I agree with the First Minister, and wish him, Ken Skates and his officials well in pushing that position. The UK Government, I believe, has three very serious legal risks if it seeks to continue tolling without our agreement, and any one of those could be fatal to any plan that it has. First, the Severn Bridges Act 1992 says that tolls should cease after a further fixed sum is raised, and that would be likely to happen by around the end of next year. Second, we have, under Schedule 5 to the Government of Wales Act 2006, it lists the devolved matters including matter 10.1,

‘the making, operation and enforcement of schemes for imposing charges in respect of the use…of…Welsh trunk roads’.

And it’s that, I believe, that’s led the UK Government to propose continued tolling only on the English half of the Severn bridge, because that supersedes their being the charging authority. And they would need to enforce that toll, potentially, at a plaza in Wales, which I submit runs counter to the Government of Wales Act. And thirdly, they have a further problem that the Transport Act 2000, which they’re now planning to use, says that,

‘A trunk road charging scheme may only be made in respect of a road if…the road is carried by a bridge, or passes through a tunnel’.

It doesn’t provide for them charging for part of a road carried by a bridge, and the use of the phrase ‘passes through a tunnel’ implies, by analogy, going from one side of the river to the other. So, for all those reasons, can the First Minister consider what more he or his Government might do to emphasise to the UK Government, at the very least, the legal risks they run if they do seek to impose charges in future without our agreement?