Inter-governmental Relationships

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:45 pm on 16 March 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 1:45, 16 March 2021

Well, Llywydd, I certainly agree with Delyth Jewell that I have no sympathy at all with what Mr Reckless stands for or proposes. I often feel, when that Member is asking me questions, that what he's really doing is he's accusing me of being Welsh. And it's an accusation, Llywydd, to which I plead guilty, of course—inside out, back to front, upside down; you name it, that's what I am. The Member, I'm afraid—Mr Reckless—will never understand that, and it leads to the misguided sets of ideas that he puts in front of us.

On the issue of the Secretary of State's office, I have long believed—I've believed for more than a decade, while there were Labour Governments as well as Conservative Governments—that the continued case for territorial Secretaries of State, as they are called, has diminished year by year. I think there is a case for a Whitehall ministry that takes a constructive responsibility for relationships between the nations of the United Kingdom. I think that's a proper ambition. But territorial Secretaries of State are a hangover from pre-devolution days and, as I say, I agree with Delyth Jewell that the case for them weakens all the time, and is certainly weakened when any incumbent of that office uses the sort of belittling and demeaning language that we've seen from the Secretary of State for Wales.