Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his Brexit Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:51 pm on 13 February 2019.
The Member refers to the British-Irish Council, which is an absolutely essential forum in this regard, and I attended it with the previous First Minister at the Isle of Man last year and saw at first hand how important that forum is and can continue to be in cementing relationships across the UK, yes, in the context of Brexit, but also in terms of future relationships more generally. As I've said in the Chamber previously—and I'll take the opportunity of saying again—we regard these relationships as very important, and in particular in the context of the Irish relationship and the coastal relationship, if I can put it like that, between the west of Wales and the south-east coast of Ireland. Of course, that relationship has benefited significantly from European Union funding through the European co-operation schemes and so forth. We've regarded those things as extremely valuable, as has, I know, the Irish Government. We need to look at cementing a range of relationships, I think, in our future, both among the Celtic nations, but also with other sub-state nations across the rest of Europe. We have memoranda of understanding or action plans already in place with Brittany and with the Basque Country, we're about to embark on a similar set of discussions with the Galicians, and we've developed, in particular with Quebec, for example, a memorandum of understanding around the aerospace sector—