Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:28 pm on 18 April 2018.
I thank the Member for his question. I should be clear that, obviously, our preference would have been for this not to be referred to the Supreme Court, but, absolutely, we understand the reason why that was done at the time it was done, today—yesterday, rather—being the last day on which that was available as an option for the Attorney General.
You referred to the discussions around competence. Our view remains that we have the competence in this place for the Bill that we have passed. What the Attorney General has set out in the reference are his grounds for seeking the court's view on that. He hasn't yet set out the reasoning for those grounds, so we haven't yet been able to engage with the reasoning for that, although we are obviously considering the grounds that we have received. We'll be receiving the fuller reasoning in due course.
Obviously, there have been and continue to be discussions amongst the three Governments in relation to appropriate amendments to the EU withdrawal Bill, and those discussions are ongoing. We very much hope that they will conclude in a positive way. Just to reiterate, in case there's any shadow of a doubt, our strong preference is for the EU withdrawal Bill to be appropriately amended by agreement between the UK Government and the devolved administrations, and in that eventuality, of course, the Bill, which has been referred to the Supreme Court yesterday, will obviously no longer be required.