Thank you, Counsel General. That's one stance that is contrary to what we feel as a party, and we will also be opposing today.

Minister, as you will already know, Plaid Cymru opposes the use of legislative consent motions as a matter of principle. We believe that decisions on devolved matters should always be debated, scrutinised and approved by Senedd Cymru, the Welsh Parliament, rather than being made by the UK Government on our behalf. Such practices undermine devolution. The nature of this legislative consent motion emphasises the validity of Plaid Cymru’s stance, as it calls on the Welsh Government to be part of measures to unilaterally disapply elements of the Northern Ireland protocol, in contravention of international law. And this is despite the fact that the UK Government agreed to these commitments fewer than three years ago as part of Boris Johnson’s 'oven-ready' post-Brexit deal—a description that appears more unfortunate every day, bearing in mind the hash that this Conservative Party has made of governing the UK.

Minister, Plaid Cymru opposes consenting to this LCM for three reasons. First, as I have already mentioned, the Bill in question is an attempt by the UK Government to abnegate its commitments under international law. Although the UK Government has tried to justify this course of action on the basis of the doctrine of necessity in international law, a number of legal scholars have disagreed strongly with such a rationale. This demonstrates once again that the UK Government hadn’t fully understood the terms of the deal signed to great fanfare back in December 2019, or that it had no intention of ever honouring it in the first place.

Minister, I’m sure that you’ll agree that the UK Government has destroyed any credibility it had with the international community over the past few years, but, here in Wales, where our politics is a deal more mature and responsible, our Senedd’s good name need not be impacted by Westminster’s rash behaviour, and this Bill is but one example of that.

Secondly, far from safeguarding the Good Friday agreement, as the UK Government has cynically suggested, this measure has heightened tensions on the island of Ireland, first caused as the Conservatives pursued a hard Brexit. The idea that this measure somehow sustains the principle of cross-community support is undermined by the fact that parties in favour of implementing the protocol won a sweeping majority of seats in the most recent Northern Ireland Assembly election. Instead of striving to respond to the Brexit disquiet on the island of Ireland, this Conservative UK Government has placed the Good Friday agreement in greater danger than at any time over the past 24 years.

Finally, we must consider the implications of this Bill from the Welsh point of view, and the potential damage that could be caused to Wales’s vital collaboration networks with Ireland. As our nearest European neighbour, Wales’s relationship with Ireland plays a significant part in the Welsh Government’s international strategy with regard to trade and culture. It is, therefore, crucial that this Senedd conveys a clear message to our Irish friends and colleagues that we reject any measures that could harm our close bonds of collaboration. As well as this, as the Counsel General has already mentioned, the fact that the Welsh Government was not consulted when this legislation was drafted, despite its clear relevance to Wales, suggests the Westminster Government’s lack of respect towards devolution. It also underlines how empty their rhetoric is when they say that the UK is a union of equals. 

For these reasons, Plaid Cymru strongly opposes this legislative consent motion, and we are pleased that the Welsh Government shares our view on this issue.