In many ways, the contribution I’ll make to this short debate will echo that of the previous speaker and the Chair of the committee. We’ve had this conversation as a committee, and it is important. As somebody who has sat in this place for a number of years now, we’ve seen LCMs come and we’ve seen them go, and they normally exist in order to provide a mechanism for a marginal change in policy or to enable Welsh Ministers to ensure a level of continuity on both sides of the border, where that is necessary.

The current Counsel General and the previous Counsel General have been clear that the role of LCMs should not be expanded in order to meet the policy objectives of the Government as a whole, and I feel that is what we are seeing—a creeping growth of LCMs to bypass democracy here in Cardiff. This causes me some real, significant problems, because what we have here—. I sympathise with the Minister. If she put her proposal, in policy terms, in front of us, I’d be first in the queue to vote for it. I think the policy objective is absolutely right. But what she’s doing is seeking the consent of the Westminster Parliament to provide Welsh Ministers with powers, and she’s not seeking the consent of this Parliament for those powers. She says she’ll go through the affirmative procedure when those powers are granted, and I accept that, and I’m glad she’s doing that. However, this is profoundly wrong. The Counsel General has made it very, very clear, and previous Ministers have made it very clear as well, that our democracy and our legislative processes have to be protected.

Unlike the previous speaker, I will vote with the Government this afternoon, but I will say as well to the Government that that is not a carte blanche in order to bring through LCMs in order to avoid our democracy, to avoid our scrutiny and to bypass our legislature. I suspect that we need a fuller debate on these matters. Presiding Officer, this might be a matter for yourself in the Chair. I raised this matter, as you know, during business questions earlier today, and the Minister in answering was very clear: 'We need these powers', she said. Well, when she said 'we', of course she didn’t mean us; it wasn’t a collective 'we' in this Chamber. It was the Welsh Government who wanted those powers, and the Welsh Government is accountable to this place. I would suggest that whilst we might wave this through on this occasion, we have a wider and more profound debate about the place of LCMs, because I’ve seen, and we’ve all seen, the United Kingdom Government roller-coaster through our democracy. They’ve put a steamroller through our democracy and our powers over the last few years, and the Welsh Government have been absolutely right in standing up for Welsh democracy. Ministers know I’ve supported them 100 per cent on that, but it’s for the same reason that I can’t allow them to do the same thing.