Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution – in the Senedd at 2:36 pm on 29 March 2023.
Well, I'd suggest it goes a little bit further than that. And this, I have to say, reeks of an unethical Government, with the Minister following her predecessors in seeking to silence the truth tellers and bury accountability.
However, moving on, the Windsor framework, agreed by the Prime Minister and European Commission President, replaces the old Northern Ireland protocol, providing a new legal and UK constitutional framework. It delivers free-flowing trade in goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland by removing any sense of a border in the Irish Sea for goods staying within the UK. These goods will travel as normal through a new green lane, without red tape or unnecessary checks, with the only checks remaining designed to prevent smuggling or crime. And to give businesses and individuals the time to prepare, the implementation of the agreement will be phased in, with some of the arrangements for goods, agri-food, pets and plants movements introduced later this year, and the remainder in 2024.
These regulations insert a new schedule into the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which implements those aspects of the Windsor framework relating to the involvement of the institutions of the 1998 agreement, and all parties represented here in the Senedd supported the framework in Westminster.
Given your responsibility for the co-ordination of work on the common frameworks, and the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 within the Welsh Government, what advice have you given Cabinet colleagues to prepare their departments for these changes?