We move on to item 4, which, again, is a statement by the First Minister—the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. I call on Carwyn Jones to introduce the statement.

Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. I would like to update Members on matters relating to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and in particular, the set of amendments that the Welsh Government and Scottish Government jointly published this morning.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

Members will be aware of our legislative consent memorandum that was published last week. That memorandum sets out in detail those aspects of the Bill that require the Assembly’s consent, and describes very clearly why we don’t accept the Bill in its current form. I don’t propose to rehearse those arguments in detail again. Rather, I’d like to focus on the constructive solution, which the amendments published represent, a solution to a problem entirely of the UK Government’s own making, and one which could have been avoided had there been any genuine attempt to engage with the devolved administrations on the content of this Bill. We don’t bite. It would have been much easier for us to have had this discussion some time ago.

Let me first be very clear about our overall approach to the matters that the Bill seeks to address. To make the first and obvious point, bringing forward these amendments is not about challenging the principle of Brexit. They don’t challenge the referendum result, but we must have a Brexit that respects devolution and these amendments are designed to secure that. We’ve always recognised the need to prepare our laws for EU withdrawal, and agree that legislation is necessary to provide clarity and certainty for citizens and businesses as we leave the EU.

We agree that it makes sense for EU law to be converted into the various laws of the UK at the moment of withdrawal, and that the legislation to enable this to happen is best enacted for the whole of the UK in the Westminster Parliament. And we agree that Ministers need delegated powers to make the very many technical amendments that will be necessary to ensure that the law continues to work properly. We’ve always accepted there will be areas of policy that will require agreement across all four Governments to ensure that, when we’re outside the EU, we do nothing to inhibit the free flow of trade within the UK. And we explained how this matter should be approached in our policy document, ‘Brexit and Devolution’, which presents a clear and workable approach, which both respects devolution and answers the questions of how to ensure a level playing field across the UK in respect of policies where, to date, EU regulatory frameworks have provided this.

But, the Bill as it currently stands simply isn’t fit for purpose. It wouldn’t secure the transfer of all EU law onto the UK statute book: the exclusion of the charter of fundamental rights is a glaring and politically driven omission. It would give UK Ministers extraordinarily sweeping powers to amend primary legislation, and it represents a fundamental assault on devolution. It would replace current constraints on this Assembly’s legislative competence, which will fall away as a consequence of the UK leaving the EU, constraints that, it should be noted, apply equally to the UK Parliament, which no more than we can legislate in ways that are incompatible with EU law, with a new set of constraints that would apply only to the devolved institutions and would be controlled by the UK Government.

So, we’ve worked with the Scottish Government to develop a set of amendments that will seek to address the Bill’s shortcomings as they relate to devolution. I’ll describe briefly what these amendments seek to achieve, but before I do so I need to say yet again that this is not about seeking in any way to frustrate or reverse the process of EU withdrawal. To those who continue to peddle this canard, I simply extend an invitation to identify which of our amendments would, if accepted, have such an effect.

Llywydd, the amendments we’ve published seek to achieve four objectives. Firstly, they remove the new restriction placed on the competence of the devolved legislatures and Governments that puts beyond our powers all of the retained EU law being converted into domestic law. This is a wholly unnecessary provision that cuts across the principles of the devolution settlement. As I’ve already highlighted, the Welsh Government has put forward a constructive alternative to this restriction, with the UK and devolved administrations agreeing common frameworks where needed in the interests of the UK as a whole. Had they chosen to engage with us on this, the already infamous clause 11 might not have been necessary.

Secondly, the amendments prevent the wide-ranging delegated powers given to UK Ministers from being used to amend the Government of Wales Act 2006 or the Scotland Act 1998, or require the devolved administration’s consent to do so. It can’t be right that Acts of such constitutional significance should be amendable by UK Ministers without the agreement either of the devolved legislatures, nor indeed the UK Parliament itself, under the existing well-established rules and conventions.

Thirdly, they require UK Ministers to seek the consent of the devolved administrations if they use their delegated powers in areas of devolved responsibility. We recognise that there may be circumstances where, for practical reasons, it makes sense for UK Ministers to use their powers in this way, but we cannot accept that they should be able to do so without our consent.

