Well, you have just said it.

We have to tackle overcrowding, and, unfortunately, this means building more prisons. Wales currently has five prisons, yet a large number of Welsh prisoners are housed in prisons in England. Some opponents of the prison claim that Wales is becoming the new Botany Bay, becoming a dumping ground for English prisoners. This is rubbish. There are nearly 2,000 Welsh prisoners held in English jails, yet 700 English prisoners are held in Welsh prisons.

We have no women’s prison in Wales and not a single category A prison. There is a clear need for a new prison. Wales has 4,747 prisoners, yet the five prisons in Wales have an operational capacity for 3,700 prisoners.

We have to build a prison but we have to ensure it is in the right location. I believe my region will benefit from the new prison. Neath Port Talbot recently topped the chart for having the worst social mobility in Wales, and one of the worst in the UK for poverty. The local community desperately needs inward investment, and the prison will bring much-needed employment opportunities. I resent the fact that these employment opportunities are being trivialised and called 'non-jobs' effectively, not just in the construction phase, but also during it's operation, and despite this some politicians have been mobilising opposition to the plans and playing on people's fears.

The argument based on community safety just doesn't stack up. The prison will be a low-category prison, not housing dangerous, hardened criminals and murderers; it will house category C prisoners. In contrast, we have prisons in the city centres, in Swansea and Cardiff, that house higher category B prisoners, and there have been no public safety incidents at either of these prisons, and nor have there been any at HMP Parc, on the outskirts of Bridgend. HMP Parc, Swansea and Cardiff have also not been a drain on local resources.

And on the petitioner's claim that over 8,000 signatures show the majority of the town are against the prison, Port Talbot is home to over 37,000 people. If every one of these signatures were from that town, that would be less than a quarter of the population, and these signatures are not all from that town, are they? If the majority of residents were opposed to this prison, and I couldn't convince them of the benefits it could bring, then, as their representative, I would oppose the prison being built in Port Talbot, but as it stands, the majority of people have not shared their views, and I therefore believe that this should be decided by the planning department, and as we are in the early stages of this proposal and process, I cannot support the petitioners at this time.