Item 7 this afternoon is a debate on the Legislation, Justice and the Constitution Committee report, 'Annual Report 2021/22', and I call on the committee chair to move the motion. Huw Irranca-Davies.

Motion NDM8119 Huw Irranca-Davies

To propose that the Senedd:

Notes the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee: Annual Report 2021/22, which was laid in the Table Office on 12 October 2022.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. It's a pleasure to speak this afternoon and draw the Senedd's attention to the work of the Legislation, Justice and the Constitution Committee during the first full year of the sixth Senedd. Before I start, I would like to place on record our thanks to the Counsel General for his willingness to appear before us and answer our questions on a regular basis.

It is truly appreciated.

Our remit is quite considerable, and our scrutiny responsibilities are almost always subject to timetables and deadlines set either by Standing Orders or the Business Committee. And the scrutiny of subordinate legislation is part of our bread-and-butter work. In the first year, indeed, we considered more than 250 pieces of subordinate legislation made by Welsh Ministers. In part, this can be attributed to the Welsh Government's desire to fully implement Acts passed in previous Seneddau. One such Act is the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. The case study in our report highlights our scrutiny of the subordinate legislation that implements this Act and the corrections we identified. This shows the importance of our—and the Senedd's—scrutiny role, not least given that subordinate legislation makes up a significant percentage of the law that impacts on the daily lives of our constituents.

It is fair to say that we had not expected, during the first year of the sixth Senedd, to have spent quite so much time reporting on the Welsh Government's legislative consent memoranda for UK Bills. We expressed concern at the extent to which the UK Government is seeking to legislate in devolved areas, notably in circumstances where it is with the support of the Welsh Government. Reporting on memoranda for legislation being made in the UK Parliament, which we have no scope to influence or shape, is frustrating.

We would have preferred to have contributed to the improvement of legislation being made here in the Senedd, as a means of delivering the best possible solutions for communities across Wales—a role, of course, for which we as Senedd Members are elected. This also highlights one of the problems with the legislative consent process: there is no role for the Senedd to influence a decision of the Welsh Government to pursue provisions in a UK Bill in the first place.

Now, we do recognise, Counsel General, that in some cases it is appropriate to use UK Bills to legislate in devolved areas. However, our report highlights that the Welsh Government's principles for using UK Bills to legislate contain—we think—too many caveats and get-out clauses, which in our view render those principles of little practical value in this sixth Senedd period. So, we do therefore intend to draft our own principles by which we can then hold the Government to account.

Overall, Counsel General, we are concerned that too much legislation in devolved areas is being made in the UK Parliament. In certain circumstances, the Welsh Government and the UK Government could legislate in parallel, which would allow for co-operation between Governments where appropriate and for the Senedd to undertake its primary legislative scrutiny role.

Ultimately, the effect of the Welsh Government seeking devolved provision in UK Government Bills or the UK Government including devolved provision in a Bill without any consultation is one and the same: the creation of a democratic deficit and a corresponding decline in accountability here in Wales. That should concern us all, because if this approach continues, there is a danger that it could undermine the Senedd as a legislature and the underlying principles of devolution.

Our report highlights our scrutiny of two Bills introduced to the Senedd in the first year, where we were able to influence the Welsh Government to amend those Bills. It also draws attention to our concerns about the Welsh Government's approach to making law on matters of taxation—and I can see the Chair of a sister committee here as well—and in particular our desire to see primary legislation, rather than subordinate legislation, used to change tax law. Such an approach, we would argue, would respect the democratic mandate and the legislative supremacy of the Senedd.

So, let me turn now to matters concerning the constitution and to external affairs. A new inter-institutional relationship agreement has been agreed for the sixth Senedd, and we have been monitoring how the Welsh Government is performing against its commitments to share information with the Senedd and its committees. Broadly, we believe that the agreement is working well, and we will work constructively with the Welsh Government to help it make some improvements, whilst maintaining the integrity of our scrutiny function.

We have started to pay particular attention to the circumstances in which the Welsh Ministers are consenting to the UK Government making subordinate legislation in devolved areas. In particular, we have raised concerns at the limited time available to committees to give an informed view on whether the Welsh Government should give its consent. This is an issue that we will continue to monitor. It's one that is assuming greater importance, not least with the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill having recently been introduced to the UK Parliament.

