4. Will the Counsel General make a statement on proposals for a standing commission to consider the constitutional future of Wales? OQ56688

Thank you for the question. We are working rapidly to make the commission a reality. We want it to lead a conversation with the people of Wales to find a consensus among citizens and civic society about devolution and the constitution. I will be making further announcements about the commission next month.  

We welcome that statement and the focus very much on that wider civic engagement with people out there in Wales. If I can turn, as well, to proposition 20 of the document 'Reforming our Union: Shared Governance in the UK', the second edition, it says there,

'It continues to be our view'— the Welsh Government view—

'that future constitutional reform needs to be considered from a UK-wide perspective, but', it goes on,

'there is as yet no commitment from the UK government for that national debate across the UK which is clearly needed.'

So, could I ask the Counsel General how does he see that the work here in Wales may influence the wider constitutional debate in the UK? And what specific actions will he take to persuade the UK Government, or in the absence of a willing partner there for now, then the Parliaments of the UK—including the two chambers in Westminster—and the burgeoning mayoralties across the UK to build that case, that a constitutional convention on a UK-wide basis is needed in addition to the work that may be carried out here in Wales?

Thank you very much for that very thoughtful question, and very difficult question to answer, certainly in the time that the Deputy Presiding Officer is going to allow me. We argued for many years about a convention—a convention being a mechanism for actually bringing all these issues together and deciding on the future of the UK. What is the purpose of the UK? How should it exist? What should its basic principles be? Should it exist, even? So, that issue of a convention has been argued for a long time. One of the problems, to some extent, as you've identified, is that the window of opportunity for such a convention begins to dissipate, particularly when you have moves as they are within Scotland, when you see the problems that are now emerging in Northern Ireland, and also even some of the disagreements that have taken place within England itself. The first thing is there has to be a process that is of ongoing engagement. There has to be a process where we continually seek to engage with the UK Government, and we will continue to make every endeavour to engage in a rational and reasoned way with the UK Government.

I think the point that you have to make out, of course, is that if you have this level of challenge ahead, not tackling it causes problems to increase, and the risk of the fragmentation and break-up of the UK, as the First Minister has said on a number of occasions, is closer than it has ever been in his lifetime, and it's certainly closer than it has ever been in my lifetime. As I say, I think we have to form alliances with those within all parties who recognise that, and I do take some confidence—and you will know from your own involvement in the inter-parliamentary forum, that I was also then involved in—from the actual scale of common agreement that there is across parties, including senior Conservative figures, such as Bernard Jenkin, who was chair of the UK's influential Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and across the various Parliaments and the Northern Ireland Assembly as well, when we were able to engage with it, that the current arrangements aren't working, they're not fit for purpose, they are aggravated now by the constitutional change situation that we're in as a result of leaving the EU, and if it's not fit for purpose, then you've got to address it, and the question is how do you actually address it.

So, we will keep calling for that convention, because that is a way of bringing everyone together to actually try to address this in a rational way. But, in the absence of that, we will take our own lead in terms of determining where Wales is. What must happen within Wales is that any constitutional reform must not be something that becomes the diktat of any commission that's based in London or any other part of the UK other than Wales. We have to determine our own future, and, as I've said, I think last week, for me, we have a change in sovereignty from the situation we had when devolution was first established. Then it was the devolution of power to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, but since the creation of legislatures, sovereignty now lies with the people and it lies with those Parliaments, and the concept of shared sovereignty is, I believe, the only one that has any credibility and has got to be the basis, I think, for all constitutional reforms for the future.