Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd, and I do apologise, my Wi-Fi dropped out just at the crucial time as it happened. I'll therefore keep my comments as brief as possible. In a sense, the Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee has reflected many of the views we have, and my brief remarks will focus on the prism through which it forces us to consider the question of legislative consent.

Before I move on, I understand the position the Minister has found himself in with the LCM originally being laid back in April, a supplementary in November and the second supplementary only yesterday, and that was based upon the fact that amendments were made only last Wednesday. It does really highlight that significant provisions for the Trade and Agriculture Commission were only brought to our attention by the means of that supplementary legislative consent motion laid yesterday, and it is, therefore, important that we have opportunities of actually scrutinising the Bill properly.

I think this Bill has highlighted that the legislative consent process does not allow us the sort of interaction with legislation that we are having under scrutiny, and I think that, more than in any other Bill, has been highlighted, because this has been in place for so long, but here we are, still discussing it on a day when the latest amendments were made last Wednesday and we still don't even know if they'll be accepted in the House of Commons yet, because that's not finished, that stage. 

But the consideration of the Bill that we had obviously highlights the very difficult position we have and the balancing act that is required of us when we consider the legislative consent motion, because on one hand there is an issue that we may have concerns about, as in our first report, which highlighted an issue that, actually, the Bill has not addressed some of those points; but, on the other hand, we do recognise the need for legislation of this type for a degree of continuity for businesses, workers and consumers now that we've left the transition period. So, it's a blunt instrument that gives us a binary choice: accept it all or reject it all, and I think that highlights the concerns over LCMs, in one sense. 

Now, without revisiting our concerns in detail, I will remind Members—and the Chair of the LJC Committee highlighted this—of the dependence upon despatch-box commitments, as opposed to actually amending the Bill, as we actually called for, to ensure us that the powers granted by the Bill will not be used in the ways in which we had foreseen. And I think that's a very important point. We are too heavily dependent upon such commitments made by Westminster Ministers without actually seeing those changes in the Bill itself, which could have been achieved. Now, that's what the LCM convention does provide us with, unfortunately. It does not measure continuing functions as it should, it limits the ability of both Welsh Government and the Senedd to influence UK policies as such and the legislation that affects us in the devolved administrations. And I think, perhaps I'll extend a little bit, that we are very cautious because this regard shown by the UK Government to the Senedd's last LCM, which we opposed, and it was totally rejected by the UK Government and the majority of Members in Westminster who voted to support the Bill that we had actually said 'no' to. I think this highlights the issue about the LCM procedure. 

Now, we need new and robust constitutional safeguards for the sake of good governance of the UK as whole, something I know Members have heard many times in this Chamber. But to be clear, on a more positive note, the Counsel General, before the committee yesterday, highlighted the fact that there have been different approaches in the trade agenda and arena, and I think, in the future international trade agreements that will be had, that type of approach needs to be followed far more, and we look forward to seeing a concordat, which I will highlight should have been signed 12 months ago, but we're still waiting for it to be signed. So, it is important and it needs to be done, but we do recognise that there has been a move in a different direction. So, there's inconsistency even within the UK Government's approach at the moment, and this inconsistency needs to end. 

We do see a role for the Senedd as well in the future scrutiny of international agreements, and the amendments laid—the Counsel General highlighted today—also include, if you think about it, consideration should be made of regulations we make for changes to any standards we wish to make as well, so that they are considered in any international agreement. And there's no reflection upon that, it's just UK standards, not Welsh or Scottish standards. So, we need to ensure that. We do see a role for the Senedd, but as far as consideration of this Bill is concerned and the questions about legislative consent it poses, it does remind us we need more than oral commitments from UK Government Ministers, we need amendments to Bills. And I would hope that, in future, we get a very strong message sent to the UK Government that that is what is wanted. Diolch.