So we move to item 8, which is a statement by the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services: towards a distinct approach to the penal system in Wales. I call on the Cabinet Secretary for Local Government and Public Services, Alun Davies.

Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am very pleased to be able to make this statement this afternoon and in doing so I want to start by expressing my own personal gratitude to all of those people who've worked with me to develop and test the blueprints for youth and female offenders over many months.

People in the criminal justice system are some of our most vulnerable and disadvantaged in our society. Too often people are caught up in the criminal justice system because they themselves have been failed earlier in their lives, suffered multiple adverse childhood experiences or abuse, much of which continues into their adult lives. We must end this cycle. We are letting people down, but we are also creating a demand on public services that we are simply not able to meet. But, Deputy Presiding Officer, it is always the human impact that drives me and my approach to this policy.

Like many others, and like we've heard in the Chamber this afternoon, I want to see the devolution of the criminal justice system as early as possible. I have previously set out to Members my determination to develop a distinct approach to justice in Wales, to focus on preventative action and to break this cycle. Whilst we operate within a complex legal framework, overall control of the justice system at present continues to rest with the United Kingdom Government, so today we will continue to work within the parameters of the current devolution settlement on justice whilst recognising that, in order to deliver the best for our people, we do need the devolution of this system.

To continue to make progress and improvements in all areas of criminal justice, tackling the whole system is crucial. I want us to make quicker progress in certain areas of the system, namely youth offending and female offending. We have developed new ways of working and tested new models of delivery and we have already made progress. Since last year, my officials have been working across the Government, with the United Kingdom Government, the Prison and Probation Service in Wales, police and crime commissioners, and a range of other stakeholders in justice, health and education to develop and deliver new approaches to youth offending and female offending.

On youth offending we believe that early intervention and prevention can help divert young people away from the criminal justice system. We support the trauma-informed enhanced case management approach with these more complex young people, greatly reducing the rate of first-time offending and re-offending rates. However, more young people are becoming involved in violence and more serious organised crime. The growth of county lines is one reason, but I accept that there are many other reasons for this as well.

Our current proposals on youth offending therefore prioritise further early prevention and diversion activity, reaching younger people even earlier, before they are at risk of offending. We will further develop our approaches to pre-court diversion and enhance the support for a trauma-informed approach to working with young people at risk of offending. A holistic approach will be needed, and we will use the experience of the pathfinders to inform that work. We recognise that one size does not fit all.

At the same time, consideration must be given to how best to place a small cohort of young people, with often very complex needs, in a secure environment that is fit for purpose. Then there must be the right type of support available to help these young people recover and resettle into their communities. All of our work with young people will be underpinned by a rights-based approach, considering them as a child or young person first, not as an offender or potential offender.

There is still a disproportionately high number of women sent to prison, often for short sentences. We recognise that this has a devastating longer term effect on the women themselves and their families. We must therefore invest more effort into pre-court diversion. I would like to see even earlier preventative measures to divert women away from the criminal justice system; to keep families together; to reduce the need for more acute services; and to reduce the longer term impact that involvement in the criminal justice system can have for these women.

The development of trauma-informed approaches and the recognition of the impact of adverse childhood experiences should be considered for female offenders and their children, taking into account the needs of those women and their families who have been affected by domestic abuse and sexual violence. We can better support women to stay in their communities and in work. We want to develop the services necessary to support women so they can avoid custody altogether. We will also work with the Ministry of Justice and the courts to reconsider the impact of sentencing policy and the impact of short sentences on women, including how this will impact on the child and family.

It is also patently clear and urgent that we need a new solution to the current female prison estate. We will need to work closely with the Ministry of Justice and the prisons and probation service, but I am clear that when a woman is committed to custody, they need to be in an environment that supports their needs; supports their rehabilitation; and supports them to remain connected to their families and their communities.

I would like to put on record my gratitude for the work of Youth Justice Board Cymru, for their role in early intervention and diversion successes, and the outreach work they are doing on sentencing and prevention.

On female offending, we have supported a women’s pathfinder programme, diverting women away from custody and providing a range of support. I would also like to express my gratitude to the partners, in particular Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service and the police and crime commissioners involved in developing the women’s pathfinder and the female offending draft blueprint, for all of their work to date. 

