I thank the Member for those questions. Much of what I have said this afternoon has been critical of the UK Government, and rightly so. So, let me try and make a small number of more positive points, and first of all to say that, with the technical notices, Welsh Government officials did have an opportunity to read and comment on those notices during the period of preparation. So, we didn't simply see them on the day that they were published. We were able to make sure that they were accurate from a Welsh perspective, and therefore we have had a greater level of involvement in their preparation than we have in some other examples of European Union negotiation matters.

As far as the JMC last week is concerned, I did spend the bulk of what I had to say reflecting the agenda of that meeting, because it dealt separately with developments in relation to the proposed deal for the Chequers White Paper. We had a discussion with the new Secretary of State at the Brexit department about the many meetings that he had held over the summer with the EU on that matter. We had a substantive discussion in relation to preparation for a 'no deal' and the technical notices and other preparations that the UK Government is conducting, and we had an opportunity to review the progress made in relation to framework discussions.

Does the forum provide a proper place where there is genuine engagement on a sense of parity participation? No, it doesn't, and I've said that this afternoon—it has to be reformed and improved—but was it a worthwhile encounter? Yes, it was, because it allowed me as the Welsh Government representative, and indeed my Scottish colleague Mike Russell, to make a series of important points representing the interests of our nations, and it was worth while from that point of view. And it is the first of a series of JMCs that are now timetabled through the autumn, and that's an improvement as well, where we have a series of agreed dates in advance that allow us to be more involved in prior preparation for those meetings. So, they are by no means perfect but they remain a place where we take every opportunity to advance Welsh interests.

Thanks to David Rees for pointing out an area that I wasn't able to cover in the statement, and that is the continuing work that we are doing to identify those regions in the European Union with whom we will want to have particular relationships the other side of the European Union. I was lucky enough to be able to welcome a delegation here from the Basque Country, returning visits that I had made and that Lesley Griffiths had made. The President of the Basque Country was here earlier in the summer, and that's a very important region for the future of us in Wales. The First Minister has visited a number of other regions over the summer period—part of that ongoing programme.

In relation to regional policy, let me underline a point that the First Minister made earlier, because I think sometimes the importance of it isn't emphasised enough. When we, as a Welsh Government, say that provided money comes to us through whatever mechanism is agreed for the purposes that European funding is used today, we are providing a guarantee, in advance, of two things. First of all, the money will be kept for those purposes. It will not simply just become absorbed in the wider Welsh Government budget. We get money for rural Wales, we get money for the reform of our economy. The money will be kept for those purposes, and we don't say that about other money that comes to the Welsh Government. We always say, quite rightly, that it comes through Barnett, but it goes into the pot and we decide. And we are prepared to offer a multi-annual guarantee. In other words, because the European Union money comes with seven years' worth of guarantee and allows people to plan ahead for their futures, we would provide the same guarantee here in Wales for money that came for those purposes from the UK Government. Neither of those things do we say in other contexts. The First Minister repeated some of that here this afternoon, and I'll be reflecting that, I hope, in a statement that I hope to be able to make in the next few weeks here on the floor of the Assembly on the future of regional policy.