THREATS to the devolution settlements after Brexit are not just a Scottish issue. The view of the Welsh Government has been put to the UK Parliament’s inquiry into Brexit by Mark Drakeford, the Welsh Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government.
This forensic exposition of the post-Brexit situation has received virtually no publicity, but it is truly instructive to read of the concerns of Wales that so many in Scotland share about the “repatriation” of powers from Brussels.
Drakeford wrote: “We are increasingly concerned that our view of things and the UK Government’s view of things may not be identical. We do not use the language of repatriation because we do not think that these powers have ever gone anywhere. Devolved powers in relation to agriculture, environment and regional policy, for example, have since 1999 been in Cardiff, Belfast and Edinburgh, and they will stay there throughout this process.
“We choose at the moment to exercise those competencies through our membership of the European Union. When the European Union is no longer there, these powers do not somehow come back to London to be handed on. They just remain where they have been for nearly two decades now at the devolved level. This is a fundamentally important point from our point of view.
“I sometimes think some UK Ministers, certainly, believe that, when the European Union is not there, these powers will somehow be free-floating and that if they grab them first they will be able to make decisions and the devolved administrations will have to live with those decisions.
“That is absolutely not the way that we see it. We do not think it is the way the Supreme Court saw it in Miller. The point I make to UK Ministers is that, if they wish to operate in that way, they will have to legislate to take powers away from the devolved administrations.
“I understand that post the EU it will be important to recreate some single market arrangements within the United Kingdom, but our position is very clear. The way to do that is to recognise that those competencies already rest at the devolved level. We would come to the table in a very constructive way to look at ways in which we might re-pool some of those competencies within framework agreements that would guarantee that freedom of trade and so on within the UK would be sure to continue.
“It is a matter of us coming to that table voluntarily to do those things rather than the UK Government thinking that they can grab these competencies as we leave the European Union and then impose a set of arrangements on the rest of us. I am putting it in reasonably stark terms because, if we are not careful, this is going to become a very significant area of dispute with the devolved administrations. It matters a lot to Wales. You can imagine how legislation to row back existing devolution will play out in the current Scottish context.
“We think the UK can avoid all that by simply recognising where competencies exist today and then helping arrangements for us to get round the table together and make sensible arrangements thereafter. While the Welsh Government is strongly devolutionist in character, it is important to remember that we believe in the United Kingdom.
“We are a Unionist administration in that sense. Where it is sensible for things to be re-pooled in the coming together of the component parts of the United Kingdom, we will always want to take a constructive attitude to that, but it is a voluntary coming together rather than a central imposition that we think would be the sensible thing to do.”
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