6. Statement by the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition: The UK Internal Market Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:42 pm on 15 September 2020.

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Photo of David Rees David Rees Labour 6:42, 15 September 2020

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. I think we've explored very much with colleagues the situation that, constitutionally, this Bill provides us, and I won't explore that much further. But I do think we need—. We've heard the rhetoric very much from the Brexiteers for the last few years that we will have powers through the EU giving them back to us. Is it not true that this Bill actually undermines our ability to actually deliver any decisions based upon those powers? Because it gives UK Ministers the right to make decisions that undermine our decisions. And therefore, when people in my constituency expect us to deliver certain conditions or policies, we can do that here, but UK Government Ministers could actually deliver something different as a consequence of that. That's what people want to know. They want to understand what this means to them. And what it really means to them is we can make a decision, but UK Ministers can change that without even consulting us or the people. That's correct. 

Do you also agree with me perhaps that this is actually an end to common frameworks? Because the common frameworks were something we agreed, something we put forward as a possible way of working together to come to these positions. But this is a situation where that seems to have been thrown out of the window, where the UK Government is going to impose decisions. Therefore, is it the end of the common frameworks?

And, finally, the shared prosperity fund. We've been asking questions for years on the shared prosperity fund, and it seems to be now that, in fact, when we were promised by Brexiteers that Wales would not lose a penny that we would have had from Europe—it now seems that we are not going to get anything. Where we could make a decision, as we could before, it's going to be decided upon in London, and therefore the shared prosperity fund, as far as I'm concerned, is dead and done.