Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:57 pm on 12 March 2019.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:57, 12 March 2019

Well, Llywydd, let me correct the Member in the first place, because he repeats an old canard about the Welsh economy. The truth of the Welsh economy is that, while we have more low-paid jobs in Wales, when a person in Wales is doing a job they get paid comparably with what that person would be paid for doing the same job somewhere else in the United Kingdom. It is simply not the case, as he suggested at the outset, that, somehow, wages in Wales are generally depressed.

Let me say that I completely agree with what my colleague said yesterday. The continuation of jobs in the Welsh economy—in businesses, in public services and in our universities—depends upon our ability to go on attracting people from other parts of the world to come and make their futures here in Wales. The message we want to give out to the rest of the world is that they are welcome here. They play a really important part in our society and in our economy, and messages to the contrary are actually to the detriment of those people who are already living here and their economic prospects.