Deputy Presiding Officer, over the coming months, with our range of partners and across Government, we will continue to develop our proposals into firm plans that will bring our blueprints into life. I would envisage that in the new year we will be in a position to publish the blueprints in full and outline our proposals in greater detail in the form of a delivery plan. I will keep Members updated as this work continues.

Thank you for your statement—one of many on a similar theme over recent weeks and months. You entitled this 'a distinct approach to the penal system in Wales', although it looks uncannily similar to the developing policy agenda across the border in England also.

As you've heard me say previously, I, in August, attended the HM Prison and Probation Service in Wales's engagement event in Wrexham to discuss the proposals contained in the 'Strengthening probation, building confidence' consultation paper. We heard that, in Wales, the proposals consulted on are that, from 2020, all offender management services will be back within the National Probation Service and that HM Prison and Probation Service in Wales will explore options for the commissioning of rehabilitative services, such as interventions and community payback. We heard that the consultation outlined plans to stabilise probation services and improve offender supervision and through-the-gate services and that, key to your statement,

'devolved responsibilities of the Welsh Government and existing partnership arrangements in Wales make the delivery of probation services quite different to that in England. The legislative framework provides us with scope to develop alternative delivery arrangements which better reflect the criminal justice context in Wales…We will then consider whether the learning from these new arrangements is applicable to the system in England.'

Well, that was four months ago. You've mentioned the engagement you've had with a number of bodies, including HM probation and prisons; I wonder if you could add any meat to those bones in terms of the discussions around that agenda that you've subsequently had. 

I'm not going to go down the party political temptations you put in front of me in areas I'm not going to name, because it will digress, perhaps, from the answer you give me, and I'll try and focus on your focus on youth and female offenders.

You rightly say that, on youth offending, you believe early intervention and prevention can help divert young people away from the criminal justice system and how best to place a small cohort of young people in custody and help those young people recover and settle into their communities. Well, the consultation document also spoke about increasing integration across prisons and probation in Wales with real input from the third sector, utilising people capital. Following that event, in fact, quite recently, I went out with the National Probation Service to meet Eagle House Youth Development, a community interest company in Bangor, to discuss their work with young people involved with or at risk of committing crime. They were picked, for example, by the jobcentre for their stand at the Royal Welsh Show this year as the lead third sector body that they were working with in helping young people who perhaps fell into those potential characteristics or might be at risk in the future. So, how will you engage with organisations such as Eagle House?

Also, last week, as you might be aware—although sadly you didn't attend—I hosted the launch of the Clean Slate Cymru toolkit at an event celebrating the Clean Slate Cymru project in the Pierhead, with Construction Youth Trust Cymru, the Construction Industry Training Board, and construction company BAM Nuttall, celebrating a pan-Wales project to support people with convictions into construction employment, and the launch of a guide on how the construction industry can engage with ex-offenders in prisons and communities across Wales and achieve social value by training ex-offenders, finding employment in the construction sector, work placements, skills training and much else besides. Again, have you engaged, or will you be looking to engage with these leading projects that are already making a difference and have brought together the third sector, the private sector and some Government agencies who were present on this agenda?

I will conclude by referring to your reference, quite rightly, to women sent to prison, often for short sentences, and the need to develop services to support women to avoid custody and also prioritise short sentences being outside a prison environment, but also what happens when people are placed in the current female prison estate in Wales. What engagement, therefore, have you had with the UK Government since its announcement that, instead of five community prisons for women in England and Wales, they'll trial five residential centres to help women offenders with issues such as finding work, substance misuse and so on, where those on community sentences, as recognised clearly by UK Government as well as yourself, are less likely to commit further crimes than those who've served short jail terms, with a view to having one of those centres in Wales, but also accessible within Wales? Because, clearly, people living in north-east Wales would have difficulty if the centre was located in Swansea or Cardiff, and vice versa. 

Finally, in that context, as you know, in north Wales, and for much of Wales, female offenders who go to prison are sent to Styal. I only live 40-odd miles from Styal, so, for them, it's more accessible than somewhere in mid Wales or south Wales. But what actions have you undertaken, or are you undertaking, where women offenders, particularly Welsh-speaking women offenders, are in the English estate, to ensure that they get the appropriate support within the prison estate to communicate and support them on release?

