The UK Government's Trade Bill

Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 1:31 pm on 6 December 2017.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:31, 6 December 2017

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.