Finally, the amendments remove restrictions on the delegated powers granted to devolved administrations so that they’re brought in line with those granted to UK Ministers. There is no basis for placing limitations on the powers of devolved administrations that do not also apply to UK Ministers. Let me be clear, however: this doesn’t mean that we want the sweeping powers contained in the Bill as currently drafted. Like many others, we’ve got concerns about the breadth of the powers and the limited scrutiny of their use that the Bill provides for, and will willingly give our support to amendments brought forward in Parliament to ensure that the powers given to the UK Government and ourselves as Ministers are appropriate.

Llywydd, yesterday I spoke at an event arranged by the Institute of Welsh Affairs to mark the twentieth anniversary of the devolution referendum. There’s a bitter irony in the fact that I stand here today making a statement on a UK Bill that represents the greatest threat, I’d argue, to our devolution settlement since the day that referendum was won. I very much hope, then, that the UK Government will think again about its approach to the devolution aspects of this Bill.

I hope that they, and all Members here, will recognise that these amendments represent a constructive contribution that would deliver the clarity and certainty that we all agree is necessary, whilst respecting the hard-won devolution settlements of the UK. It’s not about stopping Brexit; it’s about protecting the interests of the people of Wales. We are ready and willing to work constructively with the UK Government to reach agreement on the Bill, but if they continue to plough on regardless, they’ll spark a constitutional crisis that they don’t need and we do not want.

As I said in the debate on the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill here on 18 July, the Bill is needed to ensure that the statute book is able to function on the day we leave the EU. It’s technical in nature, making inoperable legislation operable, giving both UK and devolved Governments a time-limited power to correct laws by secondary legislation that would otherwise not function properly once we left the EU, thereby ensuring that Welsh businesses, including farmers and steel producers, can continue to trade with the EU immediately after the UK leaves the EU. I therefore very much welcome your agreement that it makes sense for EU law to be converted into UK law on this basis and that legislation to enable this to happen is best enacted for the whole of the UK in the Westminster Parliament. We also, like you, have always accepted that there will be areas of policy that will require agreement across all four Governments to ensure that outside the EU we do nothing to inhibit the free flow of trade within the United Kingdom.

But then you move on to say, however, that the Bill

‘represents a fundamental assault on devolution’, which very much reflects the comments you made on the day the Bill was published, when you described it as a, quote, ‘naked power-grab’. Why did you say that at that point, given that the next day you stated that the Welsh Secretary had assured you that you and he would work together to make the situation acceptable, and that assurance had actually already been given to you before you’d issued your ‘naked power-grab’ statement?

You state that a constructive alternative would be for the UK and devolved administrations to agree common frameworks where needed in the interests of the UK as a whole and, of course, we agree with you very strongly on that point. Clause 11, you’ve referred to, will freeze the Assembly’s current powers to pass laws after exit day, but the Bill also provides a mechanism for unfreezing or releasing these powers to the devolved legislatures at a later stage through Orders in Council. However, it doesn’t—[Interruption.] That’s a statement of fact; I’m simply giving a statement of fact. However, as I’m sure you will also agree, it doesn’t include what has become to be called—[Interruption.] That’s what it says. It doesn’t include what has become known as the ‘sunset clause’, and that’s something we also regret because we believe that we do need agreed, UK-wide frameworks that respect the devolved settlements in devolved areas such as agriculture, fisheries and environment, and also potential areas of dispute, such as areas of competence over trade, employment and, of course, areas such as state aid. Therefore, I proposed in July that we could look at a model that stated the restriction on devolved competency could end when common agreed frameworks came into force. What is the First Minister’s view on that as a model, given both his concern about the absence of, quote, ‘a sunset clause’, but also the risk that this could lead to imposition rather than agreement of the frameworks that we all apparently seek?

As I stated at the end of the July debate, let us responsibly go through the Bill, identify the amendments we can all agree upon—and clearly there are some—and engage with the UK Government and Parliament to introduce them at the Second Reading. My party’s heard nothing from you since then, First Minister. Could you tell me why we haven’t engaged together where there is some common ground and perhaps useful joint working might have helped take things forward?

