Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:30 pm on 6 March 2018.
Bethan, thank you very much for that, and we concur entirely with what you're saying. It needs to be on an exceptional basis. We'd only want secure accommodation used when it is the appropriate option and other things have been ruled out. We'd want secure accommodation used in Wales where it is available, but because of the nature of this, and very often the temporary nature of this specialist accommodation, sometimes we need to extend—in fact, it's not infrequent that we'll extend into England and, very exceptionally, to Scotland. But in that situation, we would expect options to be looked at for returning that child closer to their local environment as soon as possible, but sometimes it's a necessary position.
At the moment, the process of doing that, particularly in Scotland, is highly convoluted. It requires an immense legalistic process to go through. What this will do now is, pursuant to the legal changes that this house is considering this afternoon, actually put in place a much more seamless way of making that effective. But, yes, I agree with you entirely, it should be used on an exceptional basis. The children's commissioner made that clear, we agree with that as well, but it's just making this technical amendment so that it can be done where it needs to be done, when everything else has gone out of the window and everything else has been considered.