Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition (in respect of his European Transition responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 3:00 pm on 7 October 2020.
Well, the Member is right to raise this issue in the way that he has and I agree with his analysis. There is a great risk implicit in this and we’ve lost a significant period at the start of the year when we could have been making arrangements for work to ensure that this happens in a sensible way that is planned, not in the way that it’s being done now.
In terms of communication with the UK Government on this, I was in a meeting yesterday, making the exact points that the Member has suggested, to ensure that work is being done urgently to look at appropriate locations, to ensure that that happens in partnership with us as a Government, and with local government and with the companies that use the port and the port itself, and also the question of which checks are going to be undertaken. I’ve written to the UK Government to get some assurance that the same kinds of checks happen in England and Scotland, to avoid a situation where there is an incentive for lorries to go on different routes, and I think that's at the forefront of the Member's mind. So, we are putting pressure on this and we’re waiting for information from the UK Government about the impact of transport being delayed in and outside the port, which will be vital to the arrangements that we make on the ground. So, I can give him some assurance that we are raising these issues regularly. We have a ministerial meeting this afternoon to discuss this, because it’s so important.