 Good morning and welcome to the 23rd meeting in 2017 of the Finance and Constitution Committee. Can I make the same advice as I normally do in mobile phones, please, and other equipment? Our first piece of business this morning today is to decide whether to take item 3 in private and members agreed. Members agreed. The second item on agenda is to take evidence by video conference from Professor Mark Drakeford, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Governments at the Welsh Government. Professor Drakeford is leading on the Welsh Government's approach to Brexit and is supported today by Hugh Rawlings who is the director of constitutional affairs. I am conscious that Professor Drakeford has another appointment at 10.30, so we need to be grateful that members can keep their questions short and to the point. I very warmly welcome Professor Drakeford to the Mae gweithio i ddweud y dyfodol y ffordd yr oed, Professor Druckford? Yr hollwch yn ddod, rydym yn iawn i'r cyffredinol o'r ddweud y ddweud yn ei ffordd ar gweithio'r cyffredinol o'r cyffredinol ym mhob. Rwy'n cael ei wneud eich gweld i'r byd, ac mae'n ddweud i'w bilydd i'w gweld i'r proffinio i'r byd i'r gweld i'r byd i'r byd i'r bobl yn ddych chi'n gweithio'r byd i'r byd, union, oedd y cyfnodol, sy'n rhoi'n gwneud oedd ymwneud hynny byddwn ni wedi sylwg ar gyfer y dyfodol. Ond nid ydymgwch â'r cyfnodol i ni, i ffyrddio'n cyfnodol i'ch creu'r ffordd y byddwn i'ch creu'r가� accidentally in the Post-Eu context and that we understood the need for UK-wide agreements to make sure that trade and other intern UK sets of arguments could work smoothly in the postEu context and indeed at that very first meeting I was keen to offer the help of us i'r llyfrgellwn gweinig ac yn yr unig i'r Llyfrgell Llyfrgell yn gweithio'r regislacedd. Rwy'n ffeithio'n mynd, ac mae'n fyddechrau â chi'n gyllid yn chi. Rwy'n gwneud y fyw hi'r cerddwyd nwrall ar y cyfnodauau ar y cyffredin. Fyddechrau ar y cyffredin yn ei hoffordd a'r gweld. Rwy'n dechau yn Ydw i'r cerddwyd, mae'r ddaeth ei wneud o'r cyffredin ar gyffredin i'r gwd-gwynedd. cyfлиddiaeth, a os nad allan sicrhau bod gwneud o'r cyfliadau cyfosisiadau a'n cyfasysol sy'n yn teimlo'n feddwl y byddai'n cael bryd fydd yn hynny'n cynhargylliant a'n hynny rydyn ni'n ei wneud o'u cyfanydd, pan z自ch yn byw i'r adeiladau'r cyfforddiant ac ymlaen ni'r adeiladau ar gyfer y G OS. gyda'r ymwneud yn cael ei ddoedd o'r ddechrau. Mae'r ddweud yn cael ei chryfu'r ddweud, ond mae'n gweithio'n gwneud, mae rhai ddwy'n gywbodaeth. Cynnydd yn gwneud yma'r gwaith, mae'r ddweud o'r ddwy'r ffordd o'u ddwyddol i'r dyfodol. Mae'n gwneud i'r problemau ar y cyflwyno, gwybod, ar hyn y dweud y bwysig i'w wneud fath gael i chi'n awr gallwn gwneud o ein newidio llwyffol, yn gyfniaeth yn byw i gael arfer y gyff eliadau, mae'r brifau gweithio'n bwysig i'n cyffracell, ac i gael eu wiring yn fwy o hwnnw i mwy o gweithio'n bwysig i'r ffraith ac yn gweithio'n gweithio'n bwysig. Mae'n rhoi cyffordd ym unrhyw hŷl gan gyllidiaeth yn ystod o'i ddweud yn anodol yna gynhyrch chi wedi geau rhai. Mae hynny'r unrhyw y gallw'r pryd yn cael eu bwysigol o'r hyn o phoblo cyllid i gael eu gweithio dwylo gyfanaethol o'i ddweud dda nhw. ac we will dedicate our efforts over this autumn to advancing those amendments to try and win the argument with the UK Government, and we can't win it with the government itself. We will take our arguments to the Parliament, both in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, because we think there is a better way of addressing the issues that the withdrawal bill quite rightly seeks to address and that we can be part of an agreed way forward across the United Kingdom that will work for us in Wales but work for the UK as well. Thank you very much, Professor Drakeford. I've got a couple of very general questions, one around relationships and one around frameworks, and my colleagues here will get into some of the detail. Firstly, during an evidence session that we had with Mike Russell, who's the Minister for UK negotiations in Scotland's place in Europe, on 20 September, he described the relationship between the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government around matters around the EU withdrawal bill, and he explained that an appropriate phrase would be common cause had been found between the Scottish Government and the Welsh Government on those issues. How would you describe that relationship? How would you characterise it? I think that's a fair way of describing it, Chair. I think it's always important for me to say that in some ways the position of the Welsh Government and the British Government of the Scottish Government is not the same. People in Scotland voted to stay in the European Union and the Scottish Government believes that the future of Scotland is better crafted outside the United Kingdom. People in Wales voted to leave the European Union and the Welsh Government believes that Wales's best interests are preserved by continued membership of the United Kingdom. So we come at some of these things from different positions, but quite certainly in relation to the withdrawal bill and the way that the UK Government currently crafts it, we have a common cause in wishing to defend the parameters of devolution, themselves established in two referendums here in Wales and in the referendum in Scotland, and we worked hard together to see whether we can come up with constructive and detailed ways in which we think these problems could be solved in a better way. In that sense, we do have a common cause and we've worked closely together over the summer to pull our resources and to try and set out a pathway over this autumn where we can jointly advocate the position we've arrived at. I know that Neil Bibby has a supplementary in this area. Thanks, convener. It's good to see co-operation between the Scottish and Welsh Governments and obviously a joined up approach on the common cause in relation to the EU withdrawal bill. You touched on it there, just the differences between the approaches of the Welsh and Scottish Governments in relation to respecting the relevant results in Wales and Scotland. Is there anything in relation to the bill, the EU withdrawal bill, that the Welsh and Scottish Governments have a difference of opinion on? No, I think we have focused on the major areas of agreement and they are very significant, as you will have seen in the joint amendments that we've been able to lay in the way that our legislative consent memorandums have been shaped to make sure that we align our arguments there. In the joint statements that the two First Ministers have put out over the summer, there are some very fundamental issues at stake here and why there may be nuances in which we would speak slightly differently. I think we've made a very conscious decision that the issues that are at stake here are very important to the national assembly and to the Welsh Government, to the Scottish Parliament as well as to the Scottish Government, and that we are much better off putting our energies into the things that we agree on and trying therefore to maximise our ability to exert influence. Can I turn the focus to the issue of frameworks? I am aware that, obviously, the Welsh Government, together with Plaid Cymru, said some interesting things around the frameworks, particularly around issues to do with co-decision making. I wonder if you could help us to understand it a bit more by explaining the Welsh Government's approach and application to that particular matter of frameworks. I know that there are similar colleagues and I've got more detailed questions on it. The link between frameworks and how decisions are made is a very basic one for us because we accept that there is a strong case for common frameworks to make the UK itself function effectively once we are no longer in the European Union. As I said earlier, we've always said we would come to the table to discuss those frameworks in a constructive way and looking for agreement and rethink agreement is very achievable. How, though, do we create a future for the United Kingdom after the European Union when the borderline between devolved and non-devolved will not be as simple as it may have been in the past? How do we make sure we can get round the table together in a way that allows the component parts of the United Kingdom to share information and come to agreements where necessary? Because our emphasis is on agreement, we published a paper, Brexit and devolution that tries to look ahead to the United Kingdom after the European Union. We make a series of proposals there to develop the JMC into a former council of ministers where we would be able to come together as equals and to come to important agreements together. That's important to us because, as I say, from a Welsh Government's point of view, we believe in the continuation of the United Kingdom and we want the United Kingdom to be able to function effectively. But our document is intended to be part of a debate rather than a definitive set of proposals. We are frustrated in a way, but we are not able, apparently, to have the solid discussion we think is needed about the future of the United Kingdom after the European Union. There is very little appetite in Whitehall to engage in such a set of discussions and we thought it was important to publish a set of ideas in order to try and stimulate that debate and to see how people reacted to our power ideas and how we might shape them further together. Adam Tomkins would like to ask a question. I want to ask you a bit more, if I may, Cabinet Secretary, about the detail of your understanding of the common frameworks that you have just been talking about with the convener and others. The Scottish Government a few weeks ago published a list of 111 powers that is a list that was drawn up by the Cabinet Office. There is a list of powers that fall within devolved competence that are currently exercised at EU level. I don't think that anybody is suggesting that we need 111 common frameworks. Everybody seems to be suggesting, and you said in your opening remarks, Cabinet Secretary, that you understand the need for UK-wide agreements. Everybody seems to be agreed that there needs to be some common frameworks. Nobody has ever yet identified where we need common frameworks. Has the Welsh Government begun to think about the kinds of areas where we will need substantive common frameworks? If so, can you help us to identify what those areas might be? Thank you for that question. We also have a list provided by the Cabinet Office. It has 64 areas in the Welsh context for reflecting the different range of devotion responsibilities. Our starting point would be the one that you have articulated. We don't believe that all 64 areas require frameworks. We are trying to have some discussion at official level with the Cabinet Office about how, in the spectrum of that list, which are the ones which we think do require frameworks. Where we do require frameworks, there may be a differentiated approach to the sort of frameworks that we need. Some things may require no more than a memorandum of understanding between the component parts as to how something might be done. There may be other things at a different end of the spectrum which need something more significant and substantial to underpin a framework. We are trying to tease out with the Cabinet Office how they see that spectrum panning out. To give you the most obvious example, the one most obviously cited about where we would want our common framework, we have four different animal health regimes across the United Kingdom. This is very alive in the minds of the National Assembly because one of the formative experiences of devolution in Wales within the first couple of years of devolution was the outbreak of foot and mouth disease that we faced here. The need to coordinate animal health regimes has been apparent to us ever since. We completely agree that we would not want four different animal health regimes. Let's find a framework that allows us to make sure that we can conduct that business in an orderly agreed way. That's extremely helpful. Can I try and understand a little bit more what you mean by having a scale of different sorts of common frameworks, some of which could require nothing more than a memorandum of understanding, and some of which you just said might require something more significant? Can I ask you about what you mean by that? In particular, do you mean this? At the moment, it might be that there are no limits on the devolved competence of your assembly or our parliament to enact legislation in some of these areas that feature on this list of 64 or 111 powers. However, might it be the case that there will have to be some limits on either legislative competence or executive competence in the two devolved nations in Scotland and Wales that don't currently exist in order to give legal effect to these common frameworks? Is that a position that the Welsh ministers are prepared to contemplate? I think that we are prepared to contemplate it in this way. I can imagine situations in which there would need to be some limits on the exercise of devolved competencies in the future where we have come to an agreement about a common framework. So how would those limits be achieved? Well, our position would be this, that those limits would be achieved to the self-denying ordinance of Welsh ministers having come to an agreement that required us to agree to some limitations, then we would do that by agreement. We would commit ourselves to doing that because we would have come to an agreement. What we would not be willing to contemplate would be a situation in which having come to an agreement where some limitation on the use of current powers was part of that agreement, but the answer to the UK government would be to say, well, in that case, we'll take that power away from you because you've agreed now that you're not going to need it because you've come to an agreement with us. That wouldn't be our way of doing it. We would say we've come to an agreement and the agreement involves some limitation on the use of powers we have. We're committed to that agreement and we would not use the powers that we have in a way that would violate that agreement. Why would we? We would just have come to an agreement. That's the mature way, we believe, of conducting relationships across the United Kingdom. How would that agreement be enforced in the, surely, wholly unlikely event, but nonetheless we have to think about unlikely events, that it is somehow inadvertently breached by one party or the other? I'm sorry. Indeed. We do set up in our paper ways in which we think those things would be resolvable. If you come to an agreement but when in the implementation of the agreement you come to areas where people have different views about the implementation or indeed in advertent ways in which things have not been observed. We set out a mechanism for being alert to those situations, for resolving them. We have dispute resolution mechanisms already within the devolution settlement. We think they need to be revisited and updated and so on, because we already have mechanisms we can work from. They are agreed mechanisms and we have a joint responsibility for policing and enforcing them. It cannot be the answer to say that three of the four partners surrender the ability to police and enforce to one partner around that table. Indeed. But you do accept, in principle, that there might be a need for additional limits on legislative and executive competence in Scotland and in Wales in order to give legal effect to the common frameworks that need to be negotiated. Provided that is done in the way that I described for establishing ordinance, that you agree that limitations may be necessary, you agree what those limitations would be and then you voluntarily abide by them and then you have a backup set of mechanisms to make sure that the voluntary agreements that you have entered into are effective. Before we get to agreeing any common frameworks, there are significant issues to overcome in the EU withdrawal bill. I know that Mary Todd would like to ask you some questions about that particular issue in clause 11 in particular. Thank you for your time this morning. Clause 11 is a new limitation on the power of the Scottish Parliament. Can you tell me a little bit more about why it's causing concern and what progress has been made to resolving that? Clause 11 is one of the mental reasons why we would not be able to recommend National Assembly of Wales to give its consent to the UK government to legislate in this area because it is the most significant place where the debate that we have just outlined plays out. So our position is this. There are a set of devolved responsibilities that have been in the National Assembly for Wales since 1999. They are not powers that have come to us recently or later on in evolution. They were here from the very beginning in agriculture and environment and fisheries and so on. And since then we have chosen to exercise those responsibilities through our membership of the European Union. When the European Union is no longer part of our landscape, those powers haven't gone anywhere. They will rest where they have always been. They've been in the devolved legislatures since the very beginning unless the UK government decides to take them away from us. And that's what Clause 11 does. It rolls back devolution. It takes responsibilities that we have had since the very start of devolution and says that in future for an indefinite period of time and to an extent that they cannot explain to us that those powers will be taken back to Westminster and that in some future date they will be eked back out to us. In the meantime UK ministers will have had all sorts of powers to interfere with those responsibilities. So we don't know when we will get powers back and we don't know what those powers will look like by the time they come our way again. And we say that that is just fundamentally unacceptable from a devolved perspective. Thank you for that clarification. I wonder if you could tell me a little more about what you think would fix Clause 11. Does it have to be removed entirely? Are there ways that could be amended to make it palatable? It is such a fundamental attack on the devolved parliaments. We believe that the amendments that we have jointly sponsored with the Scottish Government provide a different and much preferable way of resolving the issue that Clause 11 attempts to resolve and embrasses in the way that I've tried to reverse on an approach that says that the way to make sure that there is an orderly conduct of business across the United Kingdom after the European Union is to do so by agreement. To bring the component parts of the United Kingdom together to agree on ways in which we would conduct these important areas in the future and then having come to an agreement to move forward in a mature way to implement that agreement. That's the way forward that our amendments envisage and it's why we're being so keen to not just complain about Clause 11 or the other clauses in the devil but actually to put forward a very well worked out and we believe constructively intended set of solutions through our amendments that would allow the UK government to achieve the shared aims that we have with them about making sure that after the European Union things work in a sensible way that doesn't get in the way of people wanting to conduct business and so on but can do that in a way that respects the devolution settlement respects the way in which 20 years on from devolution the United Kingdom is a very different place than it was in 1999 and they fundamentally different place than it was in 1972. Can I ask one final question? Can you envisage a way forward in which the Welsh Parliament could consent to the EU withdrawal bill if there is still Clause 11 in there? I think if Clause 11 was finamended then it's very difficult indeed for me to imagine a situation in which our First Minister would be able to recommend to the National Assembly that it gives its legislative consent because it would be to invite the National Assembly of Wales to come now even in its own diminution and I don't see it doing that. Murdo Fraser has a supplementary in this area. Thank you, convener. Just as a follow-up to Mary Todd's questions just so I'm clear in my own mind as to what the Welsh Government's position is is it your contention that there are powers currently being exercised by the Welsh Assembly that would be taken away if the bill were to pass into law unamended? I'll just ask Hugh to make sure you get the definitive legal answer on that point, sir. Chair, I think the position is obviously as the cabinet secretary has laid out. The powers as the Welsh Government sees them lie with the National Assembly. They are subject to the constraints that the powers must be exercised compatibly with European Union law at present. When we leave the European Union, what the bill envisages is that a new substantial body of law deriving from the UK's membership of the European Union becomes unamendable by either the Welsh Ministers or the National Assembly. Even though that body of law may involve devolved matters and in those circumstances you have a substantial block of law that is not subject to modification by the devolved institutions and that represents a fundamental problem. I understand this clearly. There is currently, in your view, a constraint on the operation of the Welsh Assembly legislating, which is EU law. That constraint would be replaced in terms of this bill with a constraint exercised by Westminster instead of the EU. You are not saying that where the Welsh Assembly currently has the power to legislate without constraint, that that will be somehow restricted or removed by this bill? There are some rather difficult technical arguments here. Around, for example, clause 2 of the bill. This could be a slightly lengthy exposition. The committee probably does not want to hear. It is true that, so far as one can see, that broadly speaking, and it has to be qualified in that way, existing powers of the devolved institutions would not be constrained or limited. What would be the result of the withdrawal bill is that there would be instituted into the body of domestic law, a body of law which would retain EU law, which even though it is within the area of devolved competence, would not be subject to the modification by the devolved institutions and that represents some real difficulties for us. You have a real difficulty. I heard this on and off by UK ministers, but somehow the bill just leaves the devolved institutions where they have always been. What is your problem? The problem is that while it may, in the subject of a caveats of hues outlined, leave us where we are, it allows UK ministers an unfettered right to Rome, in which they are given powers, to amend all sorts of things. I am not simply to amend things that we are not able to amend in non-devolved fields, but it gives them the right to reach over into devolved responsibilities, to make changes in areas which are currently only changeable by the Scottish Parliament, and to do so without the consent either of Scottish ministers or the Scottish Parliament or Welsh ministers or the National Assembly for Wales. So to leave one part of a system unchanged, while fundamentally changing the powers available to another part of the system, and not to take that second thing into account seems to me to be, well, naive might be a kind way of dislinging. Thank you, that's very helpful. It might help us if you could give us an example of what you're talking about. Well, if for example there were legislation that had a primary legislation that had been adopted by the UK Parliament on, let's say, environmental protection, and that legislation, the reason for bringing it forward was that it was to implement a European directive. Now, as you know, the normal way of implementing European directives, or a very common way, is by way of statutory instruments. And what the bill does, and perfectly understandably, it maintains or retains in domestic law the statutory instruments that have been made under the 1972 European Communities Act, even though the European Communities Act is going to be repealed. But there are other ways of implementing European directives, and one of them is primary legislation. And so, let's assume that you've got an act of Parliament which has implemented some European directive in the field of environmental protection. Now, that legislation before this bill would in turn have been amendable by the Welsh Assembly, because it is in devolved competence. But the way the European withdrawal bill is drafted means that that legislation, because it was originally a mechanism for implementing a European directive, ceases to be part of the competence of the Welsh Assembly to modify. We may just need to make some minor technical amendments if we were to bring forward a new environmental protection bill, perhaps to modify to make some minor amendments to an earlier UK Parliament Act. If that UK Parliament Act was originally enacted to give effect to a European Union directive, then we can't do so. That is not something, but one position that we've been in before. Patrick Harvie. Thanks, convener. Good morning. I'd like to explore a little more your suggestions about how the intergovernmental relationship ought to work in the future. The phrase that you've used is a intergovernmental machinery must be reformed with a new UK council of ministers. That's a term that many countries use, but it's most familiar to us in the context of the European Union's Council of Ministers. Are you suggesting a mechanism which, like that body, uses qualified majority voting, which has a rotating presidency, which has a degree of co-decision making with the legislature in its own right as a body? A number of those things are rehearsed in our paper. We do put forward arguments about qualified majority voting as a way of coming to decisions across the United Kingdom. I had an opportunity to discuss this with Mike Russell. I know that his view is that there are some instances where that would be a sensible way of proceeding, but that it may not be a generally applicable rule. But, as I said in my opening remarks, our effort was to try and stimulate exactly that sort of debate and to try and see what others would think of the proposals that we have set out there. In terms of a rotating presidency, I do think it is unsatisfactory myself that in the position that we are in, that when it comes to the joint ministerial committee, the JMC, apparently only one of the four partners in it is able to call a change. That doesn't seem to me to be a sustainable way of conducting inter-UK relations in the future. So we look to try and amend some of those ways of doing things. And just to try to say that co-decision making, it's a difficult concept sometimes for our UK colleagues to grasp, particularly those who continue to have a sort of grace and favour approach to devolution and a clear sense of hierarchy in which one of the partners is in charge. But we say that isn't the UK of the future, it can't be. We reflect days long on a different approach to it based on mutual respect, based on coming together, and then we think that that will be stronger, said and outcomes. I can understand the argument that you're making, and it's many aspects of it are familiar from some of the complaints that Mike Russell has made about the operation of the JMC. This is a situation that we've had outlined to us before, and I hope that we have the opportunity to put some of those questions to UK ministers at some point as well. But I'm still a little unclear about the nature of the mechanism that you suggest would be better than this as a replacement, and in particular how the decisions of this council of ministers would be held accountable. Your decisions individually are accountable to your national assembly. Mr Russell's decisions are accountable to this Parliament. UK ministers, for better or worse, are accountable to the Westminster Parliament with all of its glories and all of its faults. How are the decisions of this council of ministers to be held accountable, or would an agreement signed up to by ministers in this body then simply be something that Parliament's assemblies throughout these islands