Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Brexit Minister (in respect of his Brexit Minister responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:44 pm on 26 February 2020.
Well, we continue to do that. The Minister for international relations was in Brussels recently, the First Minister will be there shortly. We take every opportunity of making sure that what is in the interests of the Welsh economy is understood by any of our interlocutors.
But what I will say to the Member, though, is that in this period of the negotiations ahead, the parties to that negotiation will be the European institutions and the British Government. There is no parallel set of negotiations or discussions that the Welsh Government can or should have in that context. Our expectation, our vision, of how this should work in practical terms is that the UK Government should agree for the devolved Governments to have a role in those negotiations in setting a UK-wide position in relation to those matters that are devolved.
As he will know, that is not a principle that the UK Government has yet agreed in a way that we think is acceptable. The capacity of the Welsh Government to reflect the interests of Wales, and to reflect the devolved competences of this institution and the Welsh Government, is something that must be recognised by the UK Government in order to protect the interests of Wales through that period.