1. Will the Counsel General make a statement on the implications of Brexit on Pembrokeshire? OAQ53386

The Welsh Government has been considering the implications of Brexit across Wales, and acting to plan and prepare for all eventualities.

Counsel General, you will be aware that the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee published a report in August 2017 on the impact of Brexit on ports here in Wales. One of the recommendations of that report was to ensure that there were constructive discussions taking place between the Welsh Government and their counterparts in Ireland, and, indeed, with the other nations of the European Union. Can you tell us, therefore, what work has now taken place since the publication of that report, particularly on the impact of Brexit on ports in my constituency?

Quite a bit of work has been taking place as regards the risk to ports in Wales generally and in the Member's constituency, as well as in Holyhead and in the north. We’ve been working with the United Kingdom Government and local government and the port operators to ensure that we model the risks to ports generally. And, generally, the ports in Fishguard and Pembroke Dock are likely to have greater resilience than that of Holyhead. Having said that, we are keeping a close eye on this in case the assumptions under those models change.

Constituents have raised concerns with me about the provision of medical supplies in south-west Wales, particularly some very practical things like incontinence pads, but also access to insulin, certain rare radioisotopes that are necessary for some cancer treatments. Can the Brexit Minister update us on the discussions that Welsh Government has had with Hywel Dda health board to ensure that particularly our rural hospitals and some of the smaller hospitals have access to these kinds of products in the event, which, of course, we all devoutly hope will not happen, of a hard Brexit?

Yes, certainly. Of course, there have been discussions with the health boards. The health Minister is in continuous discussions, really, with NHS bodies to ensure that they have preparedness plans in place and to test some of those assumptions. The question that the Member asks relates to the provision of medical devices in particular. As she may know, there's been a specific piece of work undertaken to ascertain supply chains for those devices particular to Wales and to inform the Welsh Government's position about the extent to which it will collaborate and co-operate with the systems that the UK Government is putting in place and the extent to which we need to put our own arrangements in place in relation to supply chain issues here in Wales. 

One of the key issues, of course, is to ensure distribution across all parts of Wales, including perhaps in the remoter communities, of some of the sorts of medical devices and consumables that the Member refers to in her question.