No. I think that the Government allowed perfectly adequate time for debate on these issues. As the hon. Gentleman knows, these questions on devolution matters have been discussed in great detail by me, my Ministers and officials, and the Welsh and Scottish Governments and legislatures for many months. As I hope to explain, the Government have made very substantial compromises to address precisely the concerns raised by both Scotland and Wales. I am pleased that the Welsh Government have accepted the merits of the compromise we proposed and reached an agreement.
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We listened carefully to the contributions made by hon. Members and Members of the House of Lords, the views of the devolved Governments and legislatures, and the concerns of business and other stakeholders, particularly those in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. The revised approach we worked on with the Scottish and Welsh Governments means that, by default, all decision-making powers returning from the EU that intersect with devolved competence will pass directly to Cardiff, Edinburgh and Belfast unless we take explicit steps to preserve temporarily an existing EU framework. Of the 153 areas of policy returning from Brussels that intersect with devolved competences, the great majority will now go straight to the devolved level. Some will require a non-legislative framework such as a memorandum of understanding. In only 24 out of 153 areas of policy do we think that a legislative framework would be needed and that we may need to consider a temporary freeze of current arrangements exercised at EU level, which have been accepted by the devolved Governments in Scotland and Wales for many, many years. We would do so to give certainty and clarity for businesses.
We have also addressed criticisms that the effect of the old clause 11—now clause 15—might be indefinite, despite our clear intention that the arrangement should be temporary. That matter has been firmly put to bed. We are subjecting the powers we seek in the Bill to a sunset provision, meaning that freezing regulations can be made only for up to two years after exit day, following which the power to make regulations will lapse all together. Regulations made under this power may only last for a maximum of up to five years. We hope that in most cases we will be able to get agreement on a long-term future UK framework to protect the United Kingdom’s internal market, and that the freezing power can therefore be ended much sooner than the five-year maximum period.