7. Debate: Probation Service Reform

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 6:08 pm on 23 October 2018.

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Photo of Alun Davies Alun Davies Labour 6:08, 23 October 2018

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I'm grateful to Members on all sides of the Chamber for their contributions to what has been, I think, a very good and thoughtful debate this afternoon. In terms of taking this forward, I also welcome the very broad consensus of view that we just heard expressed by Caroline Jones, but that we also heard powerfully expressed by Members on different sides of the Chamber. I think Julie Morgan spoke for all of us when she described the failure of the privatisation, echoing the words of John Griffiths and Leanne Wood, speaking from their own experience of a criminal justice system that is simply failing the most vulnerable people in our society.

I think it's absolutely essential—. The points made by Leanne Wood in terms of working with staff and not against them must be a part of how we take this forward. I welcome John Griffiths's comments about the progress that we are seeing on this issue. He's absolutely right to argue that the progress has been faster and further than we anticipated, even some months ago, and I think we would all seek to welcome that. The points made by Julie Morgan on the blueprint for female offenders, I think, are extremely well made, and I will be seeking to bring blueprints for female offending and for youth offending to this place and to publish those before Christmas. That's certainly my intention today.

There has been agreement and descriptions of the failures of privatisation. But, for us, we want to go further than simply describing the failures of the past. We want to design a future for everybody. And can I say this in closing, Deputy Presiding Officer? Mark Isherwood is getting there. He's nearly there. I would say to him: do not subcontract your speech writing to Conservative—[Interruption.] I'm going to finish this. Do not subcontract your speech writing and your thinking to Conservative head office: think, look hard—look hard at what you see in front of you. I know that he works hard to maintain contact and to speak with people up and down the region he represents, and he will know from his own experience that there exists across Wales today a broad and settled consensus that policing should be devolved to this place, and, in doing so, criminal justice should also be devolved to enable us to create the holistic system that many people have described.

But let me finish with the points made by Leanne Wood: devolution by itself, for its own purpose, isn't good enough. What we have to recognise is that devolving these responsibilities is the beginning of the job, not the end of it. We devolve those responsibilities in order to create a better service and the opportunities to serve our people better. We don't simply do it because we are driven to that conclusion by a rigid dogma, so we have to get these things right. And I recognise that there are areas at the moment that we don't get right and we need to do better. And it is only by devolving those responsibilities to this place to ensure that we have the scrutiny of this place that we can then pursue those policy objectives and then even Mark Isherwood will agree that we will be serving the most vulnerable people in our society better than we do today.