I'd like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for his statement. The probation service is a vital part of the criminal justice system and is likely to become even more important in future as our prisons become increasingly overcrowded. Welsh prisons are operating well beyond capacity, leading to severe overcrowding, which is detrimental to both prisoners and those who look after them—the prison officers. Prison can work, but it only works with proper rehabilitation, and the present overcrowding hampers the ability of prison staff to rehabilitate their charges effectively. As well as building new prisons to replace our archaic and crumbling Victorian prisons, we also have to ensure that rehabilitation continues when an offender leaves the prison gates and that there is a suitable mechanism for dealing with low-risk offenders for whom prison is not the answer. The probation service should be that mechanism. But, unfortunately, Chris Grayling's botched attempts to reform have turned the probation service into a national embarrassment. I would like to see the devolution of the criminal justice system. Our prisons are overflowing with people who should not be there: those suffering from mental ill health, veterans suffering from PTSD who have been abandoned by the system, and those who are desperately in need of shelter. All these people have been let down by a failing probation service. The National Audit Office found serious failings in the way that the UK Government opened up the probation service to private companies and the third sector. The NAO's report on transforming rehabilitation highlighted severe failures in monitoring the community rehabilitation companies, which meant that the Ministry of Justice had no way of knowing how the CRCs were performing.

CRCs are responsible for 80 per cent of the probation service's work, yet many fail to provide any performance data, cherry-picked which offenders they would monitor, and were paid regardless of whether they actually reduced reoffending. The Grayling reforms were also highly criticised by the Commons Justice Committee, which concluded that it was unlikely that the reforms could ever deliver an effective probation service. It is therefore unsurprising that the current Secretary of State for Justice has decided to reform the probation service.

I welcome the fact that reforms are to be phased in by 2020. As the National Audit Office highlighted, the rushed nature of the earlier reforms had a huge impact on the service, putting strain on staff, seeing inadequate IT provisions, and cutting corners. The private companies playing a role in offender rehabilitation and monitoring need to be properly managed and deliver results, not just profits. It has to be properly resourced for the benefit and safety of all. I would also like to see greater involvement of the voluntary sector.

The decision of the MOJ  to combine the functions of the National Probation Service and the CRCs into a single organisation for Welsh offenders has merit, and I look forward to seeing how this will operate. One of the major criticisms of the NPS and CRCs was that they failed to secure housing for ex-offenders when they leave prison, which can often lead to reoffending. When I served in the prison service, we saw many young people who reoffended just to have a roof over their head and regular meals, and this is shameful. If we can ensure that the new probation service for Wales truly integrates with the public sector, truly involves the voluntary sector, and is truly and properly resourced, then the outlook for reoffending rates in Wales is good. I hope the Welsh Government and the UK Government will work closely together to ensure that we have a probation service that really works for Wales.