Thank you. Again, you raise a number of important cases. At the moment, the prosecution decisions are taken by me, so the evidence will be before me. Where there are specialist areas, there will be analysis by agents and lawyers who are specialists in those areas, and then the decision ultimately is for me as to whether the prosecution takes place or not. You raise an important point in terms of how many cases are there where decisions have not been taken. That isn’t an area I have sufficient information on, but it is an important area. I think at this stage, where we are is that the number of prosecutions is relatively small, and I think where a decision was taken the success rate has been extremely high. It’s one of the things I wanted to look at.

The point you raise, and a very important one, of course, is the changing scenario within the whole area of legal jurisdiction that is interlinked in some way. And, of course, we want to make sure that where we are passing laws that there is the capacity to properly investigate and properly enforce the laws, otherwise those laws have little status and little value. At the moment, I’m confident that that is the case. One of the reasons for actually bringing this statement and this code before the Assembly is actually to inform Members of what is actually happening within that area—what we actually do with the prosecution powers that the Welsh Government does have, or that the Counsel General has, and how they’re used, and to make those more transparent and, I think, more accountable in terms of what we’re actually doing. So, I envisage further information on this over a period of time. Of course, the Member will be aware that, of course, as we pass more legislation, we actually increase those particular areas.

I’m satisfied that we have those legal tools and I’m satisfied that we have the skills. One of the first things I became acquainted with and became an expert in was the 2012 scallop dredging regulations and many other similar pieces of legislation that we have, which sort of sound amusing on the face of it but are incredibly important and involve quite serious criminal activity. So, the prosecutions that have taken place have been very important. And some of them, in terms of food protection—I think one I did report on resulted in one person receiving a fine of just under £3,000, another person receiving an 18-month suspended prison sentence, and action, under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, amounting to over £0.25 million. So, these are very serious areas.

There’s also an important point in terms of the fact that we do liaise with the police—that the enforcement officers, where appropriate, have that level of engagement. That is also very important because there are cross-overs between some of the offences that occur in respect of Welsh laws, but also other areas of criminal activity. So, that is something that’s important.

Do I worry about applying the UK code as opposed to our code? Well, no. The only code that I will apply will be ultimately the Welsh prosecution code. I obviously work in the environment that exists at the moment, but of course, once the consultation has been concluded and once a code has been finalised after considering all those representations, then that will be the code that I actually apply and am held to.

In respect of Brexit, losing powers—well, of course, the position of the Welsh Government is against any diminution of those particular powers. I stand very strongly by that. We will be monitoring very, very closely all the issues that arise in respect of Brexit and any implications that will arise from that. At this stage, it is too early to be more precise than that about that—only that it’s a very valid point and one that I’m looking at very closely.