Direct Shipping Routes

Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition (in respect of his European Transition responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 3:10 pm on 27 January 2021.

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Photo of Huw Irranca-Davies Huw Irranca-Davies Labour 3:10, 27 January 2021

I welcome, genuinely, that constructive engagement by the Minister with UK counterparts, but, you know, I've got to call a spade a spade here. Minister, those people who said that we would have, after EU withdrawal, frictionless trade that would allow these land routes across the UK to continue were either too daft to realise what they were saying to the public in Wales, and across Britain, or they were outright telling porky pies. And, in fact, the UK bureaucracy that we currently have is exactly what Boris Johnson railed against previously, when he pointed his arrows at the European Union. So, I wonder, Minister, I see commercial operators out of Ireland now espousing the benefits of long-term diversion, away from the land link across the UK, and by going direct from Ireland to the EU. Will he push UK Ministers to redress the damage that they have done and to make sure that this is as temporary as possible and that they get this trade going back through our ports in Wales?