6. Statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Finance: The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:20 pm on 25 April 2018.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 4:20, 25 April 2018

I'm just going to reply to a small of number of them. What would happen, the Member asked, if the UK Government were to resile from the inter-governmental agreement that we have reached with them? Well, he is right: it would then be a genuine constitutional crisis. I don't think that will happen, because I think I have to proceed on the basis that if a Minister in another Government, after many weeks and months of patient negotiation, comes to a conclusion on which they have to seek agreement from all of their UK colleagues to turn it into legislation and into that agreement, when they have gone to all of those efforts and it is codified between us, I think we have to assume that they mean what they say and that they will abide by it. There is no other possible basis on which inter-governmental relationships can be conducted.

He pointed to the sunset clause. I think frameworks will be released far faster from the freezer than the seven years that it sets out, and there's an additional reason in this agreement why that should be the case, because this agreement prevents English Ministers from making changes in English policy until those frameworks are agreed. There is every incentive now on all partners equally to come to those arrangements as fast as possible, and I believe we will see rapid progress in that area. Of course, that was the second point that the Member made himself: that the powers cannot be used to enact new policies. It simply preserves the status quo—the status quo in the European Union rule book—the European rule book that many Members in this Chamber took to the people of Wales and tried to persuade them that we should remain in perpetually, which I agreed with. All this does is to say that this position, which was supported, will remain the case—will remain the case and not change. It will remain the case—the position we argued for in the referendum will remain the case until we have an agreed way of change.

Finally, he asked about what happens to the areas that are not being kept in the freezer. Well, he was right on that: they come back here immediately. In the original clause 11, all of them were to be held at Westminster. Now, the bulk of them return here immediately, and we can get on with the business of devising policies and ways of doing things that suit Welsh circumstances.