Thank you for your statement, Deputy Minister. I welcome the statement and completely agree that we should make sure that Wales is indeed a nation of sanctuary for those who need it. As a comparatively prosperous nation, we have a moral obligation to offer sanctuary to those fleeing persecution or war, and we must do all we can to increase our capability to do so and to offer everyone here, whether citizen, migrant, asylum seeker or refugee, a high quality of life. We cannot and should not turn our backs on our fellow citizens and human beings when they need us, and I'm sure everyone here agrees with that.

In March last year, the then leader of the house said

'I'm proud of the response that Welsh communities and public authorities have made since our last refugee and asylum seeker plan was published in 2016.' 

But how can your Government have been proud of the fact that two of the local authorities didn't accept a single refugee, not a single one, for resettlement in the previous year? Is that really something your Government should be proud of, Deputy Minister? That same year, as a contrast, the then UKIP-controlled Thanet council committed to resettling eight refugee families, more than almost every local authority in Labour-controlled Wales. So, my question to you, Deputy Minister, would be: what does Welsh Government intend to do to redress this imbalance, apart from publishing another plan?

As I said, I believe we have a moral obligation to assist those fleeing persecution and war, but resources are finite, and everyone needs to remember that, for every economic migrant who takes a place in housing, school, hospital and so on, that is one fewer place for a person with nothing, who is fleeing persecution or war, perhaps in fear for their life. This Welsh Government can claim until the cows come home that it wants immigration for reasons of fairness, but in truth it is for cynical economic reasons. It wants freedom of movement because it helps compress wages, meaning that, for many, the minimum wage has become the maximum available wage. Well, I happen to think that when it comes to who should be able to come into Wales, it should be about more than what is good for the profits of big business. We cannot have open-door economic migration and fulfil the ambitions, the very, very, very good ambitions, set out in the Deputy Minister's statement. You can't have both, Deputy Minister.

If we were to limit the number of economic migrants, we could accept more refugees and asylum seekers, without causing a strain on our already breaking NHS, long housing lists and school place shortages. In short, we could help more asylum seekers and refugees if we could control economic migration. For all the talk of what a caring nation we are, in 2017, the last year I have been able to find figures for, Wales only took in 325 refugees, compared with the thousands of EU economic migrants we had to house who use our NHS and other public services. Were we not forced to take EU migrants, all coming from safe countries, I should add, who decide they want to turn up here, we could take in more refugees who need a safe place for themselves and their families.

It doesn't appear to me that Welsh Labour care much at all, when Labour-controlled Wales has only settled such a small number of refugees but continues to campaign for the freedom of movement that leads to councils only being able to take in very limited numbers of refugees and asylum seekers. You cannot expect to be believed when you say you care about asylum seekers whilst all the time being in favour of total freedom of movement from the EU, simply because you think it benefits our economy, when that is causing us to control the number of refugees we accept. As I have already said, we have finite resources, and so the question arises: who do we prioritise? Asylum seekers or economic migrants? Minister, I would prioritise—well, Deputy Minister, sorry—I would prioritise asylum seekers and refugees over economic migrants any day of the week. And that is why I'm asking you to admit that if we want to maintain public services that perform for everyone in Wales, whether citizens or migrants, we have to agree to control economic migration so we can prioritise the refugees and asylum seekers who need us to offer sanctuary and so that we can ensure that that sanctuary's stable and well resourced.

So, my last question is, Deputy Minister: would you be prepared to control immigration by those who simply want to come here so that we can increase and give a better life than we do at the moment to those who need to come here? Thank you. Just answer the question.