Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution – in the Senedd at 3:18 pm on 8 June 2022.
Thank you for that supplementary. Can I just say, in respect of the latter point you made about HS2, how pleased I am that the Welsh Conservatives now actually agree with the point we've made that there should be funding? I'm sure that their considerable influence will be listened to in Westminster and we look forward to the cheque arriving in the near future [Laughter.]
With regard to the Sewel convention, this is something that myself and the First Minister raised at the inaugural meeting of the Interministerial Standing Committee. We drew the committee's attention to the report by the House of Lords Constitution Committee, the 'Respect and Co-operation: Building a Stronger Union for the 21st century' report, in which they call for the Governments of the United Kingdom to respect the Sewel convention. We also called for the codification of the Sewel convention and the strengthening of reporting mechanisms to respective Parliaments. Consequently, officials from each of the Governments have been looking at the Sewel convention and principles for future working, and those discussions are ongoing. As a Government, we remain of the view that placing the Sewel convention on a statutory and a justiciable footing remains the most appropriate way to protect the devolution settlement and to safeguard the United Kingdom, and we will continue to press this point.