For those not aware, before the end of 2023 the UK Government is currently planning for it and the devolved Governments to review all retained EU law in order to decide what to keep, to reform or to remove. This amounts to a significant undertaking, because the UK Government estimates that there are approximately 2,400 pieces of retained EU law in force. That figure does not include retained EU law made in Wales and, as many of you will be aware, reports emerged yesterday that the figure is now likely to be closer to 3,800 pieces. If the timescale introduced by the Bill is not changed, it will represent a huge burden, not just for the Welsh Government but for my committee and actually for the Senedd as a whole. It could well threaten the ability of the Welsh Government and the Senedd to function effectively.

Another area of our remit is that of UK-EU governance, and our report sets out the work we have done, which includes mapping the responsibilities of the Welsh Government, monitoring its engagement in post-Brexit UK-EU committees and securing a commitment from the First Minister to improve transparency on these matters. This work has formed the basis of our continued engagement with the EU institutions, including the UK-EU Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, which met again for the second time this week.

Our report also details our overarching role on common frameworks and the work we have undertaken on international agreements. Monitoring the implementation and operation of international agreements is important in order to assess their impact on Wales, and so it is pleasing to report the success we've had in securing more information from the Welsh Government in this area to aid that process. Moreover, our work has enabled us to further develop our engagement with committees in other Parliaments—something that is of increasing importance.

That represents another aspect of what we do that I'd like to highlight today: it's building those productive relationships with other Parliaments in the UK so that we share knowledge, with the collective aim of holding our respective Governments to account. In the last 12 months, we have hosted committees from the House of Commons and the House of Lords and, last June, we met committees from those Houses in Westminster to discuss areas of mutual interest. Just before recess, the Interparliamentary Forum met in the Senedd to discuss, amongst other things, inter-governmental relations, the Northern Ireland protocol, the retained EU law Bill, as well as holding a really excellent Q&A session with the Counsel General, who once again gave his time very willingly.

As I indicated at the start of my speech, the breadth of this committee’s remit is challenging, and with a substantial proportion of our time being taken up with the consideration of legislative matters, our scope to be proactive in scrutinising justice issues has been limited. We recognise that there are significant challenges facing citizens in Wales related to the operation of the justice system. We have met with the president of Welsh Tribunals, the Law Council of Wales and Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd on matters relating to justice in Wales and, for the first time, we undertook draft budget scrutiny on aspects of the Welsh Government’s justice portfolio. The commitments the Counsel General gave to increasing transparency on delivering the justice work programme and on the Welsh Government’s spending on justice are very welcome, and we look forward to judging progress in the next budget scrutiny round.

We also welcome the steps the Welsh Government has taken this year to respond positively to the Commission on Justice in Wales’s recommendations and support its continued joint working with the Ministry of Justice to identify the recommendations it can take forward in partnership. Although progress is being made, it is evident from engagement work that we undertook with legal practitioners that there is still much work to do to respond to the challenges currently faced by the legal sector and the barriers faced by those seeking access to justice in Wales.

So, as my comments this afternoon highlight, our ability to be proactive is somewhat limited at the moment. But, to counter this, we consider and we publish regular monitoring reports, highlighting developments within the range of subjects we cover, and then we draw them to the public’s attention as well as to that of the Senedd. It is also why we decided to prepare this annual report, to pull together in one place all the work we have undertaken between May 2021 and August 2022, and I invite the Senedd to note this report.

In closing, can I thank all the Members of the Senedd who have contributed to the work that is reflected in this report, the members of my committee, and also our clerks and research team, without whom we would frankly be submerged beneath the deluge? I look forward to other contributions this afternoon from committee members and from others, and including the Minister's response as well. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

As a newish member of this committee, it really has been an eye-opener for me, being a part of the committee, to the legislative process of the Senedd and all the inter-governmental working and the sheer breadth of the work the committee does. I'd just like to put on record my thanks to our Chair, Huw Irranca-Davies, for the excellent work he does chairing that committee, and to our vice-chair who stepped into the void the other day and chaired the meeting excellently, I'd like to say.

