Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition (in respect of his European Transition responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 3:14 pm on 27 January 2021.
Well, what we are doing is very practical, really, in terms of working with the other two Governments and bringing those together. We've been absolutely at the forefront, really, of discussions, both with the UK Government and the Irish Government, as I mentioned earlier, but also with local authorities, including his own, and port stakeholders in relation to these matters, to make sure that we have the latest intelligence of what is happening, as far as possible, in real time to freight. We have seen some action on some of the issues that we've been highlighting, including some of the short-term easements, effectively, that the Irish Government have put in place in relation to the pre-boarding notification procedures, and, as I mentioned in passing earlier, some of those very practical things around webinars and so on.
In relation to the infrastructure that he speaks about, the Welsh Government's new responsibilities, effectively, start from the beginning of July, both in Holyhead and in the south-west, but we are working with HMRC and the UK Government to identify the best locations as near as possible to the port for that infrastructure to be placed. We want it to be as near as possible to the port, for reasons that I think are obvious, and there are a small number of options for us, which we are now homing in on. What I would say to him, though, is that it's almost impossible to imagine circumstances where that could be delivered now by 1 July, given the time we lost last year in the UK Government properly engaging us. So, we are now pressing the UK Government for an understanding of what contingency measures can be put in place so that Holyhead and other ports in Wales, and, indeed, across the UK, are able to do this in an orderly fashion, given the time we lost last year.