Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:58 pm on 14 June 2022.
Llywydd, Adam Price is right, of course. Those were very concerning figures published yesterday, and for the first time since the pandemic began we've had two consecutive months in which GDP has fallen, and, for the first time, we see those falls across all three major sectors of the economy: the service sector shrunk, industrial production shrunk, manufacturing shrunk. These are not solely to be explained by the short-term shocks of the war in Ukraine and by COVID, the leader of Plaid Cymru is absolutely right. It is a recognised impact by the Bank of England and by the Office for Budget Responsibility. The UK economy is 4 per cent smaller than it would have been had we not decided to leave the European Union and will be perpetually. There is a very high price being paid by the UK economy for that decision, but it's not an impact that anybody should be surprised at, because this was pointed out well in advance, and we were told to disregard the views of experts. Well, I'm afraid that expertise is turning out to have been right all along.