I don't intend to speak for long, Deputy Llywydd—I'm sure you'll be pleased about that—and I'm probably not going to make some career-enhancing comments, actually, with regard to the legislative consent process. The two things I did want to talk about relate to how the UK Government and Welsh Government legislative consent process just isn't working. One thing that did shock me was the sheer lack of engagement from the UK Government with the Welsh Government on certain elements of legislation; some parts of the UK Government and some departments engage early, other departments from UK Government are shocking—they don't engage early enough on areas that have devolved competence. From my personal point of view, having LCMs sent to the Welsh Government with days or hours to go, saying, 'Can you please consent to this?' is simply disrespectful, it's poor practice with regard to inter-governmental relations, and that simply needs to change. The UK Government need to do more to improve those relationships, because if we are going to see the United Kingdom and all Parliaments working well together, there does need to be mutual respect of all elements of legislatures across the country.

The second point I wanted to make was one that has been highlighted potentially in the media, which is that this Senedd is a legislature in its own right, and we owe it to the people of Wales to be using this place to create Welsh law for Welsh people. The committee raised this; we do think that the Welsh Government is using the UK Government far too much to legislate on devolved areas. This is bypassing scrutiny; it is bypassing our committees and the democratically elected Members here who should be scrutinising this law for Welsh people. That is a matter that does need to be addressed, and I hope the Counsel General, when he responds to the report, will actually pull that together and hopefully give us some answers around that, because I know that's something that the committee really do want to see. As I said, we are a legislature in our own right, and we owe it to the people of Wales, and owe it to our Senedd Members, to respect that.

I don't intend to talk any more; I'm at the two-minute mark and I'm sure my colleague Alun Davies will expand on these matters in a far more eloquent way than I have. But I'd just like to thank Huw Irranca-Davies, Alun Davies and Rhys ab Owen for the great work they do on our committee and being fantastic Members representing this committee and the people of Wales. Diolch.

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.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute today. It was a pleasure to be a member of the committee following my election last May, and I'm really grateful for the way the Chairman and members of the committee welcomed me to that position as a new boy. I also commend the excellent official support for the committee—an outstanding set of officers, and thank you to them. Deputy Presiding Officer, as you'll know, I'm no longer a member of the committee, but I welcome the committee Chair's statement and thank him for his work on leading the committee in such a collegiate and constructive manner. That was very welcome.

One of the main, overarching points, as we've already heard, raised by the report is the  interaction between UK Government and Welsh Government when it comes to law making. I would like to reaffirm the point that it is important that the current and future UK Governments respect the devolution settlement, and also agree that there needs to be better inter-governmental working. We are all facing huge challenges at the moment; we need to work together constructively and effectively on these. And so, it is my hope that the new agreement on inter-governmental relations published earlier this year will be fine-tuned over time to ensure that there is improved co-operation on issues of shared interest. It is in this regard that I welcome the previous work of the committee in scrutinising relations between both Governments, and I hope that its future work will help to support an improvement in those relations.

The committee makes a number of points. We've heard already this afternoon about the use of LCMs and what it sees as an over-reliance on this procedure to create law in Wales. And, to some extent, I do sympathise with that point. We do receive a lot of LCMs and there are opportunities for the Welsh Government to look at implementing more made-in-Wales legislation that the Senedd can directly influence. So, there is a question for the Government as to how, as part of its law reform programme, it can increase its legislative capacity. There are also questions for the Senedd as to how we can operate to allow more legislation to be considered, particularly from backbench and opposition Members. However, I would say that we shouldn't seek to unnecessarily duplicate work where the UK Government and Welsh Government believe that it's more cost-effective, quicker and more appropriate to introduce legislation at a UK level.

Finally, Deputy Llywydd, the LJC committee report makes some interesting points about the complexity of Welsh law. As somebody who was new to scrutinising the various types of law that exist whilst on that committee, I was just somewhat surprised by how complex and procedural some of our discussions were. I welcome the Government's programme of work that is looking at making Welsh law more accessible. In this regard, I think that the committee also has a role to play in encouraging people to think more about the law and to look for more opportunities to engage with members of the public around its work. 

To conclude, Deputy Presiding Officer, I reiterate my thanks to the committee and the Chair for all of their work, and wish them well in future years. 

I call on the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution, Mick Antoniw.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I have listened to contributions to this debate with great interest. I would like to pay tribute to the committee for its work, and I'd like to thank Members for the report. Of course, as a former Chair of this committee, I have an understanding of its work, and I do acknowledge the comments made in the report on how challenging the remit of the committee is in terms of managing your workload and delivering against that workload.

