Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:00 pm on 14 September 2021.

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Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 2:00, 14 September 2021

Well, I agree with two important things in what the leader of Plaid Cymru has said, Llywydd. First of all, I absolutely agree that one of the huge advantages of devolution is that it allows for experimentation; that it allows for policy ideas to be tried out, for radical ideas to be given a practical opportunity to demonstrate what they can achieve. And I definitely want this term and this Government to be part of that living laboratory of devolution, as it was referred to, wasn't it, by Bill Clinton in the American context. And I agree as well that the current settlement is far too full of ragged edges, and frankly inexplicable anomalies. How is it that Wales has responsibility for bus services, for train services, for active travel, but it explicitly in the Government of Wales Act said that we have no responsibility for hovercraft services? Now, who was it in Whitewall who thought that of all the things that we could be in charge of in Wales, we expressly could not be trusted to be in charge of hovercrafts? And that is just one example. The last Act that set out the reserved-powers model is shot through with anomalies of that sort. Indeed, the Welsh Government produced a draft Bill that would have produced a much more coherent line between reserved and devolved responsibilities. So, I agree very much with what the leader of Plaid Cymru said: that that is a debate that nobody sensible could regard as concluded.