7. 7. Plaid Cymru Debate: Superprisons

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:36 pm on 20 September 2017.

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Photo of Bethan Sayed Bethan Sayed Plaid Cymru 6:36, 20 September 2017

So, will you therefore—? Envases, as Adam Price said, the company by that site, has said that they would be interested in purchasing it, and it’s been empty for so much time. Why have you not invested in this land prior to now? Because it’s on an industrial park, it’s your obligation to do that. I said—I didn’t say we wouldn’t be political; I said we are working cross party, and we are working with Members of your own party in Port Talbot who are opposing this development, and I would gladly carry on working with them for as long as we can in this regard. I won’t have time to go through everybody’s comments, but I do take issue with some of the comments from Suzy Davies, who is usually quite progressive, as opposed to being a mouthpiece for the Conservative Party on a UK level. I mentioned, many times, about rehabilitating prisoners. We do not want—. I speak to prisoners about this and they themselves say they do not want to have a superprison, that that does not aid them. They call them ‘warehouses’, they say they are churned in and out of the system. That is why we are fundamentally opposing this.

I’m not sure that it’s worth going through all comments, but I did think that it was important to hear what Lee Waters said in relation to a justice commission for Wales, but we know that Labour MPs on a UK level have opposed criminal justice being devolved to this place, so I would hope, through this justice commission for Wales, that we can see those MPs changing their minds. I hope that David Rees, as the local Member who spoke so eloquently here today, will be supporting the Plaid Cymru motion, as I hope other Members of your party will, because you spoke strongly as to why this area should be used for economic development, and why, from research you’ve done and others have done, that you cannot find strong reasons as to why a superprison should be built in Port Talbot. So, I look forward to working with you further on that.

I will bring my comments to a close, but this is not about trying to alienate or to talk down prisoners. We all, in this room, know how we want to support them and rehabilitate them, and we all have people who come to us in our communities to say how that should be done. But privatising the probation service is not going to help aid that process either, and I think we all have to work together to ensure—[Interruption.]