Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General & Brexit Minister (in respect of his 'law officer' responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:31 pm on 7 January 2020.
I thank the Member for that further question. I've been following with interest his series of postings on Twitter about the future of the union. The key is that the constitutional arrangements for a union of four nations need to respect the identity and aspirations of each of those nations, while preserving the collective interest of the whole. I know that he will have read the publication of the Welsh Government in October of last year, 'Reforming our Union: Shared Governance in the UK', which describes, I think, the kind of positive engagement that the Member identifies in his question, which has always been the approach that the UK Government has taken to this set of challenges—challenges which have become even more intense in the context of the pressure that Brexit has put upon the relationships within the United Kingdom.
We do need an acceptance—and I will say, perhaps particularly by the UK Government, which has not always accepted, despite the points he's made in his question—the need for a more shared vision of the governance of the United Kingdom into the future, and a new culture of mutual respect and parity of esteem in the kind of inter-governmental relations that have often been challenging.
We have identified on a number of occasions the shortcomings in the JMC arrangements, and have a very positive and constructive alternative to that. If the proposals that come out of the UK Government's recommendations reflect those kinds of principles and proposals, clearly we will welcome that. But alongside that approach, there needs to be a recognition on the part of the UK Government that we need to operate in a rules-based system, not one that invests them with considerable discretion to operate in the way that they choose. And the challenge will be, and the test for the UK Government will be, its readiness, or otherwise, to engage on a rules-based system, agreed between the four constituent parts of the United Kingdom. That is the only way for the union to remain sustainable into the future.