13. Statement by the Minister for Housing and Local Government: Preparing our Public Services for a 'No Deal' Brexit — Civil Contingencies

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:39 pm on 22 January 2019.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 6:39, 22 January 2019

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.