Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:01 pm on 28 January 2020.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:01, 28 January 2020

I thank the Member. The Secretaries of State for Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland will all be present at the JMC(EN) this afternoon. I thank the Member for what he said about the proposals that Wales has made to strengthen the way in which the United Kingdom can operate the other side of Brexit. I was glad to be able to discuss those directly with Arlene Foster and Michelle O'Neill this morning, and they will be part of an ongoing discussion about inter-governmental machinery that is discharged at the JMC.

I've been grateful to the leader of the opposition here for a number of opportunities to meet to talk about matters in relation to Brexit, the future of the United Kingdom and other important public policy issues. It has always been the position of these benches—it certainly was under my predecessor—that wherever there are constructive ideas that people want to contribute to these important public debates, of course, we are open to hearing them and to discussing them, and I certainly want to go on doing that into the future. Tomorrow's debate, Llywydd, will, I'm sure, have ample time on the floor of the Assembly for people to express their views.