Effective scrutiny by committees is extremely important in order to ensure good governance, and it is a crucial part of parliamentary democracy. The report, broadly speaking, separates into three sections, which consider the committee's work in scrutinising legislation, constitutional issues and, thirdly, justice. I will make my comments today based on similar sections.

Dirprwy Lywydd, I'm grateful for the committee's role in scrutinising primary and secondary legislation, particularly against the challenging context we have all been operating and continue to operate in since Brexit and the start of the pandemic. The committee has scrutinised an unprecedented volume of subordinate legislation. As the excellent report highlights, the committee has reported on 234 items of subordinate legislation during the 12-month period, compared to 111 items in the same period of the fifth Senedd. So, this represents a significant increase in the committee's work.

The report provides some useful examples of how the committee has taken forward its scrutiny of subordinate legislation, and I agree with the reference in the report that this demonstrates the important role the committee has and has developed in ensuring that subordinate legislation should be as clear and as accessible as possible. I also welcome the acknowledgement that the Welsh Government shares this goal.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

Turning to Bills, as the First Minister set out in his latest statement on the legislative programme on 5 July, we are moving forward with an ambitious programme of primary legislation. We have introduced the first six Bills of this Senedd term and the committee has played a significant and fundamental role in those to date. I'd like to thank the committee and the Chair for their work on the first two Bills of this term that have been passed by the Senedd, namely the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act and the Welsh Tax Acts etc. (Power to Modify) Act. The report refers to 40 recommendations that were made in relation to both of those Bills, and it draws out some of the overarching themes and issues in scrutinising the Bills to date. As we go forward with our legislative programme, we will reflect on those themes.

Now, the report mentions the committee's current work on two Bills that are currently making their way through the Senedd: the Social Partnership and Public Procurement (Wales) Bill and the Historic Environment (Wales) Bill. I think the historic environment Bill is worth a particular mention, given that it is the first consolidation Bill and the committee is the lead scrutiny committee for it. The Environmental Protection (Single-use Plastic Products) (Wales) Bill and the Agriculture (Wales) Bill have also now been introduced to the Senedd. These are the first two Bills within year 2 of the legislative programme. These are outside the reporting period covered by the annual report, but I wanted to give my thanks to the committee, and the Senedd more generally, for their scrutiny of the single-use plastics Bill, given that it is proceeding on a fast-track timetable. 

I'd like to turn now to the UK legislation, and I recognise the comments that have been made and I will try to address them, perhaps supplementing some of the points I wanted to make. Our fundamental position remains that legislation in devolved areas should be made in Wales. However, there continue to be circumstances where provisions in UK Bills can be sensible and advantageous, provided that this does not result in any transfer of powers or responsibility and always retains the constitutional ability of the Government and the Senedd to legislate at a time more suited to, and appropriate to, our priorities and the legislative programme. We are committed, as a Government, to ensuring that our involvement with UK Bills remains consistent with our principles and to ensuring that this Senedd is afforded as much scrutiny as possible through the legislative consent memorandum process.

It is extremely rare that we would proactively approach the UK Government to legislate on our behalf; on the contrary, there has been an unacceptable number of instances in recent years of the UK Government introducing devolved provision before Parliament, of which we have had no prior sight. This has been a recurring issue in the current UK Parliament's session. This lack of engagement with the UK Government and with the Welsh Government is a major obstacle to the effective operation of the current legislative consent process. I recognise that it is a part of the nature of the committee that it operates almost in a non-partisan way because of its function as a constitution and legislative committee, and that point is actually recognised. I think there is criticism of the UK Government, just as there are criticisms, as are appropriate, to be made, as part of the scrutiny process by the committee, and I think that shows the maturity of the way the committee has been developed within our parliamentary structure.

So, we'll continue to call upon the UK Government to improve its engagement with us in relation to its legislative programme, with a view to, in turn, maximising the Senedd's scrutiny ability. I just want to add a few comments on that, because I fully recognise the issues that exist with regard to the LCM process. Of course, we do not control the UK Government's legislative programme, and, of course, the number of LCMs is not a matter that is determined by us, but is actually determined by the impact of those pieces of legislation itself. We have to respond, whether consent is given or not given, and I would just make the point, of course, that consent isn't given by the Welsh Government—it is, actually, a recommendation from the Welsh Government, but it ultimately comes to the floor of the Senedd.