I’m also advised by the Welsh Office that the issues I’ve raised with them, which reflect the comments I’ve already made and reflect key topics raised by the devolved administrations and key stakeholders in Wales, will certainly be fed into the next stages of the Bill, but they also told me there’s been a significant amount of engagement with officials in the Welsh Government and UK Government over the summer. Could you give us a little bit more detail on that engagement and the extent to which it is related to the concerns you’ve highlighted and the movement that apparently has existed between the two sets of officials, to seek a way forward on this? Thank you.

A number of issues there. Can I thank the Member for putting forward a view that is different to the view that we’ve heard from his party in Westminster? The Scottish Conservatives said the same thing, actually, in their debate, and I think that is an important development in terms of the way this is seen in this Chamber. The key principle here is that we believe that the way forward is through agreement not by imposition. That’s it; that’s the fundamental principle. The destination may well be the same, but there’s a fundamental disagreement here as to how that should be arrived at.

It is true to say that it has been said that the powers that will not come here and be taken to Whitehall will only rest there temporarily, but there is no sunset clause, as he said. I have no faith that those powers won’t rest there permanently. For me, at this moment in time, to introduce an LCM to this Chamber and ask this Chamber to support it would mean that I would have to stand up and ask Members to support a motion that would prevent powers coming here from Brussels that would automatically come to rest here, and accept that, instead, we should allow those powers to go to Whitehall and stay there indefinitely. No First Minister, surely, could possibly accept a situation like that. The UK Government would never accept that themselves, so why on earth would they expect that of us?

He talks about the need for common frameworks; we are agreed on that. We’re also agreed on the need for nothing to change until common frameworks are agreed. I’m with him on that, but the way it’s being done is that basically the UK Government dictates when it thinks a common framework should be produced and what it should look like. That’s the problem. If there are going to be restrictions, let there be restrictions on UK Ministers as well—not just on devolved Ministers. It surely must be one rule for everybody or no rules, and in that sense there would need to be an agreement for nothing to change until there was an agreement for a common framework on, let’s say, agriculture or fisheries in the future. That is the problem here. The Bill, as it’s drafted, intercepts powers on their way to Wales and drags them off to Whitehall for an unlimited period of time. That’s the problem on the face of the Bill, and that’s why the Bill needs to change in order to provide the kind of comfort that we need and the people of Wales need.

Why is that important? Because the UK Government has a conflict of interest in so many areas. If we take agriculture and fisheries, the UK Government has for many years been, in effect, the English Government, if I can put it that way. It’s been in charge of English agriculture, English fisheries. How does it resolve that conflict of interest? For years, we have had a dispute over quota when it comes to a certain section of our fisheries, where it is argued by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs that they should have a larger slice of the quota and that we should give them part of that slice. Who resolves that now? They do, in their own favour. How on earth do you resolve that conflict? We have to have a way of being sure that we will not see a situation where—I put it bluntly, but it’s the only way I can express it—England can do what it wants and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland can’t. That’s the problem that we face here, that conflict of interest.

Yes, officials have engaged with the Wales Office. And there’s no problem, no reason why we shouldn’t engage with them, but what influence does the Wales Office have, I have to say. We need to be talking to the Prime Minister on this. This is a serious issue that goes to the very heart of the UK and its future that is resolvable, and resolvable, to my mind, fairly easily. But is the Wales Office a lobbying organisation or is it able to take decisions itself? I suspect it’s not the latter, unfortunately.

Mark Isherwood rose—

Yes.

I actually—

This—

It’s a statement, isn’t it?

This is a statement. It’s not intervenable.

