Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his law officer responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:28 pm on 2 April 2019.
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 As he knows, that Act was repealed as a consequence of a broader set of arrangements.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.