But, the points you make with regard to scrutiny are right, and I think they are a fundamental part of the dysfunction of our constitutional arrangement, which does not properly contain, I think, a federalised, constitutional, parliamentary structure that enables a very different process to the development and initiation of legislation. A system where the drive of an enormous amount of UK legislation can almost dominate the entire legislative processes of devolved nations isn't the right way of going about it, and there are clearly constitutional lessons that have to be learnt there.

I welcome the committee’s conclusions on improvement to the legislative consent processes and hope we can continue to work collaboratively to further strengthen the Senedd’s ability to scrutinise legislation and collectively defend the devolution settlement. The UK Government’s repeated breaches of the Sewel convention are unacceptable and they display, I think, a lack of respect for this democratically elected institution and the people it represents. The First Minister and I expressed our deep concern at the inaugural meeting of the Interministerial Standing Committee in March and again at the meeting in June, and we called for the codification of the convention and the strengthening of reporting mechanisms to respective Parliaments. Since then, officials from all four Governments have been looking at the convention and principles for future working. Of course, the only way to conclusively protect the devolution settlement and safeguard the future of the United Kingdom is, in my view, to place the convention on a statutory and justiciable footing, and this is something that we continue to strongly pursue. As a Welsh Government, we will also do what we can to ensure that this legislature gets the opportunity to properly scrutinise UK legislation that engages the Sewel convention and requires our consent.

But late engagement from UK Government can bring extreme time pressures to this. The emergency energy Bill was a case in point. Early and effective engagement between the Welsh Government and the UK Government is essential in all areas of policy, but where the UK Government is going to propose legislation, this is absolutely vital. These are not small matters, and the UK Government must recognise the legitimate and sometimes time-consuming detailed analysis that the Welsh Government and this institution must undertake. It is also fair to say that inter-governmental relationships have not been strong over the last few months. The instability within UK Government has prevented full meaningful engagement and progress in many areas. But we now have a new Prime Minister and a new Cabinet. We are committed to building positive working relationships where we can, and now is the moment to reset those relationships and take a fresh look together at the challenging issues, including the cost-of-living crisis. For that, we need genuine, open engagement. The mechanisms agreed as part of the review of inter-governmental relations can take us some way, and I know that the committee has been monitoring how those mechanisms are actually working on the ground. So, it is clearly vital that we work to embed the new structures, but inter-governmental relations go beyond set-piece meetings and cannot be measured solely by the number of meetings that take place. So, all Governments must adhere to the spirit as well as the letter of the inter-governmental review.

Just a few comments, to finish, on justice. I’ve been very pleased to attend the committee to discuss matters pertaining to justice. The Welsh Government is absolutely clear that we agree with Lord Thomas’s conclusions that the justice system lets down the people of Wales and that justice should be devolved. We explore these issues in more detail in our ‘Delivering Justice for Wales’ report, which the Minister for Social Justice and I launched in May, and it provides the basis for further engagement. Justice is another area where the chaos that has riven the UK Government has had an impact on the progress we’ve been able to make. So, whilst recognising that the two Governments’ fundamental positions differ, we have sought to make changes where we can, and this has proved especially difficult with such a regularly and rapidly changing ministerial team in the Ministry of Justice. I think there have been, rather unbelievably, nine different justice Secretaries since the Conservatives came to power.

So, we'll continue to work with the UK Government to make positive changes, even if they fall at the margins, and there are good things to report with good examples, I believe, of collaborative working on justice within Wales. There are projects happening or in the pipeline that are already welcome and interesting. I know I’ve commented on some of these before, whether that’s the family drug and alcohol court pilot in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan, the Grand Avenues pilot in Caerau and Ely, or the women’s pathfinder whole-system approach and the 18 to 25 diversionary service. Now, none of these things will address the fundamental failings that I think we are increasingly identifying. This Government has made it clear that our commitment is to the devolution of policing and justice, and it is a commitment that we will continue to pursue because it is about the better delivery of policing and justice. In the meantime, I welcome the committee's engagement with these issues, and particularly its intention to pursue attendance from Ministry of Justice Ministers.