[Interruption.] Discuss. Discuss. So, it’s hugely important that we have that level of engagement from the UK Government. We have not yet had a Joint Ministerial Committee plenary. It’s right to say that other JMCs are planned, but, on this most important issue, nothing—no agreement to a meeting, even. Now that, clearly, is not helpful as far as the future is concerned, particularly as we look to develop structures that will enable us to agree common ways forward in the future. On a side issue, but just to give Members a flavour of the difficulties we’re facing at the moment, ourselves and the Scottish Government have argued that there is a dispute that needs to be resolved between us and the UK Government over the financial settlement to Northern Ireland. We argue that it drives a coach and horses, we think, quite reasonably, in terms of the argument, through the Barnett formula, in providing extra money, extra revenue funding, for health and education for Northern Ireland outside of that formula. We argue there’s a dispute. The UK Government does not accept there is a dispute, and so the dispute resolution process, they argue, can’t even be triggered. So, if we have a dispute with the UK Government and they disagree there’s a dispute at all, they win every single time. Now that can’t possibly be right. That’s why we need to put in place a structure that’s more robust, a structure that recognises the fact that there are four nations within the UK. We need to see more engagement from the UK Government to make sure that we are able to protect the interests of Wales. The offer is made by the Member for there to be cross-party engagement. I have no difficulty in working in that way with him. I’ve seen that that’s happened in Scotland. I see no reason why we shouldn’t move ahead with this in Wales. There will be disagreements—of course there will—over certain aspects, but, when it comes to the fundamental rights of this institution, elected by the people of Wales, I believe that there really should be common ground between us, and that is that powers should rest where they’re meant to rest, and that means those powers coming back to Wales without the need for interception from Whitehall.

Today’s statement represents another important update on the EU withdrawal Bill and the Welsh response. We, in Plaid Cymru, have had a consistent position since the EU referendum was announced that the Welsh national interest must be defended. That means an ‘all hands on deck’ approach from those committed to protecting the powers of this Assembly and this country, and I say that regardless of disagreements between our parties on what specific action must be taken.

In January this year, I urged the Welsh Government to work with the Scottish Government on a joint approach, in line with our common interests, and I’m glad to see that the development of joint amendments has taken place, fulfilling what Plaid Cymru has called for. We, of course, intend to support those amendments at the appropriate stage. Plaid Cymru will also be tabling our own amendments throughout the passage of the EU withdrawal Bill at Westminster, and I can assure this Chamber that our MPs, and Dafydd Wigley in the second Chamber, will use every opportunity that they have to push amendments that prevent a future Westminster power grab. We’re also tabling amendments that aim to protect our membership of the single market and customs union, and which aim to prevent deregulation and a race to the bottom when the UK leaves the various EU regulatory agencies.

I’ll repeat something that I’ve said in this Chamber in the past. The EU withdrawal Bill and the attempts to improve it will be highly technical, and we wouldn’t expect it to be the talk of the pub or the workplace, but, 20 years since the first ‘yes’ vote, there is one thing that people do understand and that they are talking about. They know that there have been two votes to confirm the powers of this Assembly, and citizens of Wales don’t support those powers being constrained or reduced. So, I’d like to ask the First Minister if he’s given any thought to that LCM process in the Assembly and exactly how it’ll work. Would he agree that the UK Government should make a commitment to accept the outcome of an LCM in this place, as well as in any other parliament? There is, of course, a precedent from the LCM on the Wales Bill, which the UK Government committed to recognising. I wonder if he will outline what steps can be taken if a vote to deny consent is ignored by the UK Government.

First of all, we’ve been working with the Scottish Government now for many months, and that work has resulted in the amendments we’ve seen today. Also, of course, we’ve talked to Governments such as Gibraltar, who are in a slightly different position in the sense that they are in the EU but outside of the customs union, but, nevertheless, very concerned about Brexit and what it might mean for them. The Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey—we’ll see them at the British-Irish Council. Again, they’re in a position where they’re outside the EU but inside the customs union, and they will be taken out of the customs union without their consent if the UK does choose to leave the customs union. We argue, of course, as she does, that that is not actually necessary.

In terms of the LCM process, David Davis has said that he wants the consent of the devolved legislatures. That consent cannot be on the basis that it can only be consent the UK Government agrees with. It must be a fully informed consent, and they must accept that, if this Assembly does not consent, they will have to accept that. What we’ve offered, of course, is a way to try to avoid that—to talk and to get to a position where the obstacles that prevent us from giving consent from a devolution angle are removed, and so the LCM becomes more palatable to Members than it is now. So far, those discussions haven’t taken place and there have been—well, they have taken place, but no progress has occurred as a result.