I'm grateful to the Conservatives for their questions and, I think, general support for this statement and the approach that we're taking. The Member for North Wales started his remarks by questioning whether this was a distinct approach at all, and then, in order to sustain his case, he quoted from a Ministry of Justice document, which outlined the need for a distinctive approach in Wales because of the differences in delivery, structures and policies being pursued in this country. What I will say to him is this: the privatisation of probation has not worked—it's been seen to be a failure. Many of us told the MOJ it would be a failure at the time, and now the MOJ, at least in Wales, has recognised that those structures are no longer fit for purpose.

There will be a distinctive approach taken in Wales. I meet regularly with the director of the prison and probation service in Wales. We discuss how we provide a holistic approach to policy, both within the period of incarceration, but also how we then ensure that we have the through-the-gate approaches that support people in their journey out of the criminal justice system. I'm quite sure in my own mind that we're moving away from the dogma of privatisation, and what we are moving towards is a system that is more in tune with the values that will be supported, I believe, on most sides of this Chamber, where we do work with the third sector, but we work within a structure and framework that puts people and not profit first. I hope we will be able to pursue that and continue to pursue that approach.

The Conservatives asked me some questions on the female estate. If there is anybody who wishes to defend the current settlement in terms of justice, one only needs to look at the experience of female offenders to see how that system, and how that structure, fails women today in Wales, and consistently fails women across the whole of the country. Nobody—nobody—can argue that a system that is set up with no facilities for women at all in this country is in any way established to meet the needs of the people of this country.

The system that exists today is not fit for purpose—it never has been fit for purpose. What we have to do in its place is not simply go back to building prisons in the way that some people have suggested, but look for different options and different solutions. The question was to what extent I have pursued this with the Ministry of Justice. I will say to the Member that I've met Phillip Lee as the Minister, I met Edward Argar as a Minister and I've met Rory Stewart as a Minister in order to pursue all of these matters. We have agreed more than we have disagreed in terms of how we take these matters forward.

We are agreed that we need a new approach to female offending and to dealing with women in the criminal justice system. I agree with the points that were made in the previous conversation over questions—that we need a women's centre and not a women's prison, but we also need a range of facilities for women, which doesn't simply include custody. I've visited the Scottish Government and spoken with the Scottish Government about the women's centres and the facilities for women that they have there, and what I hope we are able to do is develop a holistic approach, so that the current tragedy of young people and women in the criminal justice system is something that we can consign to history.

Thank you for your statement, Cabinet Secretary. In the first instance, can I say that, as a former probation officer, I welcome the general direction of travel towards a criminal justice system based on rehabilitation as opposed to punishment?

Pre-court diversion means significant investment in probation services, and it's a real shame, given that you've outlined the problems caused by the privatisation of the probation service, that your Government didn't put up a bigger fight against the privatisation of those services when we in Plaid Cymru were warning that exactly this would happen.

Now, Plaid Cymru has long advocated for more rehabilitation, and without seeing the detail of any specific proposals, I'm of course limited in the contribution that I can make at this point. So, I look forward to seeing specific proposals published in the new year. I will say, though, that its apparent for all of us in the Chamber that your statement today comes at a time when there is growing concern about the state of the criminal justice system in Wales and that there is a consensus forming that things cannot continue as they are. A swathe of reports by the Institute of Welsh Affairs, the Wales Governance Centre, the Howard League for Penal Reform, and most recently a report by the Welsh Language Commissioner highlighting how the needs of Welsh-speaking prisoners are not being met, provide further and concrete evidence that the criminal justice system run by the Tories in Westminster is punitive, based on profit and stands in direct opposition to the aims of rehabilitation.

The effects of not having a women's prison in Wales are well known in terms of the impact on families and communities, but clearly establishing a women's prison for Wales is not the answer. Can I therefore invite the Cabinet Secretary to confirm that the blueprint and the delivery plan will contain the firm commitment not to support the building of any new prison in Wales? And can I also ask for further clarity on what specific measures you as a Government will take to divert women away from the criminal justice system?

I welcome the rights-based approach to youth offending and the focus on adverse childhood experiences, and I would welcome further detail on this. Which agencies will you be working with in order to realise your vision on this? Will people have a right to access counselling services, for example, to overcome childhood trauma, both when that trauma happens in childhood and also later on in adulthood, if that is needed? Will there be a right to substance use treatment, if that's what is needed? What does a rights-based approach mean in concrete terms?

Plaid Cymru has long argued that it is ultimately only the devolution of responsibility for the criminal justice system that will allow us to design a comprehensive system that is fairer and that includes having rehabilitation at its heart. We await the Thomas commission's recommendations in this respect, but, in the interim, can I ask you to confirm how these proposals for a distinct Welsh approach for youth and women offenders are being developed under the current insufficient constitutional frameworks and how those will align with future developments occurring in the light of the Thomas commission?

Finally, can I ask you to put on the record that you are in favour of the full devolution of all aspects of the criminal justice system to address the underlying issues highlighted in your statement and to give effect to these principles of rehabilitation?

Deputy Presiding Officer, let me answer the final question first. The answer is 'yes'. The answer is 'yes'. I would invite the Member for the Rhondda to seek a consensus and to seek opportunities to work together rather than to look for divisions between us. I believe that we have a real opportunity here. The Member outlined very well a number of critical reports about the prison service and the conditions in prisons in Wales, and I recognise the points that she makes. But I would say to her as well that we are more powerful where we seek agreement than where we seek disagreement, and I would say to her that the evidence—[Interruption.]—the evidence—[Interruption.]—the evidence that I've given to the Thomas commission, and I'm very happy for it to be made public in due course, was very much about how we deliver a devolved justice system in Wales but also how we deliver a different system of justice in Wales.

She has asked me to confirm that we do not support the development of any new prison in Wales. Let me say this: we do not support and we will not support the building or the creation or the development of a prison for women in Wales. I've already outlined that we want to see different centres and different facilities for women in the criminal justice system. But we do need investment in the secure estate in the male adult estate, because the conditions in some of our prisons—as she has described herself—for male adult prisoners is simply unacceptable, and we do need to look at how we develop that and how we invest in the secure estate to have an estate that is fit for purpose in the twenty-first century. And let me say this: there can be nobody—there can be nobody—who would seriously argue that the secure estate, in its entirety that we have in Wales, was in any way designed and developed to serve the people of Wales. Up until 18 months ago, we had no facility outside of the M4 corridor. Up until today, we still have no facilities for women and the only youth offending institution is contained within the adult prison in Parc. None of those areas are sufficient, and none of those areas are areas where I am content with the infrastructure and the estate. So, I want to see investment in the whole of that estate to do things differently, to do things differently in the future than what we've seen in the past, and I think there is general agreement with the direction of travel with the probation service.

Again, I'm asked, 'How will we deliver this?', 'How will we work in order to deliver a different probation service?' We will work with the Ministry of Justice and we will work with the Home Office in order to ensure that we have the approach from both policing and within the secure estate to deliver our objectives. It isn't sufficient—it isn't sufficient—simply to deliver a lecture on the constitution whilst people in the system are suffering. And I won't do that. I won't do that. I won't simply say that the current system, the structures, the constitution, are inadequate and leave it at that. I will roll up my sleeves and do everything I can to invest in the future of the people who are currently within the criminal justice system, and that, I believe, is what the people of Wales will want us to do.

But the questions you ask go further than that, and I accept that we do need a different and a more holistic approach. We do need to look at how we deal with substance misuse within the criminal justice system. I would go further than the Member suggested, in fact, because I believe we also need to look at how we deal with wider mental health issues within the criminal justice system. I believe that we do need to deliver targeted support for people. We need to look at how we deliver housing for people who are leaving the criminal justice system, who are leaving the secure estate. We need to look harder at how we deliver training, how we deliver education. We need to look harder at how we deliver a pathway out of criminal justice, out of offending for people. And what these blueprints do is to start that journey and to establish the framework, the principles, that will guide us on that journey.

I welcome this statement, and I look forward to seeing the blueprints when they are published. As a general point, I know that these blueprints are covering two particular areas of female offenders and young people, but would the Cabinet Secretary agree that there is a very strong case for making great concerted efforts to generally bring down the prison population in Wales? Because, certainly, the UK commits more people to prison than almost any other country, and so I think there's a general point there that I wonder if the Cabinet Secretary would address.

