9. Debate on the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee reports on Brexit Preparedness

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:20 pm on 29 January 2019.

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Photo of Huw Irranca-Davies Huw Irranca-Davies Labour 6:20, 29 January 2019

But I want to turn to this very good report on the preparedness of the food and drink sector in Wales. It opens by making the point that we cannot repeat too often: every one of us, in our constituencies, one of the biggest employers, both in manufacturing and primary food production is food, whether they are doing tinfoil plates and packaging for aeroplanes or whether they are farmers or whatever—it's food production and manufacturing.

But I want to pick up a couple of specific points in here, and I welcome the fact that the Government accepted all the recommendations that came through in this report on food. First of all, do we have, Minister, any confidence that we will have trade deals signed off by the time we get to 31 March? We're still waiting to see. We hope that we will have trade deals in place. We are told that pens are poised and that lots of preparation has gone on, but we haven't seen anything yet. Does he know that we have any deals ready to go?

Can I ask about the role of the Wales offices overseas and the presence in consulates and embassies? Because those potential export markets are going to rely on some very good, fast-footed work out there and the soft diplomacy as well as the deals that might be negotiated. So, what will be the roles of our Welsh Government personnel but also working alongside UK colleagues as well?

I mentioned the threat of lower standards for imports, but there's also the threat, as David mentioned as well, of dumping. This has long been a threat that we would suddenly find ourselves forced into a compromise situation where we had to, in order to keep food on the shelves, basically accept whatever was available. We cannot do that; we simply cannot do that. But it is a hard reality of something that is now facing us.

Can I also turn to the issue of protected status foods? I welcome very much the work that has been done around UK geographical indication schemes after Brexit, the collaboration that's being done to look at that and the reciprocity with the EU. So, that is being done on the basis of: if we bring forward our protected food names then we will of course welcome EU food names, some of which we have already. But my question on that, Minister, would be: what are our thoughts on whether we can actually accelerate now the number of food products that are from Wales that come under the new or existing protected foods names? Because we have had some good successes, but we have been very slow in getting the volume of products actually up there. So, perhaps we might be able to do more of that and faster.

A couple of points then in terms of the work that's being done to mitigate the effects of a 'no deal' Brexit on the security and continuity of food supplies in Wales. One of those is to do with the food safety and food security issue. It isn't picked up, I don't think, in the report. I'm turning to my colleague on the left, and David's shaking his head. We learnt to our failure within the UK after the horse meat scandal—I'm running out of time. We learnt to our failure about, actually, the importance of multinational security. Horse meat, contaminated horse meat, non-horse meat went through 20 different countries. As we go through Brexit, particularly with a hard deal, are we going to compromise that?

And my final point—final, final, final point; I promise I'll skim through all the rest there—is a recommendation that isn't in there at all. It's been understandably very outward-focusing on what would we do in the case of stepping out from the EU. I would say that one of our recommendations going forward is that we need to build local food networks. When we talk about food security and imports and exports, I get it and it's where we are with Brexit. But part of the resilience, going forward, has got to be to build that local food network where we produce and we sell within our own areas, within our own regions, going forward, as well. Thank you.