Triumph Furniture Ltd in Merthyr Tydfil

Part of 3. Topical Questions – in the Senedd at 3:24 pm on 9 October 2019.

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Photo of Ken Skates Ken Skates Labour 3:24, 9 October 2019

No amount of protection will prevent every single business in Wales from being burned in a ‘no deal’ Brexit. Businesses will suffer. Anybody in industry will tell you that a ‘no deal’ Brexit is dangerous for our economy. We will do our upmost to protect workers during the coming months. We are ready to deploy more than 500 people across the Development Bank of Wales, Welsh Government and Business Wales to assist businesses. But the danger of a ‘no deal’ Brexit is real and will impact on every single community across Wales and across the United Kingdom. And I must say that when we talk about economic competitiveness, our competitiveness will not be improved through a race to the bottom in terms of labour costs. Competitiveness will be improved as a consequence of investing in higher skilled jobs, in the development of systems that enable us to compete more competitively in the age of automation. That is precisely where we are going to be focusing our investment.