The Impact of a 'No Deal' Brexit on Third Sector Organisations

Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his Brexit Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:37 pm on 2 October 2019.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 2:37, 2 October 2019

I thank the Member for that important supplementary question. When you have organisations like Tenovus, Children in Wales, the Migrants' Rights Network, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions—when you've got bodies like that raising the alarm, which is what they do in that letter, I think it's incumbent on us all to sit up and listen to that. I was in an event organised by Charles Whitmore, who I think was party to the letter, a few months ago, in Belfast, actually. I think the impact of Brexit on civic society, and the role of the third sector, hasn't sufficiently been on the agenda across the UK. We have done what we can here to support third sector organisations, partly through the European transition fund. But I think the reason the letter is so powerful is because these are organisations working on the front line in people's lives, often working with vulnerable people—and we are absolutely concerned about the cumulative effect of a number of detrimental impacts that would flow and impact on them in the context of Brexit. One of the things we are trying to do in relation to securing the resilience of the third sector in the event of leaving the European Union is to include them very directly in the work of designing the replacement for structural funds here. There's a steering group, which is convened by Huw Irranca-Davies, and they have a central role in that. That principle of partnership between the third sector and other sectors, which has underpinned the work we've done during our membership of the European Union, needs to survive as and when we leave.