Can I congratulate the Counsel General on the calm and measured approach that he's brought to this, and in particular to applaud the way that he described the situation we've now arrived at as a development that shouldn't be over-dramatised? I suppose that if there are bona fide legal doubts about the compatibility of the continuity Bill with current legislation setting up this Assembly and devolving powers, it is right that the matter should be adjudicated, regrettable though that is. And I do agree with what Simon Thomas said that this fundamentally is a politically matter, which should have been resolved at political level. And does he share my continued perplexity at the dilatoriness of the United Kingdom Government in dealing with this matter and that a Government that ostensibly is devoted to the preservation of the United Kingdom is unnecessarily provoking a constitutional crisis that threatens to divide it? If the leader of UKIP can say that, then we've got to a very strange state of affairs in British politics.

It is vitally necessary that the United Kingdom Government, having approved the legislative settlement under which we exist—that that should not be undermined, certainly not explicitly or implicitly, by its own acts or intentions. I cannot understand, therefore, why it is that the UK Government has been so slow and continues apparently to be dilatory in its response to the arguments that have been put forward for what we all ultimately want to achieve. I'm perplexed by one of the grounds that is being cited by the Attorney-General, namely that of incompatibility with EU law, given that the continuity Bill will not come into force until we've actually legally left the EU. So, I don't know whether the Counsel General has got any information on what is in the mind of the Attorney-General on this point, or if this is perhaps an example of throwing the kitchen sink at us just in case.

It all seems rather problematic and extraordinary, but I'm pleased that the Counsel General is going to mitigate the matter in the way that he has set out, because it is vitally necessary that any uncertainty or ambiguity should be resolved. We can't be put into a position, which is what the continuity Bill itself was designed to deal with, of there being some legislative lacuna in the law as it applies within Wales. So, it's rather strange. We've got a situation now where the United Kingdom Government is litigating a Bill that we have put through this place that was designed to avoid the situation of legal doubts existing when we leave the EU. So, it is a paradox that perhaps this will ultimately resolve.