Wel, Lywydd, bythefnos yn ôl, fe gyhoeddom ni ‘Brexit a Thegwch o ran Symudiad Pobl’, y diweddaraf mewn cyfres o ddogfennau polisi sy’n edrych yn fanwl ar oblygiadau ymadael â’r Undeb Ewropeaidd i Gymru. Yn ein dogfen rydym yn edrych ar rôl mudo yng Nghymru, gan ganolbwyntio ar fudo o Ewrop. Rydym ni’n dadansoddi’r modelau posibl y gallai Llywodraeth y Deyrnas Unedig eu mabwysiadu ar gyfer system fudo yn y dyfodol ac yn ystyried effaith bosibl rhain ar Gymru.

Rydym yn cynnig ffordd hyblyg, ond dan reolaeth o edrych ar fudo, lle gallai pobl o Ewrop symud i’r Deyrnas Unedig ar yr amod eu bod nhw eisoes wedi cael cynnig swydd, neu fod modd iddyn nhw ddod o hyd i swydd yn gyflym. Ar yr un pryd, rydym yn dadlau dros gymryd camau cryfach i orfodi deddfwriaeth i herio camfanteisio ar weithwyr.

Llywydd, we’ve published this document to provide clear, evidence-informed articulation of Wales’s interests, for our people and our economy. With only 18 months to go until the UK’s exit date from the European Union, the UK Government is yet to set out its proposals for how future migration from Europe to the UK will be managed. Our document is timed to ensure that Welsh views and interests are known and understood in that discussion. And, Llywydd, these views are significant.

Welsh employers are worried about whether they will be able to recruit and retain workers from the European Union. The sustainability of their businesses often depends on those workers from the EU, just as does the job security of the Welsh workers in those same businesses. And, Llywydd, they are right to be worried, when we see the recent increase in the number of EU citizens who are leaving the United Kingdom. The latest migration statistics, published in August, show that net migration decreased by 81,000 people compared to the previous year, and that two thirds of this was due to a decrease in EU net migration. This was driven by an increase in people leaving the United Kingdom, particularly from countries that joined the EU in 2004. Now, the UK Government could have provided a unilateral guarantee of rights for such EU citizens in the UK. It has, lamentably, failed to do so. No wonder EU citizens are leaving the United Kingdom when the UK Government has failed to take the actions needed to make them feel valued and welcome.

Here in Wales we celebrate the contribution that EU citizens bring to the Welsh economy and society, and the fact that many EU citizens have chosen to build their lives here in Wales. And, Llywydd, because that immigration directly affects many of our devolved responsibilities, the staffing of our health service and our universities and the success of our economy is why we have published our paper. The analysis and evidence in our document clearly shows the importance of EU citizens to the Welsh workforce. Here in Wales 7 per cent of NHS doctors, 5 per cent of tourism industry workers, 27 per cent of workers in food and drink manufacturing and 7 per cent of our university staff are all from the European Union. That is why our priority is for a UK immigration system that supports our ambition for full and unfettered participation in the single market—a market of 500 million people, free of tariff and non-tariff barriers, which is of such vital importance to businesses and jobs across Wales. Achieving that ambition will only be possible if our future migration system is flexible enough to allow people to move, for the purposes of employment, between the UK and the EU. That, above all, is the reason why we believe that our future special relationship with Europe should include a differentiated and preferential approach to immigration for European Economic Area and Swiss nationals, while preserving the common travel area with the Republic of Ireland and the rest of the British isles. And we welcome the commitments from the UK Government and the European Union that the common travel area should be preserved.

Llywydd, let me absolutely clear: we do not believe that a system based on arbitrary net migration targets is in Wales’s interests, nor is it in the interests of the rest of the UK. Such an approach leads to the absurdity of counting students within the net migration target, based on what we now know is a grossly overstated estimate for the number of students overstaying their visas. We have consistently said that we do not agree with this policy, and our fair movement of people document sets out both the evidence and the analysis that lead us to oppose a restrictive numbers-and-sectors approach to immigration from the EU and the rest of the EEA. But if the UK Government does choose such a path, the Welsh Government will press, as we’ve set out in our document, for a full and fair Welsh migration quota where we could determine our priorities for migration to Wales. Our evidence shows that the sectors in Wales that depend on migrant workers are different from those in the rest of the UK. There is a strong risk that our migration needs would not be addressed when pitted, for example, against demand in the south-east of England.

Now, Llywydd, of course we realise that many people in Wales at the time of the referendum were concerned about some aspects of immigration and what this might mean for their communities, for their employment prospects and for wages and working conditions. We believe that connecting migration more closely to employment will help to alleviate those concerns and create a climate in which the facts can get a hearing, because, Llywydd, those facts and the evidence we set out clearly demonstrate that the overall effect of migration here in Wales is a positive one. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, for example, reports that migration creates a net benefit to public finances. The Department for Work and Pensions’s own data shows that in Wales 4 per cent of working-age EU migrants claim working-age benefits, compared to 17 per cent of UK-born nationals.

And, Llywydd, it is also a fact that eight years into the flawed and failing policies of austerity far too many Welsh citizens have had the collective protections of the state withdrawn from them through cuts to legal aid, attacks on trade unions and draconian policing of an ever-reducing benefit system. Little wonder that those whose daily circumstances are so precarious add exploitation in the workplace to their fears about the future. Our paper addresses this issue head on, while also challenging the dangerous perception that somehow immigration is responsible. Exploitation is caused by unscrupulous employment practices, not by immigration, but migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to the instruments of exploitation—tied accommodation, tied transport, false self-employment and so on—which then gives rise to the risk of exploitation of others. The evidence we set out demonstrates that, since 2010, the UK Government simply hasn’t done enough to enforce the laws that are meant to protect workers from exploitation. They have the responsibility to ensure that all workers are aware of their rights, and have access to support from trade unions, so that those workers are better able to identify exploitation and take action when it happens to them, without fear of repercussions.

And there is more that we as a Welsh Government can do to build further on our ethical procurement policies, on making the Welsh Government itself and the Welsh NHS living wage employers and in the passing of our Trade Union (Wales) Act 2017. We will continue to find ways, working with trade union partners and others, to identify and tackle worker exploitation and create greater compliance amongst employers in Wales.

Thus, Llywydd, we are proposing a fair and realistic system for migration between the European Union and the United Kingdom. This is not only right for Wales, but, we believe, right for the UK. And crucially, this is a constructive basis for the UK’s negotiation with the EU-27. We hope, of course, that the UK Government will give serious consideration to our proposals, and I look forward to hearing the views of Assembly Members this afternoon.