Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:14 pm on 24 November 2020.
Minister, I'm asking for a debate to be held urgently on the end of the Brexit transition period and what it means specifically for Welsh ports. We're now at the eleventh hour, and warnings raised by myself and others around the lack of preparation in Holyhead are sounding with ever louder urgency. Now, with the need for customs declarations and checks on outbound freight from 1 January, there still hasn't been, I understand, a trial run of the new electronic customs system that's to be used. The Minister will have read about concerns expressed today by Irish hauliers about mayhem at the port. I've spoken to Nick Bosanquet, professor of health policy at Imperial College, who's worried that ports delays could even increase the COVID risk.
Now, yesterday the Irish Taoiseach visited the pretty impressive infrastructure that's been developed at Dublin port. There's nothing in Holyhead for when those checks are needed in July next year on inbound freight. A site in Warrington has been identified for Holyhead's imported goods checkpoint, at least temporarily. You couldn't make it up. That site clearly has to be in or near Holyhead. Now, UK Government has messed up royally here, but we also need to hear exactly what else Welsh Government has tried, and is trying to do, to salvage things, given that Welsh Government is responsible for developing a border point in the south-west of Wales, and UK Government for the one relating to Holyhead. Now, my fear, as I've warned time and time again, is that anything that affects the free flow of trade through Holyhead will undermine the ports and undermine jobs related to the ports, so can we please bring all these issues before the Senedd again, at this late hour even, so we can hammer home just what's at stake?