Legislation Committee

So, now we are going to move on to item 3, which is the papers to note. This is just something to note about the legislative consent memorandum on the Steel Industry (Nationalisation) Bill. Legal advice will be provided next week, but this is just something to be aware of and have on your radar. Before I ask questions on that, I think it would be worth you maybe talking a little bit about that.

Yes, no problem at all, Chair. So, the memorandum was laid by the Welsh Government last Thursday. The Senedd's Business Committee has referred the memorandum to this committee and to the Economy, Energy and Connectivity Committee for scrutiny. The reporting deadline is the morning of 14 July. The timescales are obviously very tight for scrutiny, which is why it's a paper to note for you today, to put it on your radar. As the Chair has mentioned, a legal advice note will be brought to you next week for consideration, and subject to Members' discussion at that point, we can prepare a report for you to be considered the following week, if you wish.

That's brilliant. I'd remind Members that our role here is the legislative competence and constitutional dimension of this, so, whether this Bill makes provisions in the legislative consent memorandum in areas devolved to Wales, and whether legislative consent is being appropriately sought, rather than the policy merits or steel provisions themselves, which fall to another committee. So, our focus is on the propriety of the consent mechanism and the devolution questions it raises.

Before we move on, I think I'd ask two questions, which are: do Members have any comments? And, beyond the usual competence and consent analysis, is there anything that any Member wants to flag at this stage, with the note that we will see the legal advice next week? Fab.

So, as we move forward to item 4, this is the part where we move from public to private, and I'm going to say this in quite a specific way. So, we're about to move into private. In accordance with Standing Order 17.42, I invite the committee to resolve to exclude the public from the remainder of the meeting. Do Members agree? Brilliant. So, we are about to move into that.