Our predecessor committee's legacy report highlighted many issues that will be relevant to the work of the commission. It drew attention to the operation and the effectiveness of the Sewel convention and indeed the tensions that have existed between Governments and the need for all Governments and Parliaments to find a shared understanding of the application of that convention. Our predecessor committee also suggested that we monitor the use of inter-governmental agreements, as well as the effectiveness of how the Welsh and UK Governments are working together. And on that latter point, we look forward to the outcome of the long-awaited inter-governmental relations review. The Counsel General told our committee that the Welsh Government was now more optimistic than it has been in the past, and that considerable progress has been made.

Our predecessor committee also issued a warning that the use of legislative consent memoranda allowing the UK Government to legislate in devolved areas becomes increasingly constitutionally irregular if changes made to the Welsh statute book are substantial and significant, and we are already concerned. Less than six months into a new Senedd, and already, consent memoranda for 14 UK Bills have been laid, with the promise of more to come. So, we are taking a close interest in why the Welsh Government appears content to allow, or indeed, to support the UK Government legislating so extensively within devolved areas.  

Our committee notes say in passing the reinstatement of the Welsh Government position that in your view a strong Wales within a stable union is the best option for the citizens of Wales. We note also with interest in the statement that the first objective of the independent commission will be to consider and develop durable options for Welsh devolution in the context of a continuing United Kingdom of four nations, and we note also with perhaps heightened interest that the independent commission's second key objective will be to consider and develop durable solutions, options for Wales, in the event of a United Kingdom that begins to dissolve from the four-nations model. In other words, you say in your statement what might Wales's constitutional place be in a United Kingdom from which one of its constituent parts has elected to leave.