Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:19 pm on 1 March 2022.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:19, 1 March 2022

I thank the leader of the opposition for what he said about his party's support for the efforts that will be made to welcome refugees here in Wales. I know that's very sincerely meant by him personally and on behalf of his party. I welcome it. I think his question is a very difficult one to answer at this moment. As he says, the displacement of population from Ukraine is currently being felt most directly in those countries that directly border Ukraine, and it's very hard to know at this moment how many of those people will wish to move beyond those countries and how many will wish to stay as close as they can to where they come from in the hope that they will be able to return to their own homes as soon as they can.

I can give him the same assurance that I offered earlier, Llywydd. We have had, as a Welsh Government, regular opportunities in the last 10 days to have direct conversations with the UK Government and Governments elsewhere in the United Kingdom. I myself, at the initiative of the UK Government, have received a briefing from the national security adviser to make sure that we have the best possible information available to us for our planning. As the position becomes clearer—and it could become clearer in a way that tells us that things will be even worse than we currently fear, rather than hoping, as we must, that things will be better—we will work as closely as we can, and as co-operatively as we can, with other parts of the United Kingdom to make sure that Wales plays the fullest part we can in what has to be a national effort across the United Kingdom, but an international effort as well, with those other nations within NATO, within the European Union and beyond. Because it is only through that combined effort that the world will be able to make the answer to President Putin, so he is in no doubt about the consequences of the actions that he has embarked upon, but also deal with the humanitarian consequences that we all have to play a part in addressing.