1. Will the Cabinet Secretary make a statement on the implications of the UK Government's Trade Bill for Welsh Government procurement policy? OAQ51398

Llywydd, the Trade Bill includes a proposed agreement on Government procurement, known as a plurilateral agreement within the World Trade Organization framework. The Bill provides Welsh Ministers with regulation-making powers when implementing such an agreement in devolved areas.

Thank you for that answer, Cabinet Secretary. You may recall we had quite a lot of discussion, pre referendum, on the issue of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and external trade agreements, and the implications for Welsh procurement, the Welsh national health service, and so on. And it appears that, although the red rag was being proposed that, if we didn't leave the European Union, we'd be presented with an EU TTIP, it looks that the Trade Bill now has the implications of imposing a UK TTIP on Wales, with very little scrutiny, using the royal prerogative, with only a certain level of governmental scrutiny on it. Do you agree with me that the Bill, as it's drawn at the moment, is not something we can give legislative consent to, and do you also share some of the concerns I have about the way this Bill can abuse some of the policies that we are supporting within Wales?

Well, Llywydd, the fundamental objection to the Trade Bill, from a constitutional perspective, is the one that Mick Antoniw has just outlined, which is that it continues to allow Ministers of the Crown an ability to reach over into devolved areas and to impose solutions without seeking the consent of Welsh Ministers. And, in that sense, the things that are wrong with the Trade Bill are the things that are wrong with the withdrawal Bill, which is why it is so important that we manage to get the withdrawal Bill properly amended.

My reading of the Trade Bill itself is that it's main aim is to preserve the status quo into the short and medium term, bringing 40 plus free trade agreements that already exist with the EU into UK law. What will be absolutely unacceptable to the Welsh Government would be if future trade policy was conducted on the basis that protections that are currently available in the field of the environment, in the field of wages, in the field of other standards, that the Trade Bill was used to undermine those, in the way that the Member has suggested.

Minister, obviously, public procurement more generally is an important lever that you as a Government have of stimulating localised economies. The previous Welsh Government brought forward the national public procurement framework, which was to allow smaller businesses, obviously, to get a greater share of the public procurement pie. I've received many representations that businesses have found this procurement network very cumbersome, and I think Government Ministers have indicated that it hasn't been the success that, obviously, it was desired to be. What assessment have you made of that framework, and what improvements are you minded to make, to allow a greater share of the public procurement pot to arrive back to small and medium-sized businesses?

Llywydd, I have announced a review of the national procurement service, partly to make sure that some of the things that were aimed for when it was established can be better delivered, but also to make sure that our approach to procurement is aligned with some opportunities that there may be the other side of the European Union. This is one of the few areas where there may be some new opportunities for us, when we are able to write our own rule book to a certain extent, rather than being bound by EU procurement policies. We've asked for that review to be undertaken. A very important part of that will be to make sure that our procurement policies in the future are even better aligned than they have been in the past, with opportunities for Welsh businesses to be able to take advantage of Welsh public expenditure.

Can the Cabinet Secretary tell us at the moment, unless we see changes to the published Bill—that's the Trade Bill—whether the Welsh Government will refuse to give legislative consent through a legislative consent motion? Now, the Cabinet Secretary for trade in London said that they had introduced some changes to the Bill since the draft was published in October, having had discussions with the Welsh and Scottish Governments. Can he tell us what changes were made, and, as the WTO arrangement that he referred to sets out different sections at different levels of Government—for example, for devolved Governments—would the Welsh Government expect to have a veto in designating the content of the specific sections relating to Wales?  

What I can say, Llywydd, is that, under the withdrawal Bill, we have already stated that we can’t bring an LCM to the floor of the Assembly and ask Members to support that. What we can’t agree on in the withdrawal Bill is the same, in my view, as what we see in the Bill that currently in question.

I don't want to over-anticipate the Welsh Government's position on it, Llywydd, because that needs to be properly thought through, but it does seem to me unlikely that, without some of the changes that have been suggested that the UK Government is open to considering, we would be in a position to propose a legislative consent motion that we could support on this Bill for the same reasons as in the previous Bill. Does that amount to a veto in the way that Adam Price has suggested? Well, probably not quite.