We turn to spokespersons' questions, and the first person this afternoon is the Conservative spokesperson, Darren Millar.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. Minister, can you tell us whether the Welsh Labour-led Government wants a second referendum on the UK's membership of the EU or not?

The Welsh Government's position is very clear on this. 

Is it?

It is. I may not be able to convey it very loudly today, but—. [Laughter.]

Was that your second question, I take it? You just said, 'Is it?' Was that your second question?

It was a polite gibe, given the polite gibe that came back to me.

Well, perhaps ykeep your polite gibes, then, and I won't be confused as to whether it was a question or not.

I note your comments.

Counsel General.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. Our position as a Government—

I'm sorry; I can't hear.

Our position as a Government is set out in 'Securing Wales' Future'. The kind of deal for a post-Brexit relationship we would like to see is set out in that. If that sort of deal is not available and can't be agreed, then—

I'm sorry, I can't hear you. I did try these earlier. 

It does work. The floor amplification will work. 

I was trying it earlier; I couldn't hear. 

Do you want to ask your second question?

I couldn't hear the answer to the first one. 

If that sort of deal is available, then the Welsh Government recognises that another referendum is a means of breaking that deadlock. 

It would help if Members in the Chamber could keep the noise down. The Counsel General is struggling, and so, if we all can keep quiet, then we'll be able to get through this next set of questions. Darren. 

I listened to what you said. I'm still not clear on whether you want a referendum or not. We voted in this Chamber just a couple of weeks ago, and the Welsh Government seemed to support preparations for a second referendum, but it didn't expressly indicate whether there was support for a referendum or not. And I think the situation is such that you should be changing your Labour Party website address to Confused.com because I think lots of people out there find it bizarre that we're in a situation where the Welsh Government votes to prepare for a second referendum without actually demonstrating whether it supports having one or not. That seems to me to be a very strange situation indeed. Now, we know that the leader of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, wrote to the Prime Minister last week and he indicated in that letter that he's abandoned his six undeliverable tests and replaced them with five new demands on Brexit. In his letter, he didn't mention the prospect of a second referendum, and the reason he didn't mention the prospect of a second referendum is because the leader of the opposition isn't prepared to ask for one. Do you accept that it's utterly futile for the Welsh Government to seek to prepare for a second referendum given that your own leader in Westminster isn't prepared to ask for one and there's no prospect of one coming? 

Well, the letter from the leader of the opposition described the sort of deal that the Labour Party in Westminster would be prepared to support. And we recommend that the Prime Minister engages fully with the leader of the opposition to see if that sort of deal can emerge from discussions in Parliament. She's failed to do so so far. 

The reality is, of course, that the Labour leadership in Westminster wants out of the EU. Footage was revealed in the last few days of Jeremy Corbyn back in 2010, calling for the EU to be, and I quote, 'defeated', accusing it and the IMF of being, and I quote,

'utterly united in deflation, suppressing the economy and creating unemployment'.

And, of course, in a book, which is currently being serialised in a Sunday newspaper, it's been revealed that the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, and Seumas Milne, Jeremy's Corbyn's closest adviser, both voted to leave the EU. Given this, do you accept that instead of playing politics around a second referendum and preparing for one when there's no prospect of one coming, and no prospect of the Labour frontbench in Westminster calling for one, that you ought to get on with supporting the Prime Minister and supporting the deal that she has negotiated and the changes that are going to be necessary to deliver a deal, with appropriate changes to the backstop?

Whilst I envy the Member's ability to project across the Chamber, I won't take any lessons from him on playing politics on this issue. Our position is completely clear, and the best means of resolving this and avoiding a 'no deal' situation is for the Prime Minister to drop her red lines and seek to achieve a consensus across Parliament on the sorts of the principles that there could be a broadly based coalition, not the narrow coalition she's trying to establish at the moment. 

We turn to the Plaid Cymru spokesperson, Adam Price. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Returning to the question raised by my colleague Helen Mary Jones, has the work that you referred to in identifying the medicines and medical equipment that are at risk of becoming scarce if there were a 'no deal' Brexit been completed? Is that work completed? How many medicines and what medical equipment have you identified on that list? Is it less than the 31 identified in the most recent analysis by the European Medicines Agency, and do you intend to publish that list so that GPs and the public are aware of the possible risks that they may face, so that, as far as possible, they can make contingency arrangements?

That work is not complete, and that work is taking place jointly between the Welsh Government and other Governments, including the Westminster Government. The work is ongoing at present. What is important is to ensure and be clear with people that they don’t need to behave in any different way at the moment. We are not asking the NHS to respond any differently to GPs, as in giving people longer prescriptions, and we’re not asking pharmacists to do so either. We will be keeping an eye on the situation.

May I ask the Minister, with just a few weeks to go, isn’t it going to be a cause of concern for people that that work hasn’t been completed? We’ve known for some time that there was a possibility of a no-deal exit, and, with just a few weeks remaining, we still don’t know what goods and medicines we are talking about.

May I also ask him whether he is aware of any contingency plans by the police forces in Wales to put police officers on standby to respond to any civil disputes, or disputes in our ports should there be a 'no deal' Brexit? And if you have had those discussions, could you give some details on the number of officers we are talking about? Do these contingency arrangements include responding to crises in other parts of the UK, including Northern Ireland? Can you tell us whether local authorities, other emergency services and any other public sector bodies are involved in this planning work?