If this Assembly decides to refuse consent, well, the UK Government could override it. That creates a severe constitutional crisis in my view. How can it be possible to respect devolution on the one hand, and to say to us, ‘Well, we want your consent, but, if you don’t give it, we’ll ignore you anyway’? There are many in the House of Commons in all parties who will take a view on that; I’m sure the Scottish Conservatives will take a view on that. And I’m sure there’ll be many in the Lords who will view with grave concern the idea that constitutional change should be—no, not constitutional change, but the removal of powers from Wales and Scotland should go ahead despite the opposition of the democratic parliaments of Wales and Scotland. So, there is much here that can lead to a crisis. It’s a crisis that I’m particularly keen to avoid. It’s a crisis that can be avoided. I don’t think that the current UK Government strategy, it seems to me, of fighting as many people on as many fronts as possible, is the sensible way of dealing with Brexit. We have offered a way of looking at these issues, coming to an agreement on the journey and the destination, which I believe can be done, whilst protecting, of course, the devolution settlement. That is an important principle as far as I am concerned, as far as she is concerned, and, I’m sure, all Members are concerned. Brexit’s going to happen; we know that. But it was never intended, surely, that Brexit would interfere with the natural movement of powers between Brussels and Wales, and that’s exactly what we are trying to avoid while, at the same time, of course, creating the certainty that we understand that businesses and citizens need.

I’m broadly in sympathy with what the First Minister wants to see achieved at the end of the day, but I do think that this is making a mountain out of a molehill. I find it quite extraordinary that the leader of Plaid Cymru should be talking about the powers of this Assembly being constrained or reduced. The powers that we are talking about here we don’t currently enjoy, and there was no complaint whatsoever from Plaid Cymru or most of the Labour Party, the SNP, and certainly not the Liberals, when powers that used to reside in the popularly elected United Kingdom Parliament were sent to Brussels to be decided upon by unelected commissioners, over whose power there is very little democratic control at all. So, what Brexit for me is all about, and has always been about, is actually the recovery of democratic control over technocratic decisions that are taken by people whom you very often can’t even name, let alone elect or dismiss.

So, we should embrace this as a reinvigoration of parliaments, this one included. And, yes, I strongly agree with the First Minister that all the powers that currently reside within our devolved areas, but currently reside in Brussels, should come to the Welsh Government and to this Assembly. I’ve said that many times here, and he’ll have my strong support for ensuring that that does happen. But there is, of course, in other parties, explicitly Plaid Cymru and the Liberals, and, indeed, the SNP as well, a policy of wanting to reverse the entire Brexit process. And to create a new weapon whereby this could be frustrated, despite the outcome of the referendum in June last year, is, for me, completely unacceptable. Although I don’t think that Theresa May has handled relations with the devolved administrations in a very sensible way, and I agree with the First Minister that there has been too much of a dictatorial attitude and not enough attempt to engage and persuade, I don’t think that it’s worth paying the price that we might have to pay if we were to engage in a kind of trench warfare in Parliament over the process by means of which we recover powers that currently we don’t have. So, I don’t see this is in any way an assault upon the devolution process.

In the statement, the First Minister referred to the exclusion of the charter of fundamental rights. I well remember, in the year 2000, when this was being discussed, the Blair Government at the time said that it would veto any attempt to legislate for that, and Keith Vaz, of course, very famously said it had no more legal power than a copy of the ‘Beano’. And yet, now, this is being elevated to something of supreme importance. And, yes, I understand why Members say that things like employment rights are vitally important, but, at the end of the day, if we believe in democracy, we have to accept that parliaments ought to have the right to do things that we don’t like. We may not think they’re very sensible to do so, but, ultimately, the test is: can you get the people at the ballot box to support you in your policies? It’s not, I think, for judges or civil servants, or, indeed, corpuses of law, to remove from the people their power to decide what legislative changes should or should not take place, and I believe that the attempt, described by the leader of Plaid Cymru a moment ago, to try to mark out areas of law that can never be changed, because they become fundamental, is quite contrary to the entire democratic process. So, I’d say to the First Minister that, yes, I do sympathise with him in what he has said. I think he’s quite right, actually, on the objective, but I am very wary about the means whereby he seeks to obtain that objective, and so we will look very carefully at these amendments before we decide whether we’ll support them or not.

