to-face partnership working across Wales can attempt in part to prepare for the impacts of a 'no deal' hard Brexit, which seems increasingly, now, ever more likely. Here in Wales we know that the First Minister has consistently outlined how leaving the EU with a 'no deal' Brexit would be catastrophic. The First Minister stated:

'It could cause significant disruption and damage to our economy, jobs, trade and public services.... All public sectors in Wales should now be well involved in contingency planning for a no deal scenario.'

Minister, what further plans, then, are there for the local government partnership council to meet, and how can Welsh Government support and aid its work in this environment of a fast-moving political maelstrom, and what reassurances are there that you can possibly give to the people of Islwyn that Wales and her public services are in a state of readiness and preparedness for the damaging and harmful consequences of any 'no deal' hard Brexit?

Yes, the Member's absolutely right. We have put in place a range of engagement exercises with local authorities. It's a standing item on the partnership council, but in addition to that we've put in place a new engagement structure, the local government EU preparedness advisory panel, and we've also got an internal Welsh Government-local government EU co-ordination group. We agreed in December new governance arrangements to support local government to prepare fully for the exit from the European Union—any exit from the European Union—but obviously a 'no deal' exit is the hardest, as she's rightly said, so requires additional planning to be put in place. 

We've provided funding—£150,000-worth of funding—for the establishment of the Brexit transition support programme for Welsh local authorities through the Welsh Government's EU transition fund, and the aims of that programme are to ensure Welsh local authorities are not duplicating work in preparing for Brexit, that we ensure all local authorities in Wales are equally prepared for Brexit in key sectors, and we establish a more formalised, two-way programme of communication between local authorities and those planning for Brexit in the Welsh and UK Governments in order to co-ordinate activity.

We funded, as I said, the Grant Thornton toolkit. We know that, as of mid January, the WLGA have given specific briefings to 14 of the 22 local authorities and very shortly we'll have covered the whole pizza. We are, as I said, putting as much contingency planning in place as we can, but it's important to emphasise that there's no way to mitigate the whole of the impact of a 'no deal' Brexit.

Thank you, Minister.