Thank you, Llywydd. I report on behalf of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, and, of course, I commend the Members of the Assembly who have waited here so patiently this afternoon for my report.

We reported on the Welsh Government’s first legislative consent memorandum in respect of the Trade Bill in March 2018. In October of that year, we reported on the regulations to be made under the Bill. We considered memorandum No. 2 in March of this year, and while we were not in a position to take evidence from the Minister, due to the tight timescales, we did produce a report and I spoke in the debate on that memorandum.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Minister for bringing forward this motion in relation to memorandum No. 3, following a letter from David Rees as Chair of the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee. We have not been in a position to take evidence from the Minister on memorandum No. 3, nor produce a report, again because of the timescales involved. I would, however, like to make a number of points, some of which were made in our report on memorandum No. 2 and which still remain relevant.

Firstly, I thank the Minister for her letter of 25 April, in which she responded to a number of recommendations made in our report on the second memorandum. While I welcome the information the Minister has provided regarding despatch box commitments that have been secured, I do again draw the Assembly’s attention to the concerns that the committee does have about the current and future application of the Sewel convention. We remain of the view that there is a need to clarify the extent to which the convention can be relied upon to protect devolved competences. In the circumstances, I would still welcome clarification from the Minister on whether there are any exceptions to the commitment that UK Government Ministers will not normally use the powers in devolved areas without the Welsh Ministers' consent.

In our report on memorandum No. 2, we recommended that Standing Order 30C should be amended to apply to the Trade Bill once enacted, and, in her letter to us, the Minister has told us that she believes that, instead, Standing Order 30C needs to be reviewed. I would be grateful if the Minister could provide some further clarity just on this point.

Throughout our scrutiny of the Trade Bill, we have raised concerns about the scope of the regulation-making powers in the Bill. Our main concern has been that the Bill allows UK Ministers to make regulations that amend the Government of Wales Act 2006. I take the opportunity to again reaffirm the constitutional principle that the legislative competence of the National Assembly should not be modified by regulations made by the UK Ministers, and whilst there have been assurances that regulation-making powers will not be used to modify the legislative competence of the Assembly, those assurances are, of course, not legally binding, which is obviously of concern.

On 30 April 2019, and in line with one of our recommendations, the Minister issued a written statement on the UK Trade Remedies Authority, and I note that the Minister has said that she has obtained a number of non-legislative commitments from the UK Government on how the Welsh Government will be able to interact with the authority. Furthermore, she has said that she is pleased with the progress that has been made and the commitments that the UK Government has provided. However, I would respectfully suggest that the process secured whereby the Secretary of State will consult with the Welsh Government on the Trade Remedies Authority’s recommendations at the same time as consulting UK Government departments does not respect the Welsh Government as the executive arm of a devolved nation.

Those are my comments. Thank you, Llywydd.