Well, I cannot surely be blamed for the UK joining the European Community in 1972, given that I was five years old, in the same way as I was asked which way I’d voted in the 1979 referendum. Clearly, I need to look a little younger, because I was only 12. Nevertheless, we have to remember that the UK joined the EEC because it was desperate to do so. But that is perhaps for another day.

This is not about reversing Brexit. I’ve said that many, many times. Surely, it is not a case of ‘Brexit has to occur only on the terms put forward by the UK Government’. Because that is what they are saying: ‘Our Brexit or tough luck’. Now, that is not a sensible way of dealing with issues when it comes to devolution. The UK is not what it was in 1972. It’s not a unitary state with one Government. It is a partnership of four nations where there are different responsibilities allocated to different Governments according to whether they’re devolved or non-devolved.

I come back to the point I made earlier on, just to remind the leader of UKIP. What I am being asked to do here as First Minister, if the UK Government has its way, is to stand up before the Assembly and say to the Assembly that powers that would automatically come to the Assembly should instead go to London for an unlimited period of time and that we as an Assembly should support it. I mean, surely, nobody would want to support a scenario—well, some might, but nobody here would want to support a scenario like that, where powers that would come to us are intercepted. Yes, they’re not powers we exercise at the moment, but they will be if they come naturally to rest here. What difference does it make—he complains about Brussels—if they then go and disappear into the Whitehall machinery, and then we find ourselves in a situation where we find it difficult to shape agriculture, to shape economic development, to shape our fisheries policy in a way that we would want? Of course it can’t be a free for all. I understand that. We’ve got to make sure that there’s a single market within the UK, and that we don’t not have any control at all over how subsidies are paid. We can’t win that battle. England is very big. We can’t win that battle. So, there have to be rules. We understand that. But this should be done by consent and not by imposition. That’s the key.

This Bill—the offending clauses of this Bill that deal with devolution can be removed. That removes an obstacle, as far as devolution is concerned, in terms of this Bill moving forward. There are other issues that will be debated in Parliament, I’m sure, and within this Chamber. There is no penalty to the UK Government for this. It doesn’t cost them anything. There’s no downside to it at all. All they have to do is to work with us to come to an acceptable agreement, and it removes a problem for them. I just cannot understand the strategic sense in saying, ‘Let’s fight a battle with everybody we can’, rather than saying, ‘Let’s focus on the issues. This is a problem for Wales and Scotland. It’s not really a problem for us. Let’s come to an agreement on it and that matter is dealt with’. So far there’s been no suggestion that they’ve been able to do that, but it is something that we want to see in the future, and that’s the fundamental issue here. In some ways it’s not about Brexit. It’s actually about powers resting where they’re meant to rest, and the principle of consent when it comes to creating common frameworks in devolved areas rather than the imposition that this Bill, on the face of it—. I hear what’s said by UK Ministers, but what’s on the face of the Bill is quite different. What the Bill would do would be to deprive the people of Wales of powers that they are entitled to for an indefinite period of time, and in no way could I suggest to the Assembly that the Assembly should vote in favour of that.

Could I just begin by welcoming the, I believe, genuinely constructive way in which the First Minister has laid out the amendments he’s put forward, and the way in which he’s willing to work with the UK Government not to thwart the voice that was clear within the referendum, nor to thwart the EU withdrawal Bill, but to make it fit legally and constitutionally as well?