So, in drawing to a close, Dirprwy Lywydd, I'd like again to pay my tribute to the committee for their work across a particularly broad remit, and for publishing such a thorough and detailed annual report. I hope that we get to a stage where we do not have to go through the detail of the retained EU law Bill, but that's something that, unfortunately, I suspect we will have to do. Diolch yn fawr. 

I call now on Huw Irranca-Davies, the Chair, to reply to the debate. 

Diolch, Llywydd, and in my short response here, can I just first of all thank the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution for the serious, thoughtful and considered way in which he's responded to this debate, and it typifies his approach to the broad remit of the work of this committee? We really welcome that. And on that basis, can I first of all turn to the comments from current and former members of this committee? Comment was made by Peter Fox that people on this committee have parked their political allegiances outside the door, and they come in and they look at the evidence, and they look at what needs to be done to have effective scrutiny. And that has been the hallmark of this committee, himself included. But in turning to the remarks by James, you've also typified this response as well, and your challenge that we all put to the UK Government for the sake of the UK to actually engage early and engage meaningfully, to assist not only Welsh Government but actually to assist this Senedd, particularly in legislation that's emanating from the UK. It was a point very well made, and it was great to hear you say once again that primary idea, the primary principle of Welsh law for Welsh people, made here, scrutinised here is what we're trying to do by default. 

Alun, I very much welcome your contribution and the comment that you made about impacting on the Sewel convention, this sledgehammer approach that's being taken where there is non-consent after non-consent after non-consent. At what point—the question has been raised not just by us but the House of Lords committee and House of Commons committee—does Sewel actually break, or how do we codify it in a way and strengthen it, as the Counsel General was saying, that actually makes it matter for these modern times? And the transparency on inter-governmental and inter-parliamentary scrutiny is going to become increasingly important, and the work that the committee has been doing on engaging on an inter-parliamentary level to actually hold to account the inter-governmental machinery that's now put in place, it holds real potential, I think. 

Can I also thank Peter for your contribution and for your thanks that you made to the outstanding secretariat that we do have? They're a small team but they are genuinely exemplary. And also, the focus you had on the better inter-governmental work, and for the good again of making the UK, as it currently is, work better, and it's not simply to do with words such as 'respect'; it's actually mechanisms we put in place and the transparency we put in place around it. So, thank you, Peter, for your contribution to the committee. 

And it would be remiss of me, Llywydd, not to mention two other contributors to the work of this committee over the last year and the period this reports as well. Rhys ab Owen, thanks for his contribution to the committee on all matters, but especially, I have to say, with his specialism on justice matters as well. And also, we shouldn't forget, as well, Jayne Bryant for her work early on.

Minister, just in my closing thoughts here in response to what was a great and comprehensive response to our committee report, and looking forward as well, we do want to look forward, curiously; we're looking back at a period here, and you rightly said that this has been a challenging context, these times—the post-Brexit times, the pandemic times. It's meant that we have, of necessity, had a certain focus on much of our bread-and-butter work, and we get that. There's also been a need to respond to LCMs that have either been initiated at a UK level, or ones that you've identified that you want to leap on to. But you will understand, as a former Chair of this committee, that we can never resile from that basic premise of saying that we want to see, by default, made-in-Wales legislation where this Senedd can get its teeth into that legislation, rather than be at a distance from it where we cannot seriously influence it, and also that we take a dim view of an Executive, either here or up at Westminster, taking powers unto itself. We have to be the ultimate scrutineers on this. But we do want to move on going ahead to what I think are really exciting times with the consolidation Bill that we're currently looking at, which is going to be groundbreaking in terms of the UK, and we will help you to get that right. We'll work constructively with you. We may have to look at the EU retained law, but we'll see what will happen with that, but that will be a heck of a workload.

We will continue to look at the impact of the TAC on devolved areas, across that range of devolved areas we have. We want to be more proactive on the work we can do on justice and a range of other matters as well, but, to do that, we need to free up some time and thinking space to do it. At the moment, the workload is immense. But my thanks to all those who've contributed, to current and former members of this committee, to our small but excellent secretariat, and at the risk of—. We're going to avoid making you an honorary member of the committee, but you do seem to be in front of us every other week, and we do appreciate that. We'll continue to challenge, Counsel General, you and other Ministers, but we're doing it, please understand, for the right reasons. We're doing it for the sake of this Senedd and the role that we all play. Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd.

The proposal is to note the committee's report. Does any Member object? No. The motion is therefore agreed.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.