In our report on the Welsh Government’s consent memorandum for the Professional Qualifications Bill, we have identified trends that are, unfortunately, already emerging quite early within this Senedd, and we've made nine recommendations to the Minister, and our report also sets out a number of conclusions to reflect our overall consideration of the consent memorandum for the Bill.

The Minister, unfortunately, was unable to formally respond to our report in advance this afternoon. It's probably a rare, if not unique, situation, which causes some obvious issues for scrutiny, although we appreciate the Minister's apology based on the timescale, and some of this is the pressures of the timescale the other end as well. The Minister has made clear, however, that the Welsh Government will be, we understand, accepting all the recommendations in the report, and we hope in full, of course, and he highlighted in his remarks today, in particular, concerns over concurrent powers in the Bill, which we draw attention to as well. 

So, let me go through some of the areas we are concerned about. As with the Environment Bill, the Professional Qualifications Bill also contains those concurrent powers, exercisable by the Secretary of State in Wales on devolved matters. While we acknowledge that the Minister is seeking changes to the Bill to address the Welsh Government's concerns with these powers, we're not sure that the Minister's solution offers a role for the Senedd at this moment. So, we question why the Senedd is not only being denied a role in directly affecting the detail of primary legislation on a devolved matter that will take effect in Wales, but also then having no role in scrutinising the secondary legislation that will also become law in Wales. So, we consider this to be constitutionally improper.

And there is a wider issue, broader than this consent decision before us today. This is the second of 14 UK Bills that are currently the subject of Welsh Government legislative consent memoranda, and I gently remind the Welsh Government collectively and Senedd Members to consider the cumulative effect. Scrutiny of all these memoranda laid before the Senedd, whilst a heavy task, places my committee in a prime position to monitor closely the overall impact of the UK Parliament legislating on behalf of the Senedd, whether consent is given or not. And I respectfully lay that marker down today for the Welsh Government and for the UK Government.

Our report also draws attention to other matters of important constitutional significance. The combination of concurrent functions and Henry VIII powers in the Bill means that the Secretary of State or the Lord Chancellor could potentially exercise their regulation-making powers to amend Senedd Acts and regulations made by the Welsh Ministers. We do not consider this to be acceptable.

Furthermore, there is nothing in the Bill that will prevent the UK Government, whichever colour that UK Government is, from making regulations that amend the Government of Wales Act 2006, our principal devolution statute. As a matter of basic constitutional principle, the legislative competence of the Senedd should not be modified by regulations made by UK Ministers, Dirprwy Lywydd. The Bill also contains a power that effectively imports restrictions set out in the 2006 Act relevant to the making of primary legislation by this Senedd into the regulation-making process of the Welsh Ministers. Now, we would say that this is an unusual and an unwelcome power. That there is a disagreement between the Welsh and UK Governments about which provisions in the Bill relate to devolved matters, and that the scope of the Bill more generally is yet to be clarified, is also concerning.

As my final comment, I will highlight that our consideration of the memorandum has provided an example of the complexities of the post-EU-exit era. The implementation of the Bill, if and once enacted, allows the introduction of multiple domestic and international arrangements as a result, directly, of the UK's exit from the EU. To give some examples, the Bill's provisions intertwine with common frameworks and international treaties, and they operate alongside the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 and the UK's new immigration system. And this isn't a political statement; it's a factual statement. So, we would argue: