Thank you very much, acting Presiding Officer. Shall I start by saying that Government will accept all three amendments to this motion this afternoon?

In terms of approaching the reform of the probation service, there are some very significant, philosophical differences between ourselves and the United Kingdom Government on this matter. I start, and we start, from first principles that we want to see the probation service as a world-class rehabilitation service investing in people and investing in communities. We want to see rehabilitation to be at the heart of the probation service.

A recent Ministry of Justice consultation document, 'Strengthening probation, building confidence', has been welcomed by this Government, because we do believe, notwithstanding some of the differences in our basic approach to probation, that this consultation document provides the basis for us to move forward with probation in Wales. The consultation gives us a real opportunity to do things that are rooted in our experience in Wales and rooted in our ambitions for Wales as well. I believe that the consultation proposals do provide us with an opportunity to design a better probation service that is fit for purpose.

I was very pleased, and I think Members across the whole Chamber will welcome the recognition from the Ministry of Justice that Wales is in a distinct position, that simply trying to shoehorn the English proposals into Wales would not work, and I think all of us will welcome the recognition that this is no longer possible. I believe that this is the first step on the route to bringing a probation to Wales that delivers coherence and a holistic service for Wales.

The proposals that we are discussing include: integrating the offender management function of the community rehabilitation companies into the National Probation Service, to create a single probation system in Wales; closer alignment of both these structures and a stronger role for local partners in shaping probation services; opportunities for joint commissioning with both the Welsh Government and police and crime commissioners; and the opportunity to achieve increased integration across prisons and probation. We recognise that the intervention and resettlement services will be open to competition. Welsh Government, of course, would prefer these matters to be within the public service, but we recognise that this is a difference between us and the United Kingdom Government. 

Acting Presiding Officer, in my time in this role, I have sought to create a close working relationship between Welsh Government, the Ministry of Justice and Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service. Members will be aware that devolution of the criminal justice system is the objective of this Government—not because of dogma, but because we want to see good services being delivered to some of the most vulnerable people in our communities. And we believe that working together to deliver these services in a way that unites people and organisations is a better way of delivering these. All too often, we have found ourselves in the position in recent years where neither the Welsh Government nor the United Kingdom Government has been able to deliver all of its policies in probation and elsewhere in the criminal justice system. This is a consequence of a broken settlement that does not deliver for Wales. So, we have sought to create a close working relationship with the UK Government to ensure that, notwithstanding the difficulties of a settlement, we are able to look towards creating structures that do deliver the services that we believe we require.