Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:12 pm on 15 February 2022.
That's the Bill I'm discussing at the moment. This Bill will give conferred powers to UK Ministers to make secondary legislation within devolved areas. We don't agree with it, we won't give consent on this occasion, but then again, we're more than happy to give consent to the health and social care legislation. This Welsh Government cannot have the penny and the bun. Either we're unhappy that they have powers to legislate, either we are concerned about the constitutional risk to this place, or we are not. Where are we when it comes to these?
There's this idea that we are concerned here that it's not on the face of the Bill that they won't amend primary legislation, that it's not on the face of the Bill that they won't amend the Government of Wales Act 2006, the very foundation of our devolution settlement, yet in a previous legislative consent motion, we described that as a minor constitutional risk. Well, I'm not willing to take any risk with regard to the constitution of Wales when we view this Government. There's this idea that a despatch box promise means anything—it's not binding on this current Government, and it's certainly not binding on any future Government. Why are we allowing ourselves time and time again to fall into this trap?
I agree that many of these Bills that come before us have good clauses within them—clauses, of course, we will support—but we've got to decide: is it our role as the Welsh Parliament to legislate on behalf of the people of Wales within our current devolution settlement, or the role of the UK Conservative Government?