simply have to live with? I assume that these things will, in many ways, be a process involved here. Quite certainly, here in the National Assembly for Wales, if I was involved on behalf of the Welsh Government in a council of ministers where matters were being discussed, then well in advance of where you get to the point where something is agreed, have been questioned in the National Assembly, I would have been expected to appear in front of a committee of the National Assembly to be scrutinised. On the point of view that the Welsh Government was trying to advocate in those discussions and when an agreement was reached, I would be held accountable here for the part that I had played in it and the agreement that we had come to. This is not different in many ways from co-decision making arrangements in many parts of our democracy. Many years ago I used to represent a Cardiff council on the South Wales Police Authority with four other local authorities. We had to come to agreements there and when I came back to the council in Cardiff I would be questioned on how I had stood up for the interests of Cardiff citizens in coming to those agreements. It's a very common way in which we managed to share, pool our sovereignty in the way that I know Microsoft budgets. I would imagine, though, that none of those other councils took the view that they represented all of the council areas. That's the distinction here. Whether there's a case for federalism in the UK or not, we're not in a federal arrangement and the UK Government, if it has an arrangement that's been reached through this new inter-governmental machinery, may look very unkindly on a decision subsequent to that agreement that either the Scottish Government or the Welsh Government might decide we've changed our view about how a common framework ought to operate. We've changed our view about how a memorandum of understanding ought to be framed. My concern here is that we don't just leap to the most obvious next bit of stable ground because the world is so unstable around us. We have to have something that is capable ofwithstanding political change and changes of government. If there's a self-denying ordinance, as you put it to Adam Tomkins, in terms of the exercise of powers that are constrained by UK-wide frameworks in Scotland and in Wales, what does that say about the ability of the Scottish or Welsh electorate to cast their vote differently, to change their government if they wish, and to elect a Government that wants to operate those devolved competencies in a different way than is encapsulated in a common framework previously agreed? Check and I say that I think that these are all really important points. Absolutely properly to be debated and thought through in the way that we think about the future of the United Kingdom. I don't think our proposals are meant to a federal solution. We don't have a federal system, but neither is the United Kingdom a unitary state in the way that it was in 1972. So we do have to think creatively about the way in which we allow the United Kingdom to operate effectively after the European Union and to go to your specific point of view, and I have no difficulty myself in imagining how a political party here in the National Assembly, which is not in the government, could go to the electorate in the National Assembly election and say, your government entered into an agreement that looked like this. We don't think that was the right thing to do. If you elect us, we will pursue a different course of action, but the way they would have to pursue it would have to be to go back to the other component parts of the United Kingdom in order to secure a new agreement. That's how it would have to be done and they would have to explain to people that that's what they were proposing to them, that they would seek to persuade other parts of the United Kingdom to amend the agreement that they think doesn't stand up to. So even on those devolved matters, their hands would be tied. To move on to others, because I'm conscious of time here. Patrick dealt with issues to do with the future Cabinet Secretary. I know that Ash Denham would like to look at the current structure and how it's working or not. Ash. I want to speak about IGR, the machinery as well, which has been partially covered by my colleague. The Welsh Government has set out how they found the JMCEN process to be particularly frustrating. We've just spoken about your proposal to possibly move to a council of ministers way of operating. I don't want to put words into the UK Government's mouth, but assuming that there isn't the political will on the part of the UK Government to move to something like that and that that doesn't happen, do you think that there's potential for the JMCEN process to be reset to make it fit for purpose in order to move forward? I certainly do think so. There are a series of practical proposals. They're the proposals that Mike Russell and I set out in a junk letter almost immediately after the last UK general election. They're the proposals that Mike Russell and I asked the UK general election, and which were very largely echoed and in fact in some ways elaborated in the House of Lords report on all of this. I think we work very hard in our letter to try and take any sort of partisan quality out of those proposals to pitch them very much at the practical end of the spectrum and by the say to the UK Government by the JMCEN is the vehicle we have we've all got an interest in making that experience a more satisfactory experience that it has been so far. Here are some ways in which we think that could be done. We've very much pitched them at the practical end of the spectrum. We hope that when