4. What role does the Welsh Government play in the rehabilitation of offenders in Wales? (OAQ51179)

Despite the rehabilitation of offenders in Wales being a matter for the UK Government, we work closely with Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, for example, through our support for the women’s pathfinder diversion programme.

Thank you. Well, given that response and, of course, your responsibilities at the devolved level for crime and justice policy, including youth justice, how are you engaging or will you be engaging with the UK Secretary of State for Justice after the announcement at the beginning of this month of a £64 million investment in youth custody to boost staffing and education for young offenders and a national taskforce—i.e. a UK, presumably, national taskforce—to help ex-offenders into employment, which will target employers to sell the benefits of employing ex-offenders, as well as advising governors on training to give former prisoners to maximise their chances of employment?

I think what we mustn’t forget is, in a lot of these institutions, there are Welsh prisoners and we must think about their integration back into our society as well. A lot of the services around prisons are devolved services. So, health, education, et cetera, are devolved services and we have regular discussions about what the involvement is of Government in terms of their ability to help structure a new approach to probation services and rehabilitation in our communities.

Cabinet Secretary, in order to effectively rehabilitate those leaving prison it’s very important that they have a roof over their heads. The Housing (Wales) Act 2014 meant that prison leavers were no longer automatically categorised as being in priority need for housing. There was a 2017 post-implementation evaluation of that legislation, which stated that amongst those groups not having their housing needs met were prison leavers. Given those facts, will you now give further consideration to the protection and the categorisation of prison leavers in terms of homelessness and housing need?

I think the Member is right to raise the issue, but I did create a working group that looked at prison leavers in terms of housing solutions. I will write to the Member with the details of that group and what the outcomes of that were.

Cabinet Secretary, rehabilitation and the reduction of reoffending is something we all want to try and achieve. I will give you one hint now: stopping superprisons might actually do it a little bit, and therefore stopping the one in Baglan might help you a little bit. But, in the sense of how we help them to be rehabilitated, support services are critical and those support services are going to be huge resource draw on our services. What discussions are you having with the Ministry of Justice to ensure that they fund those resource services so, when we do rehabilitation and when we reduce reoffending, it’s because they’re actually helping us and we’re not doing it off their back?

As with all prison estate across Wales, there is an agreement between the UK Government and Welsh Government in terms of a cost-needs assessment on additional services required. I can assure the Member, irrespective of if and when a prison does appear anywhere in Wales, there is a discussion with the UK Government to ensure that we have the right amount of services and finances to deal with the issues surrounding any prison.