I hesitate to expand on any matters in this forum, but I'm grateful. I think it's right that James Evans has thanked other members of the committee. I'd like to add to that Rhys ab Owen and, of course, other Members who have sat in this place—Jayne Bryant and Peter Fox as well have contributed to the work of the committee. I also want to thank of course not only the Chair, but the secretariat as well, who do a superb job in providing support for the committee. I'd like to echo the words of the committee Chair as well in thanking the Counsel General for his willingness to attend the committee. At one point, I felt he was attending more committee meetings than some Members, and I have sat in this place long enough to know that sometimes getting the Minister in front of the committee is like pulling teeth. So, we're very grateful to the Counsel General as well, and grateful to the Permanent Secretary, who attended the committee a few weeks ago.

Members who have spoken in this debate have outlined some of the key themes that the committee has sought to address, and I think the themes that have been identified by both the Chair and by the Conservative Member are the themes that I will also seek to address. I've sat on this committee for some years over a number of different Senedds, and I've never had to deal with as many legislative consent motions as we're dealing with at the moment. I'm afraid to say to the Counsel General that the Welsh Government is a villain in this matter, and it's not simply the United Kingdom Government that is acting as a villain; they are both at fault here.

It is not right or proper that the Welsh Government seeks to avoid scrutiny of its legislation by using the channels available to it in Westminster. The people of Wales have voted for devolution, and they voted for scrutiny of this devolved Government by this legislature. It is right and proper that the legislature is able to scrutinise legislation. I have no issue with the LCM process and I've got no issue with the way it's been used in the past, because it has been used to smooth jagged edges. It's been used by Ministers on both sides of the border to enable things to happen more easily and to do so in a way that facilitates the good governance of our countries. But that is not what we're dealing with at the moment. What we're dealing with at the moment is the industrial-level avoidance of scrutiny, and we can't allow that to happen. We have to speak clearly to the Welsh Government to say, as a committee, taking the politics away from this, that we should not and we cannot accept this as a legislature. We need to be clear on that.

But we also need to be clear to the United Kingdom Government that they were not elected with a mandate to deal with these matters. We have the mandate from the people of Wales. The people of Wales have voted twice in referenda to establish a Parliament to govern this country in the way that has been determined, and it is not right or proper that the United Kingdom Government, without a mandate in this country, seeks to legislate in areas that have been devolved to Wales. It is simply wrong, and it is wrong that the Westminster Parliament is used to sledgehammer home legislation for which there is no consent in Wales. We need to be very clear about that.

The other issue I want to address is inter-governmental relationships. In terms of the progress we've seen in recent years, the First Minister reached an agreement some years ago now with the UK Government, and I welcomed that, because I felt we were moving away from some of the conflict we've seen in recent years on to a better ordered, structured relationship between our Governments. But that has not happened. We have not seen that delivered. I think it was very instructive at Counsel General's questions earlier, where the Counsel General was forced to say that we have pieces of legislation here that have not even been seen by Welsh Government officials before they're laid before us and before legislative consent motions are sought. That is simply wrong and improper and shouldn't happen. It is my strong view today that the Wales Office needs to be abolished; it needs to be replaced by proper inter-governmentalism and the workings and structures of a federal state.

There are other issues we need to address. The issue of justice was one that the Chair referred to in his introduction. I know the equalities committee is doing some work at the moment on the place of women in the judicial system, and we know that the judicial system, as, again, the Counsel General outlined at questions, is being failed by the current structure of governance of the United Kingdom. So, there are major questions here that we need to address. I believe the committee is doing an excellent job in beginning to address those, and saying some very difficult things to our own Government. I think it's right and proper that committees do that. We've just seen an excellent debate from the committee before this; I thought that was an excellent way of discussing some of the policy issues around this.

But I hope, Counsel General, in answering the debate this afternoon, you will be able to address some of these themes that the committee has identified in its first year of work, because what we are seeing in the second year is that these themes are deepening, rather than being resolved. I won't test the patience of the Deputy Presiding Officer any further, but I hope that we will also see far more transparency in inter-governmentalism to enable us to hold the Governments to account and develop inter-institutional democratic scrutiny of our governmental institutions, both here and across the United Kingdom. I'm grateful to you, Deputy Presiding Officer.