the JMC reconvenes that some of those ideas will have been taken up by the JMCEN as being a satisfactory experience for any of the people in the UK Government. I believe I'm right in remembering that one of the practical suggestions was that agendas be circulated in advance. Have you received an agenda for the next meeting as yet? Do you know what you're expecting to discuss at that meeting? I have seen an agenda. It's being discussed at official level and I think we're quite close to that agenda. That's in advance. That's a piece of good news. I'm sure Mr Russell will have told you. The last meeting at JMCEN back in February we let Cardiff not simply not having had papers or minutes of previous meetings but we didn't even know where the meeting was going to take place. We got on the train here and it wasn't even a room agreed for it. Part of our practical suggestions are simply to get those mechanics in better order. The JMCEN was meant to be a very serious forum. The Prime Minister sat a very ambitious remit for it and you've got a forum that is meant to be doing serious business and it deserved a different level of basic support. One very brief final question. I think the expectation perhaps from the devolved Governments was that this process would involve extensive collaborative working and so on. I think that the devolved nations obviously feel that the JMCEN has really failed in what it set out to do but do you get the feeling that the UK Government also feels that or do they feel that it's from their perspective that it's kind of working as well as they thought it would? I can't imagine they think it has worked because anybody would have hoped it so they didn't live up to the ambition that the Prime Minister set for it in arriving at a shared negotiating prospectus as far as the article 50 triggering letter was concerned. Chair, I think frankly, I think there are a number of things that have gone in the way of the JMC. Some of the more practical comments we've talked about but more fundamentally my own experience has been that the JMC has been hamstrung by the fact that the UK Government itself is often not in an agreed position on a number of the very significant things that the JMC was there to discuss and because there were so many fishers inside the UK Government on these matters the nature of the discussion that we were able to have was so superficial could never get into any detail because it would immediately expose differences of view within the UK Government. But discussion was kicked on a level that was frustratingly general for everybody. Okay, thank you very much. I have my key. Thank you, convener, thank you for coming along to talk to us this morning. Clearly you're in a position in the Welsh Government at the moment where you're not able to recommend consent for the EU withdrawal bill as written and a number of amendments have been proposed in conjunction with the Scottish Government. My question has got two parts. First of all, of those amendments I don't want to use the word redline but which of them do you see as being the most critical to gaining an agreement through a negotiation between yourselves and the UK Government. Secondly, if there's a failure to agree on amendments to the EU withdrawal bill where does that then take you because I see in your letter you've begun to consider the scope for alternative devolved legislation in other words for a continuity bill of some type so that maybe you can explain a bit more around those issues. Thank you, chair. Our amendments come as a package deal because they address the different aspects of this bill are interrelated with one another and our amendments are interrelated with one another and the one where we don't have a sense of hierarchy between them in which one is more important than the other. They come as a package and we will pursue them as a package. Now I think there is a sort of pathway of negotiations here. Our first aim will be to persuade the UK Government of the sensible nature of our case of the constructive nature of our case of what we are trying to do within many ways to find a better way to achieve the outcomes which they themselves are signed up to and where we see the sensible outcomes. So there are a series of opportunities where we meet with UK ministers separately and both of the GMC collectively will make that case and I have not given up by any means on the idea that a UK Government that is badly in need of friends and it has in a way that I find completely baffling turned an area where they had friends at the beginning having to be opponents of them but they may come to the realisation themselves that our amendments are things that they could work on with us and come to an agreement so that's our first point of call and we've not exhausted that course of action by any means. If we were not to succeed in persuading the UK Government then we move to the UK Parliament and we will hope that we will see our amendments supported in the House of Commons and we will do everything we can to mobilise the House of Commons who believe in devolution and who know that this bill is inimical to devolution members of the Scottish National Party the Labour Party, the Green MP Liberal Democrats like Henry members we will do our best to create as broad a coalition as we can in the House of Commons and if we don't succeed in the House of Commons then we will mount a major effort in the House of Lords to persuade members of the House of Lords so that's our second point of call and I'm just going to say again this morning will I say whenever I have a chance that the UK Government need to understand that we are deadly serious about this this is not saber