3. Will the First Minister provide an update on Welsh Government round-table discussions on leaving the European Union? OAQ51414

The Cabinet Secretary for Energy, Planning and Rural Affairs chairs the Brexit round table for her portfolio. It has met on a regular basis since July 2016, and the Welsh Government also engages with stakeholders across all policy areas on EU transition through established forums.

Thank you. It's important, of course, in the context of what we’ve been discussing this afternoon, that the Government at every level is involved in all ways possible in terms of defending Wales’s interest. I know that in the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee of the Assembly on 20 November, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance mentioned the round-table arrangements for the Minister for agriculture. He talked about the working party of the Cabinet Secretary for Education. He talked about a group chaired by the Cabinet Secretary for the economy. And another area that will be very sensitive to our departure from the European Union will be health and social care. In staffing, we’ll have to push for visas in order to attract staff to work in Wales specifically. There are concerns, as a result of losing the European Medicines Agency, in terms of how Wales can make bilateral agreements with the new agency in Europe in order to continue to test medicines in Wales, and so on. So, there’s a broad range of areas that will need to be addressed.

So, can you tell us what work the health Secretary is doing in leading a team on Brexit? Because there is concern within the health sector in Wales that this is one area that is being neglected somewhat at the moment, and we simply can’t afford that to happen.

We are working extremely closely at the moment with health and social care organisations in order to understand the impact of Brexit, and so they can also understand the impact on themselves and how we can discuss that. Since the referendum itself, the Government has been working with health and care organisations in order to consider which parts will be impacted by Brexit. Also, workshops have been held between the UK Government and Welsh Government to consider the legal and executive impact of Brexit as regards a number of issues. So, a number of things have taken place in order to ensure that the health service can consider what problems can arise because of Brexit, especially a hard Brexit.

In his letter yesterday to the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee, the UK Parliament's Under-Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union said

‘The Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union has held numerous discussions with the Welsh Government—including a number of bilateral discussions with the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government’ but

‘There is agreement between the Scottish, Welsh and UK Governments that common frameworks will be necessary in some areas and we have together agreed a set of principles that will underpin our work’.

And that 

‘We have agreed a programme of intense discussions with the Welsh Government, led by the First Secretary of State, to take this forward.’

Could you tell us a little bit more about what that programme of discussions is and how you'll be informing this Assembly about the developments that arise from them?

The discussions are not with the Secretary of State, particularly, for Wales, but the different Secretaries of State who have portfolio responsibilities in Whitehall. They are called 'deep dives', for reasons that escape me, actually, but what they are looking to do is to see where there is a need—first of all, is there a need for a common framework, secondly, what should that common framework look like. But key to this all, of course, is that any common framework in any area must be agreed and not imposed by the UK Government.