Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General – in the Senedd at 2:20 pm on 2 May 2018.
Well, as regards the recommendations of the commission, I don’t want to pre-empt their work, but the purpose of establishing the commission was to ensure that experts could discuss and that very broad evidence would be included in the analysis and it would give an opportunity for those voices to be heard.
The Member makes a specific point on the devolution of justice, and I’m certain that she heard the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services’s statement, saying that although we’re waiting for the outcome of the work of the commission, it’s important, too, to develop a different vision on how the criminal justice service could work in Wales. Because the criminal justice service—part of it—has been devolved, and so there is a mixture of powers that we would need to secure in order to ensure that they collaborate in an appropriate manner.
The Member also alluded specifically to the question of prisons, and what I saw in the Cabinet Secretary’s statement was a new approach to looking at powers and the way in which Welsh Government could influence these issues. It was also said that we would need further discussions with the United Kingdom Government before taking any decisions on a prison in Baglan. I know she’s been campaigning and that David Rees, the Aberavon Member, has also been campaigning on this, and the Government is very aware of that.