Questions Without Notice from the Party Leaders

Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:51 pm on 12 June 2018.

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Photo of Carwyn Jones Carwyn Jones Labour 1:51, 12 June 2018

Well, it is tricky, because many services that are provided within prisons are devolved services, and it's not the easiest fit to make between a non-devolved service and a devolved service in order to provide those services. We've done it, but there will be easier ways of doing it. She says going it alone; Northern Ireland has a prison system, so does Scotland, and so, for that matter, does the Isle of Man, Jersey and Guernsey. It's not entirely self-contained, and there will always be, to my mind, a case for some of the most dangerous prisoners perhaps to be housed in one or two places, or three probably, around the whole of the UK, rather than us doing it in Wales. We'd have to pay for those prison spaces, but the number of offenders in that category is actually quite low. So, it may well be that we may not want to pursue the option of a category A prison in Wales. But there's no reason in principle or in theory why we couldn't run the justice system ourselves, given the fact that far smaller entities such as Northern Ireland have been doing it for nearly 100 years.