3. Statement by the Counsel General and Brexit Minister: Update on the UK Government's proposals for the UK's exit from the EU

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:02 pm on 1 October 2019.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 3:02, 1 October 2019

I thank the Member for those points. He talks about the confidence he has in Boris Johnson. I think he used the phrase 'pulling out the stops'—quite remarkable, really. What we've discovered today is a leak that the Government hasn't even yet put a position on the table for the EU Commission to consider, so the notion the Prime Minister has been negotiating for the last few weeks is utterly risible. We're less than 30 days away from the end of the month, and he has yet to put a proposal on the table for the European Commission. So, his confidence, I'm afraid, as is so often the case, is entirely misplaced.

He talks about project fear. I don't know who comes to his constituency surgeries, but I get people coming to mine talking about their concerns about whether they get to stay in the UK, how they can recruit people to work in their businesses, how they can access support for skills training in the future, how they can keep their third sector organisations afloat in the coming weeks. This is not project fear, this is project reality in the lives of my constituents and, I dare say, in yours and everyone else's in this Chamber. I think you do a great disservice to their lived experience by dismissing it as project fear.

The Member talks about the investment that is forthcoming, and he's obviously looked at the banners in the Conservative Party conference that talk about investment in this, that and the other. The notion that, in the context of a 'no deal' Brexit, there'll be an investment from the UK Government in anything is utterly risible. The devastation caused to UK finances from that is going to be very, very significant.

He talks about economic performance since the 2016 referendum. I don't know which country he's living in. We all know the weakness of the pound. Anyone who's spent any time overseas this summer will know how weak the pound is. I heard Carolyn Fairbairn of the CBI yesterday morning talking about investment being 26 per cent under trend in the last three years, with GDP down by 2 per cent, and that's hitting people's pound in the pocket. The UK Government borrowed £24 billion in the most recent financial year, equivalent to 1.1 per cent of GDP, in order to keep the show on the road. 

We know from the manufacturing organisation Make UK how domestic and export orders have been contracting in this quarter for the third quarter in a row, so I don't know what country he lives in, but I'm living the Wales of the real world, and that's why this Government is focused on preparing Wales as best we can for the kind of 'no deal' Brexit that he is only too happy to advocate.