And I also welcome the proposal to have a distinct penal strategy, and I also welcome the fact that the Cabinet Secretary does want to have the criminal justice system devolved because, as it is at the moment, we're stuck in a halfway house, where we have to work within the parameters of the current devolution settlement, which is very unsatisfactory, because, obviously, aspects of the justice system that affect prisoners are devolved but major aspects are not. So, I know that the Cabinet Secretary has already said his views on that. I absolutely agree with him that the last thing we want in Wales is a women's prison. I've campaigned about this for many years, and the problems that women and their families encounter through imprisonment I think have been well catalogued and have been discussed here quite extensively this afternoon, so I won't go into that.

But I'd like to press the Cabinet Secretary just a bit more about these five women's centres and whether he actually does think one of them will be in Wales. Obviously, we would need, certainly, access to more than one in Wales, and one may be not enough, but what stage are those discussions at? Because I think we really need to be sure that Wales does have the opportunity to have access to that money that's coming from the Ministry of Justice. But I was concerned to hear that, on 9 November, the Ministry of Justice announced funding of £3.3 million for 12 community organisations to support women offenders, and none of these appear to be in Wales. So, I wondered if the Cabinet Secretary has any information about that, because I understand that a further £1.7 million is still to be awarded. So, could he tell us what discussions he's had with the Ministry of Justice about this funding and whether he has any indication of whether organisations based in Wales will benefit from them? I did look at the list of organisations that had had this money in England, and it did seem that there were some very good projects that were receiving funding, and I hope that there'll be the opportunity to look at this in Wales again.

I think we've had—. This argument about women prisoners in Wales, women offenders in Wales, has been long running, and I'm really pleased that we seem to have reached the stage where we do now acknowledge that we do need a different approach to women prisoners. So, I hope that the Cabinet Secretary will press ahead to make sure we get a residential centre in Wales and that we get some access to this money from the Ministry of Justice.

I'm grateful to the Member for Cardiff North for her support, and I know she's been a campaigner on these matters for many years and has driven the debate on many of these issues over a significant period of time.

I want to start by agreeing with the general point that she makes about the prison population. In the 13 months I've been in this post, I've visited every single prison in Wales, and I've taken time to talk, not simply to the staff, although I have done so, and the management of these institutions, but I've also sat in cells talking to the people who are being held there and I've had a number of conversations with people who have described their lives to me in sometimes deeply upsetting detail. And what I've learnt is that we have failed those people as a society, and what I have learnt is that, as a Government, we've made too many speeches and not taken enough actions. And we need—. I'm thinking of somebody I spoke to in Cardiff last summer, who described to me how he had ended up back in Cardiff prison and what his expectations were for his life this autumn that we've spent here. I have to say, I think of him very regularly when I think about the approach that we take to these policies. I think of the conversations I've had with people who have been taken away from their families and where any opportunity they may have to turn their lives around has been made more difficult by public institutions and by public authorities who do not provide, and are not providing, the services in the way that the people we serve require and need. The conversations I've had with these people being held on the secure estate in our name have convinced me that we require far greater and far deeper reform to the penal system than is possible within the current circumstances and within the current settlement. And, when we consider these matters, it is the issue of women and the way in which we fail women that comes back, and I believe will provide the test for all of us, wherever we sit in this Chamber.

The issues around the women's centres I have discussed both with the Minister for female offenders and with the prisons Minister. I last met the prisons Minister about a month ago, and I discussed this matter with him. I believe that we do need at least one women's centre in Wales, and I do take on board the points made by the Conservative spokesperson about location, but also I do not believe that it is right and proper that it is run exclusively by the prison service. I believe that it would be best if it were managed by the Welsh Government to ensure that the focus is on the delivery of services and the focus is on rehabilitation, and not just a punitive experience. So, I believe that we do need to look urgently at not simply the bricks and mortar, but the services that are delivered in that facility and also the management of that facility.

I will also say this: we have focused on a women's centre as opposed to a women's prison and it is right and proper that we do so. But we also need to ensure that we have far greater and more diverse facilities available for women, which aren't simply about custody, but are about the delivery of services so that magistrates and others do have the opportunity to pass sentences that are not always custodial and do provide the opportunity to bring services together to ensure that women and their families are not separated, divided, and broken by a system that should be there to support, to nourish and to sustain those families. 

