1. Will the Counsel General make a statement on the development of the UK common frameworks? OAQ54215

There continues to be good progress on frameworks, albeit slower than anticipated due to the impact of 'no deal' planning. We remain committed to frameworks as a long-term system for inter-governmental policy making, and I was pleased to share the first draft framework with the Assembly last week.

The Counsel General will be aware that this is a matter we discussed with the First Minister at the external affairs committee on Monday. I'm grateful to the Counsel General for his very full answer to that question. Does he not share my concern that in creating common frameworks we are almost creating a hidden state within the United Kingdom where many decisions are taken away from public scrutiny and beyond public reach? Does he share with me the concern that we are working without any framework, as it were, for the common frameworks, and as such, what is required to guarantee public scrutiny and public confidence in this system is a statutory structure that puts in law the basis upon which these frameworks are reached, and enables inter-institutional democratic accountability and scrutiny of the work of these frameworks and the new United Kingdom that seems to be being created behind a curtain?

I thank the Member for that further question. The fundamental premise behind the inter-governmental agreement, which is the source of the frameworks programme, was that our default position, if you like, is that frameworks should not be necessary, and so we have approached the task of identifying where frameworks may be necessary from that starting point. As he will know, we have concluded an agreement with the other Governments in the UK that some frameworks will be entirely non-legislative—i.e. they will be based on agreements between Government—and there will be some frameworks that no doubt will involve legislative underpinning. We've shared with the committee our analysis of where those distinctions might lie. One of the areas of focus in developing the common frameworks, and one of the reasons why we have been pressing hard for progress, is the understandable and perfectly legitimate desire on the part of scrutiny committees in all of the legislatures in the UK to engage meaningfully with the process of developing the frameworks and how they operate into the future. So, it is a matter of regret that we have not been able to share more information sooner than we have, but I'm afraid that's been as a consequence, as I say, of the diversion of energies into 'no deal' planning. One of the dimensions of the common frameworks is the question of governance and ongoing review. As he will know, that sits within a broader set of discussions that we are having with the UK Government on improving the quality and machinery of inter-governmental relations, and much of that work touches on the issue of governance, which has very clear read-across to the matters that the Member has raised today. We would have hoped to have made further progress in that area as well, as he will have seen from my letter jointly with the Scottish Government last week, but he can be reassured that we are absolutely mindful of the importance of ensuring that stakeholders have an opportunity of feeding into the development and operation and holding us to account, and, importantly, scrutiny committees in this Assembly and in other legislatures across the UK. 

I note, at this stage of the development of UK common frameworks, that the aim is to widen engagement and consultation, and indeed the UK Government stated on 3 July that they have developed a more detailed engagement plan, and this is to mandate increasing engagement and to raise transparency. Now, it does seem to me that this is exactly how the system should operate. I note that you have some concerns, but in general, this is quite a radical departure for UK governance, and it seems to me to be broadly going in the right direction. There is a great need both for the wider stakeholder community to get involved, and obviously for proper scrutiny and transparency.

I thank the Member for that. His question acknowledges that the common framework shared to date is the first of what we hope is many frameworks that we can share. And they are absolutely—. You know, it is not a fait accompli. It is there for engagement with stakeholders. On that particular framework, there has been a pilot for engaging with stakeholders and we hope to learn from that as we develop the scrutiny and engagement process in relation to this going forward. It is right to say that, of all the areas of inter-governmental relations flowing from Brexit, the development of the common frameworks, which has happened overwhelmingly at official level, has been among the most productive, even if there has been, by this stage, little to put in the public domain. The quality of engagement is probably better there than in any other part of the process.