There were two issues. One was the circumstances of Friday, when the First Ministers of Wales and Scotland wrote to the Prime Minister saying, “Please do not rule out an extension,” and saying that it was absolutely vital. That is agreed by Wales, Scotland and the Northern Ireland Assembly—the Northern Ireland Administration does not have a position, because of a difference between the major players, although Michelle O’Neill, who was present at the joint committee meeting on Friday, was absolutely unequivocal in her condemnation of the decision not to seek an extension.
At the same time, Michael Gove, knowing that there was a meeting later that day, deliberately and definitively ruled out any possibility of an extension. To Jeremy Miles and me, that seemed to confirm that it did not matter what the Scottish or Welsh Governments, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the Northern Ireland Assembly said—it would simply be ignored. We were due to have one of a series of occasional meetings with the Paymaster General, who I have to say has tried to behave as well as possible during these matters, but she has an impossible task. She has to take away requests from the devolved Administrations to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Michael Gove, and then bring back what are usually dusty answers. On Friday, we felt that we had to show that we were not prepared to go on with that charade any longer.
The second issue, as we said in the letter that we sent to Michael Gove on Friday, is that, at the very minimum, there has to be a resetting of the discussions and a complete review of how they are going forward. Because we try to be constructive, even though we disagree profoundly with what is taking place, we put to Michael Gove a list of changes that he needs to put in place in order to have any chance of meaningful negotiations. We started with the honouring of the actual remit of the joint ministerial committee on European Union negotiations. If you will permit me, convener, I want to tell the committee what that is, because it is important. It was agreed between all the Governments in 2016 and it was the basis on which we entered into discussions, accepting that we did not want Brexit.
The JMC(EN) is meant to
“discuss each government’s requirements of the future relationship with the EU; seek to agree a UK approach to, and objectives for, Article 50 negotiations”—
that did not happen—
“provide oversight of negotiations with the EU, to ensure, as far as possible, that outcomes agreed by all four governments are secured from these negotiations; and, discuss issues stemming from the negotiation process which may impact upon or have consequences for the UK Government, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government or the Northern Ireland Executive.”
That is clear. However, that is not happening and has not happened for some considerable time. That point has been raised at almost every meeting. It has to be recognised that that is what we are there for.
The JMC(EN) must be given precedence again and must meet regularly—we have said weekly—while the negotiations are going on. The meetings should be slotted in in a way that ensures that we can talk about, and have oversight of, the negotiations. There should be a meaningful way in which task force Europe, which is headed by David Frost, comes and discusses things. It should not be done in a pro forma way or by telling us things that we have already read in the newspapers, which is what happens. Yesterday, we had a ministerial briefing from the Paymaster General and the report from task force Europe had nothing in it that we had not already read in the newspapers. What I have asked for has to happen.
We have to ensure that the agendas for the meetings give real information and involve us in the discussions, and there has to be an intention to try to do some of the things that need to happen. For example, the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland Governments have all said that, if the UK Government does not wish to participate in the horizon Europe programme and the Erasmus+ scheme, it must bring to the table the arrangements for, and requests from, the devolved Administrations to take part in those schemes, if we so wish. That issue has been evaded meeting after meeting. That is not happening. Task force Europe knows that that is what it would have to do in order to find a way in which the devolved Administrations could continue to take part in those schemes. It is not doing that, and I do not think that it has any intention of doing that. It certainly will not answer questions on that issue.
We need to get back to a situation in which there is actual discussion, actual oversight and actual action.