Questions Without Notice from Party Spokespeople

Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution – in the Senedd at 2:30 pm on 7 December 2022.

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Photo of Mick Antoniw Mick Antoniw Labour 2:30, 7 December 2022

Thank you for the question and you covered some very interesting points within there. And I'm very pleased, and I think we commonly recognise, don't we, the importance of changes that have occurred: the fact that we are a primary law legislature and the importance that we actually have a permanent, recognised place within the Supreme Court. I think the old arguments in terms of jurisdiction are actually outdated.

I think where you have parliaments that are legislatures and you have matters that are constitutional, and the Supreme Court plays a constitutional function, it is absolutely right that Wales should be specifically represented. I think this is being represented almost through the back door by ensuring that there is a Welsh judge there, and I'm very pleased that Lord David Lloyd-Jones is there in the Supreme Court—a Welsh-speaking Supreme Court judge; the first one ever. But I think it is important that that becomes something that is formalised and becomes part of our structures, so that, as with Scotland, as with Northern Ireland, and as with England, there is a specific Welsh judge in the Supreme Court. So, I'm very pleased we made those. And also, the recognitions in terms of the importance of co-operation and inter-governmental improvements. The importance, I think, of the recommendation within the Gordon Brown report in terms of the establishment of an irrefutable structure in respect of Sewel is something that we've long argued for. In whatever format, it would be something that would be a significant step forward.

But I don't agree with what you say in terms of justice. The Gordon Brown report doesn't close any particular doors; it is a report that makes recommendations to the UK Labour Party as a whole, but it is one that gives very specific reference. The bits I read out earlier, I think, are very, very clear that it is deferring to the independent commission and that, when that commission has reported, it calls for constructive engagement. And the report makes it absolutely clear that there are no doors closed and that the basis of further devolution should be based on subsidiarity: that is, it is only those items that are necessary in terms of interdependent governance within the UK as a whole that should be dealt with by UK Government, and the rest should be devolved. So, it does represent a very significant transfer and I don't believe it says what you're suggesting at all about justice, and I am confident in the inevitable devolution of justice to Wales.