Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:37 pm on 11 November 2020.
It was remiss of me not to mention the language in relation to the Basque Country, because some of our longest standing relationships with that country come from the help that Wales gave to the emerging Basque nation, after the death of Franco, in language planning. Now, in some ways, you could argue they've had more success in some aspects since in the revival of the Basque language. But I was lucky enough to make a visit to Mondrágon when I first became an Assembly Member, and when I was in Vitoria, the capital of the Basque country, I came across a group of people who I recognised from Cardiff, and they were there helping the Basque Government with language planning, drawing on our experience here in Wales. So, it is another very powerful link between us.
Dr Lloyd asked about Welsh SMEs and their role in exporting and the Cymru-Wales brand. These are very, very tough times for Welsh SMEs. They've been affected by coronavirus, and they now face the enormous new hurdles that will be put in their way as a result of leaving the European Union, particularly if we leave the European Union on the thinnest of terms or no terms at all. So, the help that we can offer those firms is even more important in that way. But their ability to trade, and to trade freely with our largest and nearest market, will have been compromised by what has taken place, and there's no denying that. Making them part of the Cymru-Wales brand is part of our effort to try and compensate them for the new barriers that are being placed in their path in terms of those trading relationships.
I thank Dr Lloyd for everything he was drawing attention to in relation to the Welsh-American experience and the way that we turn history into opportunity. I'll give one example to maybe not match but at least meet his example of Frank Lloyd Wright. Many Members here in the Senedd will know of what happened in Birmingham in Alabama back in the summer of 1963, when Dr Martin Luther King led a group of children into segregated public parks in that city, and how the Baptist church in Alabama was bombed by white separatists, killing four young black girls who were attending Sunday school. The Welsh artist John Petts raised money here in Wales, an appeal partly led by the Western Mail, to create a window in that church, a fantastic window from the people of Wales, as it says on the window.
Birmingham, Alabama was visited by our education Minister in September of last year. She visited the church. She made a gift on behalf of the people of Wales of a Welsh bible to go alongside what they call the Welsh window in that church. Very shortly afterwards, there was a ceremony, a major ceremony, at the church itself to reflect on all of that history. The head of our mission in the United States spoke from that platform that afternoon, and who did he share that platform with? Well, the other speaker at the event was no one less than the President-elect of the United States, Joe Biden. And that is how, in the way that Dr Lloyd put it, we can turn our history into opportunity. And that, I know, will be a building block in our ability to forge a relationship with the new administration in the USA.
Dai Lloyd asked about contracting out the work on the diaspora. Well, do you know, Dai, actually, the idea partly came from being at the Belfast homecoming event, because that's how they do it. They have companies there who have genuine expertise in how you build networks abroad, how you identify people of Welsh descent, how you interest them in becoming ambassadors for Wales in other parts of the world. And that's what we're trying to do. We're just trying to use expertise that others have alongside the Welsh Government, because we are starting from a different place, aren't we, than our Scottish or Irish contemporaries.
We want to do more in the deforestation area. I recognise entirely the points that Dr Lloyd made. We sometimes have to be realistic about the powers we have in the Welsh Government's own hands to take actions that can make a difference in terms of the matters that he and Paul Davies also identified this afternoon.
And finally, in terms of the arms trade, we did carry out a review. Our presence at such events will be different in the future as a result. But the term 'arms trade' is sometimes used as a bit of a spray-on term to cover a wide range of activities, some of which have a beneficial part that is played in the world, in offering security to populations that otherwise would be vulnerable to others. So, there are things that can be done that are positive and worthwhile, and there are Welsh workers who earn their living in these trades. I want the Welsh Government to be aligned with those positive purposes, and if we have a presence at trade fairs in the future, it will be to emphasise those things that can be done and would be in line with our ethical approach, and in line with the approach that we set out in the action plans that we've published today.