I look forward to hearing the contribution from the ex-First Minister later. Is he allowed to intervene, Llywydd, or is that not parliamentary at the moment? Okay. 

Why should we split—[Interruption.] Wait till you hear this one. Why should we split the UK single market and customs union along the Irish sea when a Northern Ireland border could instead be avoided by the EU making checks across the Celtic sea between Ireland and the rest of the EU? Of course, in such a scenario, the EU and Ireland would quickly come to see merit in the many sensible alternative arrangements we have put forward to avoid any visible border. The United Kingdom Internal Market Bill gives us the opportunity to reopen these issues and ensure that any settlement is equitable and in the interests of the UK as well as the EU.

There has been a lot of sound and fury in recent days. Many have leapt to the conclusion that 'no deal' is now much more likely, supposedly because of a breakdown of trust. The reality, I suspect, is that a deal has become significantly more likely. That is because the cost to the EU of not doing a deal has just gone up. If they refuse to grant us—[Interruption.] I suggest the ex-First Minister watches what they do rather than listens to what they say at this particular juncture. If they refuse to grant us satisfactory terms on the trade deal, which we want, then we will now take away what they wanted, and wrongly thought they already had, on the Northern Ireland protocol. 

Critics are right when they observe there is no provision in international law for a state unilaterally to alter just one part of a treaty it has agreed, although there are of course provisions for states to repudiate a withdrawal from whole treaties. I hope therefore that, absent to satisfactory agreement with the EU, the UK will withdraw from the whole treaty, including its financial arrangements and those trade matters that were wrongly predetermined to favour the EU, for example on geographical indicators. It is, however, I think, now more likely than before that a trade agreement will be reached with the EU and on terms more favourable to the UK than would have been attainable without the Prime Minister having strengthened his negotiating hand through this Bill. If so, we will judge its merits later in the year. 

I turn now to the impact on devolution. Old hands tell me that I need to understand that devolution is a process, not an event, but that is precisely the problem. A process that only ever leads in one direction risks Wales sleepwalking towards independence. Westminster's new attitude to the Sewel convention is a useful corrective to this. It was, I think, just three years ago that the Counsel General justified intervening before the Supreme Court because he hoped it might be persuaded to give the Sewel convention the force of law. It did not, and Westminster legislated for the withdrawal agreement notwithstanding a lack of agreed legislative consent motions. Perhaps it was just testing the machinery, because once again, while the majority in this Chamber and elsewhere will presumably withhold consent on this Bill, the Westminster Parliament is sovereign and can proceed regardless.