Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lywydd. You will see that that's a very snappy title. Members will be relieved that the purpose of this brief debate is not to examine the policy intention of the Marine Environment (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2018 or, indeed, to really challenge the assertion of Welsh Government that it's appropriate for this Assembly to agree to this statutory instrument consent motion. This is more to do with drawing Members' attention, once again, to the ability of the UK Government to sub-legislate on matters within the legislative competence of this Parliament and considering concerns about how this Parliament can maintain its own oversight of how primary legislation, material to us, is being amended by secondary legislation of another Parliament.

Until now, we've understandably focused our attention on primary legislation and related legislative consent motions, and we've encountered Bills on agriculture and healthcare that have caused committees to raise their eyebrows, perhaps. And the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee in particular will have plenty to say in due course about Welsh Government choices on whether to recommend LCMs or not, as well as the quality of the information that Welsh Government provides to this Assembly to help us scrutinise those choices.

How easy is it then to lose sight of the reams of secondary legislation to which the same principles should apply? The UK Government is laying many statutory instruments, affecting many more pieces of primary legislation, in order to make retained EU law function after Brexit. And these could, and indeed do, transfer executive functions in areas where we have legislative competence to Welsh Ministers, or indeed Secretaries of State with the consent of Welsh Ministers. And because we're talking about statutory instruments, which are active in areas of devolved competence, we need to understand what Welsh Ministers are actually agreeing to on our, and of course their own, behalf.

There is a Standing Order process for this, but in reality Government decides whether we can rely on UK Government statutory instruments or whether they should introduce their own secondary legislation. At the moment, the majority of reports we get from Welsh Government is that we can just agree these UK statutory instruments, as there's no policy divergence and it makes for a clearer statute book. That's the general content of the explanatory memoranda that come to Members recommending Assembly support without the need for debate: 'Nothing to see here. Everything is in order. Why waste Plenary time?'

With so many statutory instruments coming through from the UK and devolved areas, we need, as Assembly Members, to be in a position where we can rely on ministerial judgment and avoid the need for debate. However, there are occasions, and an increasing number of them, where we can't safely rely on that judgment. And it's not that the judgment is wrong, but we don't have the evidence to support the judgment, and it's deliberately why I've chosen this hopefully rather benign example to make my point.

We're told in the Minister's covering statement that this UK statutory instrument could affect our legislative competence and Minister's executive competence because we have some legislative and executive competence in relation to the marine environment. The Minister's own motion contained a little more detail on existing powers, but nothing more on our legislative competence, except that it's subject to a few reservations. A few examples are given, but no concrete detail. It's also a negative procedure statutory instrument, limiting UK Parliamentary oversight, so the eye of scrutiny is already less than optimal.

My argument to Welsh Government is this: if you think a UK statutory instrument is fine and you want us to accept your advice without debating it, just give us fuller advice. If we have some legislative competence, identify what it is. If Welsh Ministers have various Executive powers under a number of enactments, tell us what they are. And, as you'll see, I've had to, with help obviously, draft and lay my own very similar consent motion to do this, and, as an AM, I don't have the resources to research and draw down the information that civil servants can do. Your officials do know what that legislative competence and what those Executive powers are to make the assertions in the first place. So, it's not enough to tell us what existing legislation's being amended, we need context and clarity about the effect of the change and Ministers need to be alert to that before they sign off. 

So, why does this matter? So many of these statutory instruments amend primary legislation in devolved areas and they can give powers to Welsh Ministers. And, if the only scrutiny we get is based on ministerial advice, the advice needs to be clear, comprehensive and overcome any space for suspicion of a conflict of interest, because we shouldn't be allowing other Parliaments to give our Ministers powers without us being sure that we understand how, where, why and what. I understand the irony of asking for you to consent to an SI that I've just confessed I don't really understand myself, but I hope it proves the point. Thank you very much.