8. What assessment has the Counsel General made of the effectiveness of the inter-governmental agreement on the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018? OAQ53401

The inter-governmental agreement has made the EU (Withdrawal) Act 2018 more effective in respecting devolution. Importantly, thus far there have been no clause 12 regulations to restrict devolved competence. In terms of correcting legislation, both the Welsh Government and the UK Government have worked within the spirit of the agreement.

Well, I’m not sure what your definition of working within the spirit of the agreement is, because I sit in committee after committee listening to the environment Minister, for example, complaining that there has been no collaboration on developing things such as the fisheries Act of the UK and the UK agriculture Act. In written evidence—paragraph after paragraph saying things like:

'the provisions relating to Schedule 1 were drafted by parliamentary counsel following instruction from UK Government. Welsh Ministers were not consulted on the instructions',

and then going on to complain about the legislation expected of us here in Wales. So, isn’t it now apparent that the experiences of this Government, and the Ministers of this Government, particularly in the context of the two Bills that I referred to, demonstrate that the UK Government has no real desire to collaborate with the devolved administrations in order to develop legislation in this context, and that the agreement, to all intents and purposes, is completely ineffective?

Well, when it was agreed in the first place, there was a great deal of criticism in this Chamber that the Government had agreed, in principle, to secure this kind of agreement, but the agreement has succeeded. I do not doubt for a moment that there have been examples where we would have wished for greater collaboration. That is evidently clear. Things have improved over the latest period, but there was a suggestion that powers would be reserved. That hasn’t happened. There was a suggestion that powers would be frozen. That hasn’t happened. The United Kingdom Government has confirmed that for the second time. So, the Government’s intention was to ensure that we had the kind of agreement that was practical and would enable us to do work in agreeing legislation and frameworks and so on, where they dealt with the devolved issues, and the agreement has succeeded to do that.

I do not doubt for a moment that there have been examples where, in legislation and so on, we haven’t had our ideal solution. Of course that hasn't happened. But that inter-governmental agreement named in the question by the Member has ensured that powers have been retained here, and that we ask the UK Government only to make amendments when they need to do that, when there is no difference with regard to policy between us and the Westminster Government.

May I also say that there is more than one example of us having succeeded as a Government in ensuring that we have had more discussions? And there are more examples where our agreement is interrogated where the matters have not been devolved, but where they impact on Wales in other ways—so, there are examples of the Governments having gone further than the inter-governmental agreement.

Thank you very much, Counsel General.