Yes, those organisations are involved in that work, through the local resilience forums, and the four police forces are also involved in those negotiations. As the Member will know, there are already arrangements in place in terms of mutual assistance, and all of this takes places within the civil contingencies framework, which has been established for all kinds of situations. We don’t have any specific intelligence about civil unrest on a wider scale, as it were, but the negotiations and discussions are taking place with local authorities, with the police, with the health service and with other Governments in the United Kingdom.

Could I ask the Minister just to confirm that the police forces in Wales are going to be put on standby in the event of a 'no deal' Brexit, as has been reported, for example, in England and in Scotland? In February of last year, we received confirmation that the Government was considering the concept of free zones, or free ports, if we were to leave the European Union. Can the Minister provide us with an update on that work? And can you tell us which ports, or airports, or other areas, are being considered by you at the moment, and whether you as a Government intend to support any application for a free zone or free port status?

Finally, following reports this afternoon that Ford have told the UK Prime Minister that they intend to shift production from the UK if there were to be a 'no deal' Brexit, can you tell us whether there will be any similar discussion between Welsh Ministers and Ford? And can you also tell us whether the Welsh Government has spoken to each of the 52 anchor companies over the last three months to ask them about the possible impact of Brexit on their businesses?

As regards the free ports, of course, from our point of view as a Government, we want to be in a position where we can have a close relationship with the single market, and within a customs union. And it’s difficult to see how the free ports, or free zones, could exist within that framework. And so we have a strategic challenge in that context.

As regards discussions between Government and the major employers or companies, those discussions are ongoing. I was in that meeting with Ken Skates earlier this week with business representatives—with the economic sector more generally—and the kind of discussions you're alluding to are happening on a regular basis at present. 

Thank you. We turn to the UKIP spokesperson, Neil Hamilton. 

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. The Counsel General will have seen that Olly Robbins, the Government's chief negotiator with the EU, let the cat out of the bag yesterday in Brussels and revealed Theresa May's true intentions. She has always said that she doesn't want to extend article 50 or to have any delay in Britain leaving the EU beyond 29 March. But Olly Robbins said that his task, or the Government's task in the House of Commons over the next few weeks is to get MPs to believe that, in the week beginning at the end of March, the extension is possible, but if they don't vote for the deal then the extension is going to be a long one. So, on the one hand, the Prime Minister is saying that there won't be an extension, but the man actually doing the day-to-day negotiations is saying that their tactic is to extend the membership of Britain in the EU beyond 29 March if MPs don't agree the deal.  

Yes, I saw that as well. Our position, as a Government, is that the Prime Minister should request an extension to article 50 at this point. The later that is left, the more risky it becomes and the more challenges there may be to securing that. It seems to us that almost any scenario from now on requires an extension to article 50—an extension to the exit date. Even if a deal was possible at this point, the practical, logistical exercise of getting legislation through Parliament in order to make that happen already takes us in almost any realistic scenario beyond the current exit date.  

Well, I'm sure the Counsel General would agree with me that this resolves, ultimately, into a question of trust in Government, which is a vitally important issue. Here we have, on the one hand, the Government's chief negotiator being overheard in private, in circumstances where he didn't know he was being overheard, saying one thing, and the Prime Minister in public denying what he said. Which does he believe is the more credible approach? 

I'm not sure it's for me to speculate on potential discussions within the UK Government between negotiators and the Prime Minister. All I would say is that we've been very clear about the kind of deal that we think should be put before the House of Commons, and I think the Prime Minister should take all the steps she can to make that a reality. 

Well, as the deal that Theresa May has put on the table gives the EU all it wants—the £39 billion, detaching Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, a continuation of regulatory alignment without a voice or a vote in the EU, and with no unilateral right to leave, which we currently enjoy under article 50—effectively what the Prime Minister is proposing is very largely what the Welsh Labour Government itself wants to see. So, is he encouraged by this confirmation of the Prime Minister's duplicity in negotiating a deal that she claims is a means of exiting the EU whilst knowing it is actually designed to keep the UK indefinitely within it? 

Well, I'm certainly conscious of the limitations of being in the EU without a voice, but I would just say that the deal that the Prime Minister has put forward to the House of Commons falls very short of the kind of deal the Welsh Labour Government, together with Plaid Cymru, has described as the kind of post-Brexit relationship we should have with the European Union. It doesn't, for example, include a permanent customs union; it doesn't, for example, include a single market in services; and it certainly doesn't include the kind of fair movement migration policy that we feel is the best in Wales's interests after Brexit. 

Well, I take issue with the Counsel General on much of what he has just said, because, effectively, the basis of the deal that the EU has extorted from the Government is Britain's membership of the customs union and, indeed, the single market in effect because regulatory alignment is part and parcel of it, and there is no end date. So, in those circumstances, then the EU has no incentive to improve its offer because it's got everything it wanted on the table already. So, why should it agree to allow Britain to leave the EU in due course when it's actually got us where it wants us—actually within the EU but without a voice and a vote? And, therefore, that means, in effect, permanent continuation of Britain's membership of the EU—exactly what the Labour party wants to see. 

I also believe that seeking renegotiation of the deal with the EU on the basis of the Prime Minister's current red lines is a very, very optimistic strategy on her part. Of course, we know that the EU said that if she moves from the red lines, other options are available on the table, and, once again, I'd encourage the Prime Minister to take that up.