I welcome this debate today, and the opportunity to discuss these very important matters regarding prisons in Wales and the Wales Governance Centre report.

We have a rising prison population in Wales, as the report states, which is also the position in England. Similarly, we have rising numbers of assaults, self-harm and disturbances in prison. We have cross-border issues where people from Wales are travelling distances to be imprisoned in England, making the visits by services and family much more difficult and making the rehabilitative effort that much more difficult accordingly, and similarly with people who live in England coming to prisons in Wales. So, with that sort of background and those sorts of problems, I very much welcome the Welsh Government's Commission on Justice in Wales, and the consideration of a distinctive approach to penal policy that Welsh Government has stated it wants to consider very carefully and, hopefully, take forward.

I think it's fair to say, Dirprwy Lywydd, that if we look at UK Government's prisons policy, it's nothing short of a horror story. Very many people who are in prison simply shouldn't be there. Imprisonment isn't used as a last resort. Very many people incarcerated have mental health problems. They have drug and alcohol problems. They have very low skills. The effort to help these people is not one that should be taking place in prisons; they shouldn't be in prison in the first place. And, of course, many of them have short sentences, which makes rehabilitation very difficult, because they're not in prison long enough, really, for a proper rehabilitative experience to take place. And if they only receive those short sentences, again that raises the question: why was there a need to imprison them at all? So, given the understaffing that's also an issue, and the overcrowding, we know that meaningful rehabilitation in prison is just not taking place on the scale or to the degree that's necessary. And what's the result of that? More reoffending, more victims of crime, more recidivism. You know, it really is a very counterproductive and wrong-headed vicious circle that is happening at the moment.

So, in my view, Dirprwy Lywydd, the sooner Welsh Government has more responsibility for the criminal justice system, for prisons, the better. Because, I think as Leanne Wood rightly said, I'm confident that the consensus within this Chamber and politics in Wales would push us in a very different, much more productive direction, which was about keeping people out of prison, and then when people have to go to prison, not having the overcrowding and the lack of staffing that makes rehabilitation so difficult. So, we could have a system when people have to go to prison where they're properly rehabilitated, and when they're then released, they do not commit further crimes to the scale that currently happens.

So, if we look at the sort of picture we could have in Wales, Dirprwy Lywydd, I believe it would be much better for the people who are committing offences. It would be much better for victims of crime. And it would be much better for our communities and society generally, because we would have proper humane conditions and proper rehabilitation in our prisons. We would have far fewer people, as I say, coming out, committing further crimes. That would benefit them, it would benefit their families, their communities and society in general. So, if we look at matters in the round, I think most people in this Chamber, Dirprwy Lywydd, would come to the view that the sooner we get Welsh Government in charge of these matters and this Chamber determining scrutiny and policy, the better.