Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Environment, Energy and Rural Affairs – in the Senedd at 2:23 pm on 16 December 2020.
So, if there's no hurry, Minister, why are you bringing forward a White Paper before the group that you're establishing to look at making these assessments have actually concluded their work? You've contradicted yourself in that answer. And what work has already been done, which I know you reference in the report, of course, will be dated if not irrelevant come 1 January, because, at the end of the transition period, everything changes. We have no idea what access Welsh farmers will have to export markets, be it the EU or further afield. We have no idea what level of cheap imports may well be flooding into our domestic market, undermining and undercutting our producers here in Wales, and, of course, instigating that race to the bottom. And we still don't really know what level of EU replacement funding we'll receive in Wales; what we do know is that the UK Government has cut the funding that we'll receive next year. So, it really doesn't augur well in terms of you knowing what level of funding you will have to meet some of the ambitions that you have in your White Paper. So, surely, what we are proposing in any White Paper should be based on what we will come to know after the Brexit dust has settled, and not just publish a White Paper that is a bit of a hit-and-hope approach, in my book, when absolutely nothing is clear.