I will take up the issue that you've raised about the funds available from the Ministry of Justice; that did not form a part of the conversation I had with the prisons Minister last month. But I will say this to the Member for Cardiff North: the values that have driven you, over many years, to campaign on these matters are the values that drive this Government in seeking to address these issues as well.

Thank you for your statement. As you say, we need more action and fewer words. Penal policy has been dominated by the Daily Mail for too many years, not just under the Conservative Government, but under previous Labour Governments as well. So, we know that the current system doesn't work, because, if we send people to prison and they are simply learning new skills as a criminal and then being taken back to prison, we're simply wasting our time. So, rehabilitation has to be the key driver here, and I welcome your intent, but obviously am concerned that we still don't have anything concrete in the way of a women's centre in Wales, particularly in relation to your comments about young people and the increasing pulling into crime that's happening with young people being pulled into the drugs trade through these county lines, and related issues around carrying knives, which is extremely worrying.

Now, you're absolutely right, it seems to me, to talk about the need for trauma-informed work with young people who've had very troubled lives, but I'm just wondering how we are going to deliver these services when youth work has been so hollowed out by years and years of austerity and cuts to local government, and, because they're not statutory services, often they are some of the first to go. So, I would commend, absolutely, the fantastic work that has been done in my constituency by youth workers to protect young people who are in danger of being sucked into the drugs trade and who are the people who young people are prepared to go to. They won't go to the police, because they think they'll then be regarded as somebody who is informing on other people, but youth workers are a neutral body of people who know how to talk to young people and who they can rely on to protect them and to advise them. So, this seems to me one of the major problems, really, that you highlight the importance of trauma-informed youth services, but we have a shrinking number of that public service.

I think Jenny Rathbone, as she does very often, of course, has identified the key challenge facing us. I'm grateful to you, Jenny, for your support for the approach that we're taking, but you're absolutely right: the judgment will be on our actions and not our speeches, and I certainly do recognise that. But let me say a word about the approach that I've taken and how I've sought to address exactly the challenge you've described this afternoon. At the moment, many of the difficulties we face are because we do have a broken settlement, where we're unable to deliver a holistic approach to policy.

In creating the policing board for Wales, which met for the first time a few weeks ago, we are looking at developing an approach through the police and through agencies working alongside the police that will treat vulnerability in a way that would have been unimaginable 10, 20 or 30 years ago. So, we're changing the way that we police many of our communities, and a conversation I had yesterday with the chief constable and the police and crime commissioner in Dyfed-Powys reflected many of the sorts of conversations that we've been having, and I believe the policing board will enable us to begin the job of bringing together, if you like, different arms of policy, different agents of policy, and different authorities to work in a more coherent way and to treat vulnerability in a way we simply couldn't do before.

We then need to bring the penal system into that, and the wider criminal justice system into that as well, and I believe that we can do that. I believe that what I've seen from people working within the system is an absolute commitment to the debate that we've had this afternoon, and to the values that have driven the debate that we've had this afternoon. So, I believe that we can do that as well. What I've sought to do at every occasion has been to seek agreement with the Ministry of Justice and with the Home Office to enable us to move forward.

As I said in answer to an earlier question, these people are suffering today and are being failed today. Providing a speech on the future constitution of the United Kingdom is not a sufficient answer to the issues they face in their daily lives. So, we've sought to deliver an approach that may not deliver everything that we would like to see, but it is beginning to deliver an approach to preventative measures that will have an impact in the future.

But let me say this, in closing: I believe that there are examples around the world of Governments who have succeeded in delivering real, preventative actions that have addressed vulnerable people and vulnerable families and vulnerable communities. I believe we have a lot to learn from those Governments and those approaches. I believe that the approaches that we've been taking in terms of some of the initiatives we've taken in local government and elsewhere are beginning to find a way towards addressing those issues. But what I will say is this—that the principles of justice should run through all of our work as a Government, because what I've been seeing is that people who are, as you say, in the county lines environment, are not there because they want to offend. They're not there because they want to take and deal in drugs. But they're there because they've been failed and because they see no alternative to doing so. It is creating those alternatives that is our challenge and what we have to do, and I believe, as a Government here in Wales, we can do that.

Thank you very much, Cabinet Secretary.