3. Will the Minister make a statement on the external advisory panel on EU withdrawal? OAQ(5)0031(FLG)

I thank the Member for that question. The First Minister has established a European advisory group, which will draw together expertise from civic and political society in Wales. It will provide advice on the wide-ranging impacts of Wales’s exit from the European Union and how best they might be addressed.

I thank the Cabinet Secretary for his answer. Presumably, as this is an advisory panel that has been called by the Welsh Government itself, the panel, in its inaugural meeting, will be furnished with position papers from the Welsh Government on elements of EU withdrawal and the view of Welsh Government on many of the matters that accompany the process of withdrawal from the European Union. Can he confirm that that is indeed the case, and would he be prepared to outline the contents of some of these Welsh Government position papers on EU withdrawal?

There will, of course, be an agenda set for the first meeting of that advisory panel, but I think it’s important to say that the purpose of the advisory panel is for the panel to advise Welsh Government, rather than for the Welsh Government to advise the panel.

Obviously, the Welsh Government has taken various steps to reorganise itself in light of the Brexit vote on 23 June. There is this external advisory group. I believe that you yourself, Minister, are chairing a Cabinet sub-committee on the EU discussions, or there is a role that you are doing within Government via the sub-committee. Could you tell us how the advice that might be received from the external advisory board will be taken forward by the Welsh Government, given that you’ve set out very clear principles in June of this year, albeit we’ve seen some of those principles become a little more flexible as the summer’s progressed? But, there were six key principles that the First Minister put on the table. So, it would be interesting to know how those principles will be either adapted, modified or upheld pending the advice from the advisory board.

I thank Andrew Davies for that question. I am a member of the Cabinet sub-committee, but it is chaired by the First Minister. The First Minister will attend the inaugural meeting of the advisory panel but I will chair it thereafter, so it will be my responsibility to make sure that the advice that the panel provides is communicated directly to the Cabinet sub-committee. In the way that Steffan Lewis asked, the advisory group will be informed of the Government’s position—the six points and the way that debate has evolved over the summer. They will provide their advice against that backdrop, but it will be an iterative process in which the key thing about the panel will be that we in Government will have access to some of the most expert and informed advice that we can get, in order to make sure that our influence in discussions within the UK is maximised, and that we can make sure that Welsh interests are always at the forefront of those discussions.

I’m sure the Minister will agree with me that, if this advisory panel is to be stuffed full of faint-hearted Remainers, it will be of very limited use. Therefore, there ought to be a role for Brexiteers such as myself and Andrew R.T. Davies, for example, who have a more optimistic view of the future than some of those that I’ve just mentioned. Although we might engage in what I might call constructive confrontation in this Assembly, in a body such as this panel we could actually engage in some constructive engagement. Having been a member of the EU Council of Ministers, in my case—as indeed Huw Irranca-Davies probably was—there are Members in this house who could play a very constructive role on this panel.

I hear what the Member has to say; I’ll make sure the First Minister knows of his views, because it is the First Minister who is responsible for inviting people to be members of the panel. It will be full of people of genuine expertise with robust views of their own. It’s their expertise that brings them to the panel rather than any prior views on whether the United Kingdom should be part of the European Union, and I look forward to a very vigorous set of discussions there.

Nathan Gill.

I pass on this.