Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his Brexit Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:53 pm on 22 January 2020.

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Photo of Jeremy Miles Jeremy Miles Labour 2:53, 22 January 2020

Well, it isn't clear to me the extent the Member was paying attention to what we've been saying over the last few weeks in relation to relations with the new UK Government. I'll remind him, since he invites me to do that, in effect. What we have said, as we have always said, is that the UK Government will find us a co-operative Government, seeking to work in the best interests of Wales, but we will not do that where the devolution boundary is not respected. There is a role for the Welsh Government and there is a role for the UK Government, and the relationship will work best and at its most constructive when that boundary is understood and respected in practice.

What I will say is that I'm not entirely sure that I've heard the Welsh Conservatives's argument descend beneath the rhetoric on any of these points of substance. I'm not conscious of any publication by the Welsh Conservative Party setting out its own view of the kind of Brexit that would work in the best interests of Wales. It has, throughout this process, largely simply trotted the party line in Westminster.

What we have had on this side of the Chamber is a set of reasoned proposals and policy documents that take into account specifically the interests of Wales. That has not been matched by any level of thinking on the opposite side of this Chamber, and it's evident to me that the Member doesn't even actually follow his own Government's analysis, which, on their own numbers, tells us that the free trade nirvana that he is describing brings illusory benefits to the economy of Wales.