Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:59 pm on 12 March 2019.
Well, it was a cheap remark the last time the Member made it—I'm surprised that he doesn't have at least somebody alongside him to advise him on not repeating the same mistake twice. Let me give him the example that I've given him before. It's a real-world example—it was put to me directly by the employer. This is someone who runs a large and successful business in the middle of Wales, in a place where there is sparsity of population. In order for that business to succeed, as it has succeeded for many years, he needs 100 people to make his business work year in, year out. Eighty of those people he is able to recruit from that local community. In order for the business to run, he has to recruit 20 other people and, indeed, those 20 other people are not to be found locally, and they come from outside Wales. It is the jobs of the 80 people who are already there that depend upon the 20 people who come from elsewhere. That's why those people are welcome to be here in Wales. Far from, as the Member suggests, those people being somehow to the detriment of Welsh people, our ability to persuade people from elsewhere to come and be part of our successful economy is part of the success we will have, and we as a Government are determined to go on giving the message that those people will be welcomed. They're welcome now, they'll be welcome in the future, whatever our relationship with the rest of the world will be.