Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for International Relations and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:32 pm on 6 March 2019.

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Photo of Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Baroness Mair Eluned Morgan Labour 2:32, 6 March 2019

Thank you, Darren. I don't want you to get the impression that I'm keen to be making trade deals with other countries for the sake of it. I am absolutely clear that the priority for the Welsh Government should be in ensuring that the most important trade relationship—our relationship with the European Union, where 60 per cent of our goods goes—should be the priority, above all other priorities. And it is, I think, very disturbing that we are less than 30 days away from a situation where we could be leaving the EU with absolutely no idea about what that relationship looks like. So, I have huge concerns about that relationship. But, in the meantime, we understand that there are conversations going on by the UK Government, and we don't want to be left out of those. So, I just want to make sure that that's clear.

In terms of trade envoys, I think that you're absolutely right—there's a real opportunity. One of the things that I'm clear about is that, actually, we have Welsh people all over the world who have great expertise in a lot of areas, and we need to be using that expertise in a way where some of our generalist officials can't get us into the kind of top-level companies. But if we have people who have contacts, they can get us to the absolute top in these organisations. So, we will be working on how we develop a diaspora strategy—what is our relationship. But I'm absolutely clear that that diaspora, and those trade envoys, whatever form those take—so, it may be something very unofficial, it could be something a little bit more formal; we still have yet to map out what that might look like—are absolutely key.

But the other thing that you point out, which I absolutely agree with, is that what we have is a network of British embassies around the world, where they are massively resourced, and we need them to be doing a lot more work for us. So, we will be doing a lot of work in really trying to give them a lot more guidance in terms of what we're looking for from them as a Welsh Government.