The First Minister may be aware that yesterday a large group of cross-party Assembly Members constituting our two committees—the committee of David Rees, the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee, and my Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee—sat for many hours with over 60 eminent authorities, both from a UK perspective and a Welsh perspective, looking at the legal and constitutional issues. It will probably come as no surprise to find that the shape of the amendments put forward by the First Minister reflect and respond to many of the concerns that were picked up by those people, and these included people from the Hansard Society and the Institute for Government in Westminster as well as Welsh authorities. There was no voice of dissent that there are genuine threats. To respond to Neil’s point, they recognise that this is indeed a mountain, not a molehill. It’s not technical issues that we are dancing over, but fundamental constitutional issues that should concern—and I think do concern, with some thought—all of us here within the Assembly.

So, the question I’d like to ask the First Minister in the amendments that he has put forward—. By the way, before I ask that question, it was interesting to note that, at one point, with no dissent, it was put forward by one participant yesterday that there would have been a different way to do this Bill, which would have been to actually shape it in a way recognising that there was no legal impediment to a very different EU withdrawal Bill—one that gave to Wales fully and clearly that which, on withdrawal from the EU, lies within our existing competence. It was seen that there was no legal impediment to doing a very different Bill. But let’s put that to one side. What it’d like to ask the First Minister is: does he feel, having said already that he cannot recommend an affirmative response to an LCM on the Bill as it currently is—does he regard it as essential that all of the amendments that he has put forward must be accepted, or brought forward in some shape by the Government, satisfactorily, all of them, in order to make, in the First Minister’s opinion, this EU withdrawal Bill fit for purpose? Secondly, does he also think that those additional mechanisms, both to resolve disputes in future and to seek agreement in future, are also essential as part of saying yes to this EU withdrawal Bill.

First of all, we’ve tabled all the amendments with the objective of having them all accepted. We believe that they deal with the issues that affect devolution particularly and they would remove the obstacles with regard to devolution that the Bill currently represents.

He asked the question: is support for the LCM dependent on a mechanism? At this moment in time, I would say ‘no’. I think the acceptance of the amendments might represent sufficient progress, but there’s no doubt that the adoption of a mechanism is now imminent. It’s needed. If the principle is accepted that it is a matter for the Governments to agree a common way forward, then it also must be the case that it’s accepted that a mechanism must be created in order for that to happen, and that means creating a UK council of Ministers.

The difficulty, I believe, is that there are many in Government at present in London who take the view that that would put the UK Government on a level of parity that they don’t want to see. They do not see themselves as being on a par with the devolved Governments, even in devolved areas, and find that difficult to accept. But, we live in times where we need new solutions and new approaches.

The reality is, when it comes to devolved areas, we are equal governments in reality. We would never accept the scenario where the UK Government, even though legally they can do it, would have some kind of right to interfere or change Welsh law and Welsh policy. That’s not the job of the UK Government in devolved areas and the Welsh people have decided on two occasions that that’s not their role either.

But I think the establishment of a mechanism is a natural corollary of an acceptance of the amendments. And this can be done quickly. The structure is there already. It wouldn’t take long to change the JMC into a proper council of Ministers. All of this could be done pretty easily before the UK finally leaves the EU, whatever date that might be.

The first job of the council of Ministers would be to agree what to freeze, jointly; there’s sense in that if you look at farming and fisheries. The second job would be to look at how to develop a system of state aid rules within the UK that affect the UK and an independent adjudicator to police those rules. That, I’d argue, is pretty easy: you say it’s the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court acts as the adjudicator of the single market, as the ECJ does in the European single market, as the US Supreme Court does with inter-state commerce in the US. That’s not difficult to do.

The question of state aid rules is more difficult. There are different views on whether there should be any at all among some of the administrations—or one of the previous administrations, anyway—within the UK. But that’s the forum where these things should be decided. I accept the amendments, but to my mind it leads on naturally to a much better way of working together to develop common frameworks within the UK and to produce that certainty that we accept that businesses want.

May I thank the First Minister for his attempt to explain to this Assembly and to the people of Wales what the UK Government have been endeavouring to do? But could he just assist me a little further? Can he tell this Assembly how soon was he given notice of the intention of the UK Government to legislate in this particular way? Because what bugs me—as we say in Llanrwst—is why the legislation of devolution is placed in European legislation, rather than being dealt with as devolved legislation. After all of the time that we wasted on the Wales Act, as it is now, in endeavouring to develop a new structure of powers, then all of that is pulled from under us—the devolved map—because of the UK’s modus operandi in legislating here. Now, I believe that they failed to draft this properly, and that is the fundamental weakness here.

