National Assembly for Wales

Good afternoon. Can I welcome members of the public and members of the committee to this afternoon's meeting of the External Affairs and Additional Legislation Committee? Can I remind Members the meeting is bilingual and, therefore, if you require simultaneous translation from Welsh to English, that's available via the headphones on channel 1? If you require amplification, that's available on the headphones on channel 0. Can I remind everyone please to turn off your mobile phones or other equipment that may interfere with the broadcasting equipment? There are no fire alarms scheduled for today, so if one does occur, please follow the directions of the ushers to a safe location.

We have received apologies from Joyce Watson, Mark Reckless and Michelle Brown. There are no substitutes identified for today. And if any Members have any interests to declare, please do so at this point in time. There are none.

We move on to item 2 on the agenda, and there are papers to note. The first paper is a correspondence from the Auditor General for Wales to stakeholders regarding a consultation on their three-year forward work programme. And just to highlight, it does include that they continue to look at Brexit in their forward work programme. I'm sure, in some of the other work, they'll look at how it impacts upon some of the other aspects as well. Are Members content to note that paper?

The second paper is from the Counsel General regarding the Welsh EU exit statutory instruments programme, because we did ask him regarding this matter last week, and he has now sent us some information relating to the number of SIs being presented to the Welsh Assembly and also on a UK basis. Are Members content to note the information we received from the Counsel General?

The third paper to note there is draft clauses proposed by the Welsh Government to the withdrawal agreement Bill. These are draft clauses proposed—we haven't yet seen the withdrawal Bill, so we can't confirm whether the UK Governments have included them or not at this point in time, but to note at this moment.

And the fourth paper is correspondence from the Minister for International Relations and the Welsh Language regarding the UK Trade Bill and the legislative consent memorandum, which we debated last week. Seeing as we have gone through this debate, are Members content to note that paper? Thank you for that.

We move on to item 3 on the agenda, which is a motion under Standing Order 17.42(vi) to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of this meeting today. Are Members content to do so? In that case, we now move into private session for the remainder of today's meeting.