2. What legal advice has the Counsel General provided to the Welsh Government on ways to improve protection of human rights for citizens in Wales after Brexit? OAQ53693

Devolution was built on human rights foundations. The Welsh Government has insisted that Brexit should not lead to any regression of rights. Discussions have begun on strengthening and advancing equality and human rights for all citizens in Wales, starting with the commencement of the socioeconomic duty.

I wonder if I could ask the Minister about one specific aspect, which is the EU charter of fundamental rights. One of the consequences of leaving the EU, of course, is that citizens of Wales and the UK will no longer have the protection of the charter of fundamental rights. The charter, of course, has many areas that overlap with our Human Rights Act 1998, but it goes further, providing a right to asylum, rights to dignity, protection of personal data and health and protections for workers against unjustified dismissal and a free-standing right to freedom from discrimination. The latter is important because our Human Rights Act only protects against discrimination carried out by the state, whereas the discrimination protections in the charter apply to situations between individuals and organisations, such as between two people on Twitter. And because the charter is a living instrument, it means the rights it provides must reflect social change. So, it's seen in the creation of important rights such as the right to be forgotten, for example. And bearing in mind that when the Human Rights Act was made law, only 9 per cent of households in Britain had access to the internet, the ability of the charter to introduce new rights around issues like data protection is an important strength. So, when we leave the EU, Minister, what can we put in place here in Wales, and in the UK, to protect those hard-won additional value-plus human rights and those enhanced rights that are enshrined in the charter of fundamental rights too?

Well, I'm pleased the Member has raised this question because although it's a topic that we discuss in the Assembly reasonably frequently, it's an unexplored dimension, I think, to the process of Brexit. And I know from my previous discussions with him, and indeed his question, how he recognises the central role of the charter of fundamental rights. He'll recall that in our version of the continuity Act here in Wales, we included additional protections—although we don't have the competence to reinstate the charter here in Wales, we were able to find a mechanism by which the principles of the charter would have been available to interpret legislation. As he knows, that Act was repealed as a consequence of a broader set of arrangements. But the principles that underpin that charter, and the broader principles to which he refers in his questions, are very much in our mind about how we take things forward from here.

There are a range of rights that are described in the charter that are encompassed within the broader socioeconomic activity and rights analysis the Government is currently undertaking. There is a piece of research under way, initially linked to the gender equality review, but of a broader compass than that, which will clarify for us the framework that we have available to us as a means to legislate here in Wales. There is another set of discussions and reflections going on within Government about the extent to which we can incorporate some of the conventions that overlap—some of them certainly overlap with some of the principles that he outlined in his question. There's a piece of work under way to understand the scope, the potential, that we have for acting in that broader legislative way, not simply on a piecemeal basis, but on a perhaps more coherent basis.