Well, the sensible way of doing this would have been to talk to us early on in the process, before drafting the Bill itself, to see whether we could have any kind of agreement about the way forward. But that wasn’t the way it happened. We did receive some parts of the Bill a few weeks ahead of time—not everything, but some clauses, ahead of time—but not enough to have any kind of idea or sense of what the full picture was. So, that wasn’t helpful. And, of course, we said at the time, ‘Well, the Bill as it’s currently drafted isn’t something that we can agree to.’ But, even though they knew that, and they knew what our stance was as a Government, they went ahead with publishing the Bill itself. It’s a shame that this hasn’t been done in a way where we’ve worked in partnership. I don’t know whether they were afraid of what was going to happen in Scotland or what Northern Ireland would do, but now we’re in a situation where the opportunity has been missed—not entirely, because there is still an opportunity to act. But it’s important now that the opportunity is taken by the UK Government so that we can work on what we can agree on, and I’m sure that there is much that we can agree on about the structure of the United Kingdom, ultimately, and the way that the decisions are made and the devolved areas. Now, the proposal is still there. We’ll see what the response will be.

Would the First Minister concur with many, including the stakeholders highlighted by my colleague Huw Irranca, that an unamended European withdrawal Bill would be an unequivocal and fundamental assault on devolution, and further, that UK Ministers, post devolution, could enact, and therefore fundamentally destabilise hard-won democratic devolution of 20 years, and, like Neil Hamilton, understand that this Bill is therefore of very great constitutional significance to Wales, and therefore the Welsh people?

It is. I mean, from the UK Government perspective, this is seen as a minor issue. From our perspective it’s a very major issue. As I say, there’s no—. An agreement on their part doesn’t cost them anything at all; there’s no penalty. But there’s an enormous penalty as far as Wales is concerned.

Part of the difficulty here lies in the fact that there’s a difficulty on the part of the UK Government at the moment in understanding how important this issue is to us and Scotland. I don’t think they get it, but, certainly, we get it, and the people of Wales get it. That is the fundamental principle that powers should come to rest in those places that are appropriate when it comes to devolved areas: in the devolved institutions. From our perspective, it cannot be right that UK Ministers can interfere with or change Welsh law passed by this Assembly, potentially, without reference to this Assembly, nor, indeed, to the UK Parliament. I well remember some of the arguments that were being rehearsed during the referendum to bring powers back to—they said ‘parliament’ as if it was one: ‘to Parliament’. Then, of course, the first thing that happens as part of the repeal Bill is that Parliament doesn’t get those powers; it just sits in the hands of the Government. There are issues for us as a Welsh Government, because as powers return to us, it’s hugely important that those powers return, as far as they possibly can do, to this institution, and not to Government, as the elected institution. The Government’s powers necessarily need to be as limited as they can be, given the fact that the institution here, of course, is elected. But the opposite approach has been taken by the UK Government, where it went to court to fight on this point. But the powers should rest with the executive and not with the legislature. That, surely, must be wrong in principle as well.

One of the themes that has arisen today from so many speakers is that there were many better ways of doing this than the way that has been produced currently by the UK Government. It’s fair to say, I think, that there are many on the Conservative benches who recognise that. I can understand that there’s a time and a place for saying things; I understand that. This is an issue that can be resolved, but we need the UK Government to get engaged, and that does mean the Prime Minister, it does mean those people who are taking these decisions. The Welsh Office is not the decision taker in this regard; the Welsh Office, effectively, is—I’m saying it myself; it was the Welsh Office 20 years ago—The Wales Office itself is a kind of advocate in that sense. If this was in the hands of the Wales Office, then perhaps we could have better engagement, but it isn’t. This is a fundamental junction in the journey of devolution. Either we move to a situation where powers are kept by the UK Government in areas that we currently control, or we move to a situation where powers come to rest where they should and we have a better structure, not just for Wales, but the whole of the UK, that represents the partnership of nations that exists within the UK.