Firstly, thank you for your question. And I think the increase in the number of LCMs where we are not recommending consent is a result of a number of things. Firstly, the scale of UK Government legislation, but secondly, the extent to which that legislation seeks to intrude very directly into devolved areas. The position that we are taking on those is to understand collectively what is happening as a result of that legislation, but also to identify within it a number of principles. That is, we won’t refuse consent just as a matter of course; we will look to see what benefit there is in Wales to a particular proposal in legislation and will it benefit the citizens of Wales. Of course, if it relates to a devolved power, our priority is, as far as is reasonably practicable, to deal with legislation within Wales on those matters through Welsh legislation. Sometimes that is not possible because of the scale of legislation, because of the priorities, and sometimes because there are common interests, and sometimes even concurrent powers that are valid.

What I can say also is that what is very clear from what I have seen in the few months that I’ve been Counsel General, that builds a little bit on what I saw in my previous role in the last Senedd as Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, is that there is an incredible degree of inconsistency. There are areas where it is possible to work with UK Ministers and where progress is being made, where there is an understanding of Sewel, and there has been very collaborative work, and there is a respect towards Sewel. But, of course, there are other areas where there is a complete disregard. We saw, for example, during the Senedd elections, a piece of legislation on the animal welfare sentencing provisions, which clearly required Senedd consent but they decided to proceed irrespective.

The other area of disrespect is, of course, announcing legislation that clearly is going to impact on us but where we do not have any proper engagement on that legislation, on those issues that may affect us, and we are presented with that legislation almost at the last minute, almost as though it is a fait accompli. Of course, the demands then that that has on Welsh Government resources in order to tackle that are extremely difficult.

Now, what I do think is important, where there is some progress being made, is again in terms of the inter-governmental review, where discussions between the four nations have been taking place, where it is hoped that we may achieve—and let's say 'we may achieve', and we have to wait and see what that progress is—what we desperately need, and that is a proper system for the four nations to meet together, a proper secretariat to support the work of that, an independent secretariat, and a proper disputes process. As the Member will well know, and it’s something I’ve referred to on a number of occasions, it is no good having a system where we write and say, 'This is a matter of our competence, therefore it requires legislative consent', and UK Government replies to us and says, 'We don’t agree, and that’s the end of the matter.' That is not a proper constitutional way for Governments to work together. So, there has been a lot of work behind the scenes. There is progress being made. I’m hoping that there will be positive announcements in due course, but we’ve been down this road before and we tread very cautiously.