We're going to the short debate. If you are leaving the Chamber, can you do so quickly, quietly? You all ought to know that that's what I'm going to call for by now. Right, we do move to the short debate, and I call on David Rowlands to speak to the topic he has chosen. David.

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. So, Brexit is done. The UK is no longer a member state of the European Union. In this sense, at least, a very significant if not historic one, the outcome of the 2016 referendum has finally been honoured. But how done is done? And what happens next? While Brexit to date has hardly been a walk in the park, much of the real work and hard decisions lie ahead.

In the first place, there are negotiations surrounding our new relationship with our European partners. This will inevitably mean trade-offs by the UK Government, but also the EU. And let us give credit where it is due, this Government has gone further in strengthening its negotiating stance than the previous administration. If negotiations are to be successful, Europe's negotiators, including Macron, must be made to understand that free trade with the UK is as important to them, perhaps even more so than it is to the UK. The UK trades at an approximately £70 billion deficit with the EU, which means, of course, that the economies of Europe as a whole have more to lose in a trade war than does the UK. Negotiations will of course be played out with a backdrop of failing EU economies. France and Italy's economies actually shrank in the last three months of 2019, as did the economies of the eurozone as a whole. In contrast, the UK's economy grew over this period, despite the uncertainties over Brexit.

France itself is in the grip of industrial disruption caused by Macron's attempt to bring the French pension system—42 different pension schemes—under control and raise the state pension age. There is no doubt that the UK has been subsidising the overgenerous French state pensions for many years. The British people have, in contrast, largely accepted the raising of the pension age, realising that the current age at which pensions are paid is untenable in the long run. Our continued presence in the EU would undoubtedly have meant an increase in our net contributions, invariably helping to subsidise such largesse by European countries. Spain, for instance, pays its old-age pensioners to go on holiday for three weeks every year, whilst our pensioners are literally dying through fuel poverty.

The Government's solid majority will end the legislative stalemate of the last two and a half years, and phase 2 of the Brexit process might be less all-consuming in Westminster than phase 1. But one must never forget that divisions in the UK caused by the political left aligning itself with its traditional enemy, the elite and the rich, to frustrate the Brexit process. This, without doubt, left a bad taste in the mouths of their previously loyal supporters, eloquently expressed in the latest general election result.

Brexit or not, we will continue to be a close neighbour to a European Union whose own future is far from clear. Whilst Brexit will cease, indeed already has ceased, to be a major agenda item in Brussels, the EU faces struggles of its own in dealing with issues ranging from its future financing to migration and the eurozone.

We in the UK have never been isolationists. We have been and always will be a world trading nation. Brexit means we shall now be able to trade with the rest of the world under own terms, not those of Brussels. Free trade is one of the most potent agents in combating poverty and hunger throughout the world. Tariffs, subsidies, exchange controls and regulatory harmonisation, as practiced by the EU, all served to undermine free trade.

There is no doubt that the UK lost thousands of jobs to other European countries through the EU's regional grant interventions: a brand new Skoda car plant built in the Czech Republic for the German motor company Volkswagen with EU regional funding, whilst the Rover car plant was allowed to close, the irony of which is that, through Britain's net contribution to the EU, it was UK money that helped to build the plant in the Czech Republic. Closer to home, the Bosch plant in Miskin was moved to Hungary—again, with the help of European aid.

Companies who trade and make vast profits in the UK should be made to pay tax on their goods and services to the UK Treasury, not the Irish Treasury, which now occurs using the dog-legged tax avoidance system—a system said to be employed by Amazon, Dell, Google, Starbucks, Facebook and others to take advantage of Ireland's lower corporation tax rates. So, although the vast profits made by these companies are generated in the UK, Ireland is the tax beneficiary. The UK will now be free to make its own interventions to alleviate this problem.

So, let us now be more Wales-specific. Politics as we know it is realigning. Ideologies that were long thought to be dead are re-emerging. There's a growing dislike of our politicians and institutions. There have been millions of words written bemoaning the uncertainty of these times, but we in the Brexit Party believe that with uncertainty comes opportunity, particularly for those willing to spell out a persuasive and positive vision. We believe that the role of Government is to protect and facilitate the liberty to flourish, to provide the base that will release the entrepreneurial skills that we know exist—and that includes the Welsh Government. The powers that have until now resided in Brussels that will soon be returned to the UK Government and should, where they lie in areas that have been devolved, be passed down to the Welsh Government—such devolved areas as fishing, agriculture and economic policy in general—these new powers, if used wisely, could help stimulate a dynamic Welsh economy.

It is time for the UK and Wales to exploit world markets, particularly countries whose economies are growing rapidly—India, China and the rest of the far east—as well as Canada, the USA and Australia. We have for too long relied on European markets, which are contracting not expanding. The business-stifling legislation implemented by Brussels over the past decades is now taking its toll. The economies of Europe are moribund. The process of initiating start-up businesses in Europe is said to be hugely bureaucratic, meaning that the small and medium-sized enterprise sector in countries such as Germany makes up a significantly smaller proportion of the economy than that of the UK. This leaves the German economy far more exposed to changes in the world-wide economy, because it's far more reliant on exports by its large global industrial companies, especially its car manufacturers.