at length this is not just us trying to have some sort of rhetorical five minutes in the sun here we are going to go about this in a very serious way we will mobilise whatever we can and work with whoever we are able to in order to defeat their proposals now it's only when we've exhausted that course of action as well that we will then think about whether having not managed to win those arguments in the way I've described whether a continuity bill would be necessary and because we have to think ahead in that way we are doing work in the background to put ourselves in a position should we need it but it's not our first protocol it's much further down the line and there are other and better ways of achieving what we want to achieve but if we had to and we needed to we want to put ourselves in a position where that course of action would be available to us will we to think again the right thing to do at that time okay thank you Willie Coffey Thanks very much Professor Drakeford could you just tell us what the political parties views in the Welsh Assembly are in the Welsh Government's position in relation to clause 11 and the removal of powers from Wales do you have a consensus approach there or is there still some disagreement My assessment where parties in the Welsh Assembly will be this chair the Government is made up of Labour and the one Liberal Democrat member of the National Assembly so those two parties are quite certainly lined up with our proposals we have worked closely with Plaid Cymru in the Brexit context we have a joint committee but we have with them and we published our very first white paper on Wales's position on Europe jointly with Plaid Cymru and I am quite confident that we would have the support of of Plaid Cymru members in the National Assembly for the amendments that we have outlined we have UKIP members in the National Assembly whose position is a good deal more difficult to predict but even UKIP members in the Assembly have made speeches setting out their belief in the integrity of the demotion settlement that will be interesting to see how far they take their course of action and as far as the Welsh Conservatives are concerned the First Minister here made a statement on Brexit matters on the floor of the Assembly within the last 10 days and the Conservatives spokesperson on this matter made an offer during that discussion to have a meeting with the Government to explore our amendments and to see whether there was any common ground that they could align themselves with to and that meeting has now been arranged will happen later this week and I can't anticipate the outcome of it but it was a significant offer but I think it was made OK, thank you Neil Bibby Thanks, convener. We discussed in detail this morning the need to prove into organisations and you described earlier that there was little appetite in a Whitehall for doing that you've rightly suggested that we should have a convention on the future of the United Kingdom in the longer term to look at ways of improving the governance of the UK I wonder if you could explain a little bit more about how you see that working I know that you're talking about trying to achieve cross-party support and civil society consensus on the future Yes, thank you chair. Our first Minister, Caroline Jones has been a very long advocate of this approach going back probably even to before the current 2012 there we are, so well back into the last parliamentary term and he comes at it as I say from the point of view of a Government that thinks that Wales's future is best preserved by a United Kingdom that is able to work together but a frustration that the mechanics of doing so have failed to keep up with the development of evolution believing that if you are to create new and better ways of intergovernmental cooperation within the United Kingdom that means people coming together sitting down sharing ideas to create a way forward that we can have the maximum support for but it requires a very rich conversation requires a very a very real willingness to think creatively about ways in which we can make sure the United Kingdom has a successful future and a frustration really that it has been difficult to get that conversation going so that we think the urgent need for it has been there and the urgency of the need has very much been increased by the fact that a series of mechanisms we've been able to rely on through the European Union will not be available to us in the future. I take it then you would encourage all Governments and all parts of the UK and all parties then to back together now a convention. Different ways in which that could be done a speaker's convention a governmental convention but we believe that the need to have those conversations are very real and that European exiting the European Union makes them even more necessary. One final question from Adam Tomkins. Thank you very much. The Brexit and devolution paper published in June. The Welsh Government said that withdrawing from the European Union in a matter that respects and accommodates devolution is, and I quote, straightforwardly achievable. That's what you said in June, and I agree with you. Do you still hold to that view? Our amendments to the bill set out that straightforward way of doing so. All right. Thank you very much. I thank Professor Drakeford and Hugh Rawlings for taking time to give us evidence today. At the start of the meeting, we agreed to the next item in private, but that was a very useful, informative and very constructive session and I'm very grateful for the time you've given us and who closed this part of the meeting. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the question as well.