3. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance: JMC (EU Negotiations) Meeting, 22 February 2018

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:39 pm on 27 February 2018.

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Photo of David Melding David Melding Conservative 3:39, 27 February 2018

I think this was always going to be a tough negotiation, but the way I read it is that we are moving decisively towards agreement. And I have to say, in terms of how this will be viewed by the historians, I think it will be seen as a classic federal-type discussion, because, whatever you think about the UK Government, it is not treating the devolved administrations—unfortunately, as they term it—but the devolved Governments as anything but fully fledged Governments over their sphere of—let me use a polite word—interest rather than sovereignty. We've not in any way been treated like local government, and I don't want to disparage local government, but there are real interests in constitutional principles here and they are now playing out. I welcome in general the Cabinet Minister's tone and, as I said, I do envisage that agreement will be reached and, therefore, the continuity Bill will become redundant. Obviously, on this side of the house—let's be frank—we're uncomfortable about this emergency legislation, both here and in Scotland, but it's part of a wider landscape and I don't want to be distracted by the reasons for that. We need an effective settlement here and the EU withdrawal Bill is the best way to do that.

I agree with Steffan Lewis—and I've said this from the very start—that the heart of this is the shared governance that has to be agreed so that we can run UK frameworks. And that's not just UK Ministers getting it—some have always got it, others struggle, and I can list the departments of state that I think don't do as well. But, frankly, it's also the civil service culture in Whitehall that finds a lot of this process difficult. Most of running the frameworks will be behind the scenes with your officials and the officials in the various departments, and the great capacity we will have in terms of Whitehall will still be necessary to run these frameworks, obviously with our full participation and that of Scotland and Northern Ireland. But they're going to stand in the place, in many ways, in which EU officials stand in the Commission and we feed into that. So, there's a level there as well.

I think I'm going to lose the Llywydd's patience in a moment—