This over-reliance on large companies also means many European economies cannot react to changing economic trends in the same way that the more agile SME-dominated countries, such as the UK, are able to do. Wales is particularly well placed with regard to SMEs, in that we are far less reliant on a large company manufacturing base, especially with the demise of traditional industries such as coal and steel, though it is true to say that steel plays a significant part in Wales's economy and that industries such as Airbus are particularly important in supporting thousands of highly skilled jobs. It is this high-skills sector that should be the focus of Wales's industrial expansion: small, preferably indigenous, high-tech companies should be the focus of the Welsh Government, and I here acknowledge that it is strenuously attempting to move in that direction. We in the Brexit Party have always been appreciative of the Welsh Government's support for companies such as Aston Martin Lagonda. Only by attracting such iconic companies, such as Aston Martin, can we hope to expand the high-spec technology sector in Wales.

It is true that, in the short term, there may be significant challenges to parts of the Welsh economy. Agriculture may well see such hardships until alternative markets for their products are established. It is up to both the UK Government and the Welsh Government to adequately support the agriculture sector and other industries through this transition phase. However, we must not underestimate the huge potential such markets as China and the far east in general offer for the prime quality products that the Welsh farming industry produce. I am confident that, just a few years down the line, Europe will be seen as a relatively minor market for Welsh products in general. 

The EU share of the world GDP has declined considerably over the last few decades, down from 30 per cent in 1980 to just 16 per cent today, even though another 18 counties have joined the EU during that time. Of course, the loss of the UK, the EU's second biggest economy, will significantly alter the percentage even further. It is time to reunite with the Commonwealth countries we effectively abandoned over 40 years ago. The UK's diaspora around the world is huge. The advantage of having English as the most spoken language in the world is inestimable. The market is here for UK goods; it is up to the business community as a whole, with substantial help from the UK and Welsh Governments, to fully exploit this opportunity. The world is literally our oyster outside the shackles of the European Union. 

Thank you. Can I call on the Minister for Economy, Transport and North Wales to reply to the debate? Ken Skates.

Yes. Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. I'd like to thank David Rowlands for bringing this short debate forward, and I very much welcome this opportunity to respond. I'll focus, if I may, on those areas where the Welsh Government has the best opportunities to influence our future economic prospects.

As Members in this Chamber are clearly aware, the UK is now in a transition period until December 2020, and the transition period was agreed to allow the UK and the EU to agree on a deal on their future relationship. During this period, the majority of the current EU rules and trading arrangements remain in place, with no significant changes in most areas. The current rules on trading with the EU will remain, as will the right to travel without visas to other EU countries. Negotiations with the EU will doubtless have a real impact on people's jobs and living standards and our ability to attract investment. We need an outcome that doesn't unnecessarily damage Wales but, in fact, benefits Wales.

The Government has worked hard on enabling Wales to be one of the fastest growing parts of the UK since the 2008 recession, with the highest business birth rate of the four UK nations, a record number of businesses in existence, and the employment rate in Wales has now reached a record high of 76.2 per cent. Unemployment, as Members are aware, is at a record low level of just 2.9 per cent. As an emerging tech region, Wales also has the fastest growing digital economy outside of London. And as David Rowlands observed—and I am grateful to him for doing so—Aston Martin Lagonda was hard fought for but secured by the Welsh Government, along with other businesses such as INEOS Automotive and CAF. And we will go on attracting high-quality jobs to Wales, just as we are intensifying our efforts to grow our own businesses here in Wales. 

We continue to be proactive in our actions in a number of areas to support the economy now during the transition period and beyond, and we will continue to do more. Our economic action plan focuses on wealth and well-being and on the importance of place, alongside business, people and infrastructure as economic drivers. This move towards more socially responsible business and inclusive growth is narrowing inequalities across our country, but that work must continue.

We're also focusing our energy on our emerging industries that will thrive in Wales in the future—industries including high-value manufacturing, like compound semiconductors, services like fintech, cyber security and green energy. And we're in the process of developing a new manufacturing manifesto to demonstrate how we will futureproof this industry. We'll continue to invest and support the foundation economy, which delivers the goods and services that serve our everyday needs. Members will be aware that I established a foundational economy challenge fund, which we increased to £4.5 million after listening to businesses and entrepreneurs, and this fund is supporting more than 50 innovative projects across Wales and working to spread the benefits of local spending in the local economy. We'll work with these businesses to spread good practice and to ensure that learning is spread across the country, and this learning will help us to change and improve the way that the foundational economy works.

The Development Bank of Wales was set up to provide access to finance to help our businesses in Wales to prosper, and it is now managing more than £500 million of support for businesses, helping entrepreneurs to thrive. I know that it is something, again, that David Rowlands supports, and I'm grateful for that. Our Business Wales service has helped to create more than 1,040 new enterprises during 2018 alone, and a recent investigation into the impact of this service found that the four-year survivability rate for core and growth-assisted businesses is 85 per cent compared to just 41 per cent for a match sample of non-assisted businesses. That really does demonstrate the value of Business Wales in terms of ensuring that businesses survive a key time in their existence. It's also the case that these businesses are more likely to be in the stable and secure credit risk category than their non-supported counterparts in the wider population group of Welsh businesses.

Now, new challenges like the rapid development of technology, which is fundamentally changing the way that we work, the impact of climate change, which is focusing us towards a more socially responsible way of working, and, of course, a shift of global economic power towards the E7, which will impact on our future trading relationships, are challenges alongside those that could be presented by the UK leaving the EU. That is not the only show in town, and so, we as a Welsh Government will continue to work hard to support the Welsh economy through this period of instability owing to various factors and this period of dramatic change, and we are doing everything in our power to make sure that Wales is a place where everyone can prosper and thrive, and to improve our country for future generations.

Thank you very much. That brings today's proceedings to a close.

The meeting ended at 18:52.