Thank you, Llywydd. Before I start, I'd like to thank members of the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee for the three reports looking at the Welsh Government's preparedness for exiting the European Union. I'd also like to thank you for the opportunity to reply to this debate. I'm pleased to say that the Welsh Government, in our formal response, have accepted all of the recommendations in each of the reports.

Of course, the situation in terms of each of these issues changes swiftly, as David Rees mentioned, and I welcome the additional questions and comments that we have heard today. I do not wish to spend time today discussing the appalling way that the UK Government has dealt with the Brexit negotiations and the crisis facing our nation as a result of that; there will be another opportunity to look at that situation tomorrow. But, I do have to say, once again, as I and other Cabinet Members have emphasised time and again, exiting the European Union without a deal will be disastrous, as Rhun ap Iorwerth and others have already mentioned. And at this eleventh hour, we encourage the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom to secure a deal that would benefit Wales and the UK as a whole.

Last week in the Assembly, a whole day of Plenary proceedings was allocated to outline the impacts of a 'no deal' Brexit on various sectors. This shows how significant the dangers for Wales are, in our view, if we do leave the European Union without a deal, and how grave the message is for the UK Government that they must secure a deal. The statements highlighted some of the most grave impacts that could arise from a 'no deal' exit and these can be seen, too, in the reports laid by the committee. I can't lay out the Welsh Government's response to all of the recommendations in the time available, but I can tell you what our response is to the most important issues. Many of the possible impacts of a 'no deal' Brexit stem from delays at borders, and I want to emphasise that the UK Government is entirely responsible for managing the UK's borders. We are working with them to understand and mitigate the impacts on our transport infrastructure, our business and on our people, but we, ourselves, can't decide on customs arrangements.

The UK Government has decided not to put additional checks in place on goods from European Union nations, temporarily at least, if we were to leave without a deal. But this does not guarantee that goods will flow as freely as they currently do. If we do leave without a deal, then Ireland will have to treat goods from the UK as goods from a third country, including all the necessary checks, and that could lead to delays at Welsh ports.

In most of our ports, we would be able to manage the impact of the delays within the space available in the ports themselves, but Holyhead would find it more difficult to cope with this. As the Minister for Economy and Transport said last Tuesday—and I refer Members to his statement on this issue, which could outline matters in more detail than the Government's response to the committee's recommendations, because it could refer to some of the confidentiality issues that applied at the time—although modelling work suggested that it was likely that we could keep the traffic delayed at Holyhead within the port itself, we have developed contingencies in order to have as little effect as possible on the locality. This includes looking at a number of sites that could be used as contingency spaces for lorries if there is delay at the border.