Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his Brexit Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 3:08 pm on 20 March 2019.
Well, the Member invites me to say, 'Don't worry, it'll be fine on the day', and I'm not going to say that, because that's not the position of level of reassurance that we can give.
In relation to preparedness generally, we've been careful to be specific about what we think the situations are in relation to different levels of preparedness, because I think that's the most helpful way of giving people in Wales an understanding of what we are doing, what the UK Government are doing, and what our expectations are, for example, if you're a business owner. So, we've tried to be very specific in relation to the advice that we are giving.
On the question of the resources of Government to deal with this, clearly the resources of Government are stretched thin in relation to preparing for Brexit. That is true in Wales; it’s true in all parts of the UK, because this is an additional burden that, certainly here in Wales, we don't welcome. Within the context of doing that, we have been recruiting, as he will know in his capacity as Chair of the relevant committee, significant numbers—obviously, significantly less than is happening across the UK, for reasons that are obvious. Does that involve taking people from doing other important things? Yes. Would we prefer not to have to do that? Yes. But, in the context that we are in, until we know that 'no deal' is not a possible outcome—and we are certainly nowhere near that as I stand here today—we are going to have to continue deploying the resources that we have to make sure that, where we can mitigate the worst excesses of 'no deal', we can try and do that. But I just want to be clear for the Member that we have been categorical that it is not possible to mitigate for the impact of 'no deal' either in the short term or in the long term, fully.