2. Will the First Minister provide an update on the functioning of the relationship between the Welsh Government and UK Government? OQ57472

I thank Ken Skates, Llywydd, for that question. We welcome the final agreement of the inter-governmental review in the fourth calendar year of that process. We now need a UK Government capable of discharging its responsibilities rather than one paralysed by the unfolding crises of a deeply dysfunctional Downing Street.

Diolch, First Minister. Like you, I welcome the agreements on the final outcome of the inter-governmental review, again, at long last, as you said. But of course, as you pointed to, governments can only operate effectively if they are stable and focused purely on serving the public good. It's been disturbing to read about the parties, the lockdown law breaking, and the Prime Minister's precarious leadership position, all of which I fear risks, as you said, paralysing the UK Government and therefore undermining the inter-governmental relations until there is a new leader. First Minister, are you able to offer us any reassurance that the UK Government is able to discharge its functions responsibly given all that has happened in Downing Street during the course of the pandemic?

Llywydd, I'm afraid I don't think I can offer such a reassurance. The UK Government, it seems to me, is trapped in the headlights of the events that it has brought upon itself by its utter disregard for the rules that the rest of us are bound by. And in an attempt now to escape from the dilemmas that it itself has created, everything it does is seen through that lens. Every statement that is made, any policy initiative that is put forward is not motivated by the needs of the country or the importance of addressing the key challenges that we face; every one of them is seen through the lens of how this Government can escape from the mire into which it has plunged itself. And in those circumstances, I'm afraid, on the things that Ken Skates pointed to—the need for stability, the need for a government focused on serving the public good—I can't offer any assurances that the current state of the UK Government is conducive to those sorts of qualities.

Of course, the UK Government, First Minister, has delivered a world-beating vaccination programme that has been of great benefit to people across Wales, and it's also released significant resources across the country to help businesses and individuals overcome the challenges of the pandemic. And in spite of your assertion that it's incapable of operating properly, it actually released the report on the review of inter-governmental relations last week. As you said in your initial answer to the Member for Clwyd South, you welcomed warmly the publication of that report, because of course it will change the working arrangements between governments across the UK and hopefully will deliver significant improvements for people living and working across the whole of the United Kingdom. One of the things that the inter-governmental review did not touch on was the accountability framework behind which the new system of working together could sit. Would you agree with me that we now need to look at an inter-parliamentary body in order to hold the various Governments to account for the new working arrangements to make sure that they really do deliver on the aspirations set out in the review?

Llywydd, I did welcome the outcome of the IGR. I was there in 2018 when it was initiated by Theresa May and the First Ministers of the time, and the Welsh Government and Welsh civil servants in particular have invested many, many hours in trying to make sure that we make that document as good as it can be. There are some accountability measures within it. It does lead to governments across the United Kingdom placing various documents and reports in front of the four Parliaments. I'm absolutely open to the point that Mr Millar makes about parliamentary bodies working together to improve accountability, but that of course would be for them rather than for any government to lead. I've welcomed very regularly the money that the UK Government has invested in sustaining the economy during the COVID crisis. I've always believed that the ability to secure vaccines for use across the United Kingdom was better done on a UK basis, although the implementation of vaccination and, of course, the programme that has made use of it have been in the hands of the different governments of the United Kingdom. All of those things I have no difficulty in acknowledging. I imagine that, in the privacy of his own committee rooms, the Member himself would recognise that this is not a good time for the UK Government, and its ability to live up to the ambitions of the IGR is inevitably compromised by the events of recent times and the way in which the UK Government has turned in on itself in order to try to find a way through the mess of its own making.

Prif Weinidog, I was also glad, like you and Mr Skates, to read the review of inter-governmental relations last week, and the setting up of independent dispute resolution. As we know, such a process is needed to effectively combat a Westminster Government that is legislating time and time again within devolved areas, but also restricting the rights of the people of Wales to protest, to vote, to use judicial review and to use the European convention of human rights to quash secondary legislation. However, my concern, Prif Weinidog, is that there won't be a statutory standing basis to this new system and it will not be binding on the Government. With a Westminster Government that has completely ignored the Sewel convention—the Sewel convention has gone out through the window with this Government—how confident are you that this new system will lead to respect towards this Parliament, but even more importantly, to respect for the rights of the people of Wales? Diolch yn fawr.

Well, diolch yn fawr, Llywydd. Those are all important points. This Government opposes the UK Government's importation of techniques from the United States to suppress voting amongst populations who it thinks who may not be supportive of their political party. We opposed the restrictions on judicial review, which I see the UK Government has revived again, and we oppose the measures that they intend to introduce to limit people's ability to carry out legitimate protest. So, I agree with all the points that the Member made there. 

The inter-governmental review isn't perfect, but it is a significant advance on where we have been up until now. One of the most significant advances, and this was one of the areas that the Welsh Government and Welsh civil servants led on, as part of the review, is in the introduction of that independent dispute avoidance, and then resolution, mechanism. It's been entirely unsatisfactory that, when a devolved government attempted to raise a dispute within the arrangements of the Joint Ministerial Committee, it was the UK Government alone who could, first of all, decide whether the dispute was admissible—so, it dealt with some disputes simply by saying it didn't recognise there was a dispute—and then, even if it was admissible, it turned out to be the judge and the jury and the court of appeal and all the other things that you'd expect in relation to a dispute. That is now on a very different basis. Not, as the Member said, entrenched in statute, but there for everybody to see, and with a very significant political penalty for a government that tried, having signed up to the agreement, then to ride roughshod through it. So, parties of very different political persuasion—the Conservative Party in London, the SNP in Scotland, Sinn Fein and the DUP in Northern Ireland, and the Labour Government in Wales—we're all signed up to the review, and we certainly will approach it in the spirit of doing everything we can to make sure that we all now live up to the new ways that that review has agreed.