Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:02 pm on 14 January 2020.
Thank you, Dirprwy Lywydd. We considered this statutory instrument consent memorandum for the Pilotage Act 1987 (Amendment) Regulations 2019 at our meeting on 6 January 2020. We laid our report last Friday, 10 January.
In considering the statutory instrument consent memorandum and our response to it, we also took account of the Minister's letter to us, dated 17 December 2019. That letter can be found via the committee's report. In the letter the Minister stated that, as regards the SICM process,
'The First Minister’s position, due to the volume of correcting SIs and limiting timescales, was to develop a compromise to ensure that Brexit related SICMs would be dealt with in a timely manner'.
As Members will know, the compromise position was that the Welsh Government has not, up to this point, brought forward motions for debate on Brexit-related statutory instrument consent memoranda. The Minister, in his letter, went on to say,
'In correspondence with you in August the First Minister stated that, as the majority of the programme to correct the statute book has been substantially completed, the time is right to re-examine this approach and revert to the normal procedure whereby Welsh Government table Motions for SICMs.'
So, in the light of the comments made by the Minister today we welcome the Minister's commitment to table this motion for debate, which we've now had, and we're content with that memorandum. Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd.