Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. The Wales Governance Centre report on imprisonment in Wales underlines what many of us have been saying for many years: Wales is dependent upon English prisons. As a person who ran her own department in the prison service, I know that prison works, but only if it is properly funded and resourced. There is often no alternative to a custodial sentence, but custody is not just about public protection; it's also about ensuring the prisoner is helped to rehabilitate.

A large part of that rehabilitation depends upon maintaining close family ties. That link is vitally important and gives prisoners, very often, an insight into the impact their actions have upon their family and friends, but also helps ensure they have a safety net, a place to return upon their release. Unfortunately, some prisoners do not have a family, and indeed some are often simply released with a black bag full of meagre belongings, with no home to go to. This is simply not rehabilitation, and it's not good enough. It only helps the revolving door that most prisoners—a lot of prisoners—face when they have nowhere else to turn to.

Sadly, we don't have enough prison places in Wales to ensure that Welsh prisoners are imprisoned close to home. Wales has 4,747 prisoners, yet the five prisons in Wales have an operational capacity for 3,700 prisoners. We have no women's prison in Wales and not a single category A prison. This results in a large number of Welsh prisoners serving their sentences in England, hundreds of miles from home.

The prisons we do have are overcrowded. HMP Swansea is the third most overcrowded prison in the UK. When it was built it was designed to hold around 240 prisoners. It currently holds twice that number. With the exception of the new prison in north Wales, all of our prisons are overcrowded. Cardiff is operating at 150 per cent of capacity, as is Usk. Parc is operating at just over capacity. Having worked for many years at HMP Parc, I can tell you that overcrowding is hard on both staff and prisoners alike.

As the Wales Governance Centre report highlights, assaults on prisoners and staff have sky-rocketed. Last year there were around 6,500 assaults on staff, 761 of which resulted in a prison officer being hospitalised. This is leading to yet another crisis in our prisons: lack of staff. The number of prison officers who quit just months after completing their training has risen exponentially. A third of prison officers quit within a year of starting, and we are also haemorrhaging experienced staff due to overcrowding and a lack of investment.

We have to build more prisons, with the emphasis and focus on rehabilitation. In particular, those prisoners with mental health issues need additional help. There are many prisoners, we understand, who should not be in prison and have simply been let down by society, particularly the homeless and those, as previously stated, with mental health issues. I have voiced my support for a new prison within my region, which will not only reduce the strain on Swansea and Parc, but also bring much needed jobs to the area—to one of the most deprived areas of the country.

I hope the Welsh Government will see this report as a wake-up call and will work with the UK Government to reduce overcrowding and underfunding in our prisons before it’s too late. Diolch yn fawr.