Thank you again. We considered these regulations yesterday afternoon in our committee, and again, our report has been laid to inform Members this afternoon. I would also like to draw Members' attention to a letter that we wrote to the Minister yesterday afternoon, which is of great significance to this afternoon's discussion as well.

The Minister has explained today the purpose of these regulations—and her view on the importance of these, and of course, the cut-off date of 31 December—that they seek to address failures of retained EU law to operate effectively, and to address other deficiencies arising from the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union. The regulations seek to do this by modifying retained EU law and by amending regulations made in 2011 and 2018, and the Minister has also made clear the complexity of this, and the detail that her team of advisers and legal advisers and drafters have entailed in working through this. We understand that complexity because we've been going through that as well. But I do have to say, as Chair of the Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee, I am in a slightly unusual and difficult and challenging position this afternoon, because our report, released last week and sent to the Minister last week, highlights 27 technical points. Five of those relate to defective drafting, 10 relate to inconsistencies between the English and Welsh versions, 12 have asked for further explanation, and our report also contains seven merits points. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the Welsh Government did not respond to our report in time for our meeting yesterday afternoon, so we were not able to take into account its views before we proceeded with that as a committee and made a final report for the Senedd.

The Welsh Government response was issued late this morning. Having only had the time to briefly read what we’ve been sent, it looks like, as the Minister has said, there's agreement with roughly half of our reporting points, but we've not had time, I have to say, to fully analyse the response in detail. Now, based on past experience, Llywydd, we would normally expect regulations of this type now to be withdrawn, to be re-laid, and for this debate to have been rescheduled. But as the Minister has said, there is an issue here because there is a relevant enabling power in the EU Withdrawal Act 2018 switching off at the end of this month.

So, as a committee, we have concerns that the Senedd is being asked to approve regulations that contain multiple identified known errors and deficiencies and which, in the committee’s view, in many respects make it inaccessible. We don't have the time to engage in detailed debate on this because we have not been able to consider the Minister's repose as a committee. My committee will need time to fully assess the response but, Minister, my initial reaction is that, in some of these matters, we still don't have an adequate response to explain the concerns that we have raised. Let me give you an example: in reporting points 2 and 5, or point 30. In points 2 and 5, we have highlighted that the regulations do not contain a definition of 'the appropriate authority' for the purpose of these regulations. You’ve told us that regulations 5(1) and (2) confer the role of appropriate authority on Welsh Ministers, but it is not clear how you can arrive at that view. It may be helpful if you can expand on that in your answer. On point 30, we noted the creation of a new Henry VIII power that will allow regulations that amend primary legislation—and those regulations will be subject to the negative procedure. Now, this goes against a principle that my committee and its predecessor committees have long advocated—that regulations amending primary legislation should be subject to the affirmative procedure.

Minister, you state that the regulation-making power is limited, and that may be the case in mind of what you intend to do with this, but, Minister, such regulations can do things for supplementary reasons. As the Chair of the committee that looks at regulations regularly, and the use of executive powers on a weekly basis, I can say that ‘supplementary’ can be used as a way of doing many, many things. I wonder if, assuming the Welsh Government does have the powers, the Minister would be content to give a commitment today to bring forward regulations early in the new year to change the procedure for this from negative to affirmative.

Minister, we took the decision to write to you urgently after our meeting yesterday afternoon because of our continuing concerns with these regulations, and we asked you to address a number of questions, so that Members of the Senedd could make an informed decision today. We received your response this afternoon, just after 3 p.m., so again, it has not been possible to fully assess what we have been told. But I do note, Minister, that you believe that it is appropriate to proceed with submitting the regulations to the Senedd, and to a vote if necessary this afternoon, and that you are confident that the issues we have raised can be resolved because they do not, in your view, have a substantial impact upon the operation of the regulations.

You have also said—Llywydd, I'm conscious that I'm slightly over, but I have a couple of points—