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.