We recognise the need to protect our communities from harm and where we cannot divert people away from crime in the first place, we must ensure that all we do is in a holistic and rehabilitative way. We don't believe that building more prison places is the right way to solve the crisis in our criminal justice system. There's clearly a distinction between wanting to take a different approach to improving facilities and wanting to build additional facilities. We want an improvement in the standard and condition of the existing secure estate. We do not want an increase in the number of prisons or prison places in Wales.

Services, of course, don't end at the prison gate when an individual leaves prison, as the First Minister stated in Plenary last week. This Government is fully supportive of the reunification of the probation service in Wales. There are welcome steps being taken in relation to the probation service in Wales, but we must go further. This is our chance to shape the future direction of probation services, which need to be flexible and innovative in their approach to meeting the needs of individuals, helping them achieve best outcomes and maintaining stability within their communities. Leanne Wood would be, I'm sure, pleased to hear that I'm meeting Napo tomorrow to discuss these issues, because they are so relevant and key, and this debate is, as I said, very timely. 

Only by ensuring that the correct level of support post release can be provided—including appropriate housing, health and social services provision, and encouragement to access education and skills to maximize job opportunities—can we begin to address the issue of the revolving door occurrence of people regularly returning to prison. So, I'd encourage and support any proposals to end or limit the use of short-term sentences. Costly process serves little if no purpose in terms of rehabilitation, but, as I said, can have a devastating impact on people's lives. 

Turning to other policy issues in the motion—the right to vote for prisoners in Welsh elections. The Minister for Housing and Local Government is exploring options for extending the rights of prisoners to vote in Welsh local government elections and we've consulted on a package of proposals in terms of electoral reform with a view to bringing forward a Bill later this year. But of course, the Assembly's Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee, chaired by John Griffiths, is undertaking an inquiry on this very issue of voting rights for prisoners. I'm pleased the terms of reference include considering whether some or all prisoners should be given the right to vote in Welsh elections or whether distinctions might be drawn between different categories of prisoner. So, the Welsh Government supports the principle of the right to vote for prisoners but awaits the committee's findings. 

I want to make a strong point as well about women and the criminal justice system. I was also appalled by the statistics—and Helen Mary as well as Alun Davies and others on this point. I strongly endorse the principle set out and many of you will remember Baroness Jean Corston's seminal report on this issue. More than 10 years on, these principles that she outlined remain the same. It's clear that women are being sent to prison often for low-level, summary offences. Thank you for your insights today on this issue.

Consequently, the use of ineffective short-term prison sentences on women who have not committed serious offences can have a catastrophic impact on them and their families. Short sentences don't enable rehabilitation in its fullest sense, because, obviously, they're often not in prison long enough to be able to even complete or access programmes that could be beneficial in terms of education and rehabilitation.

At the same time, the children of women serving a custodial sentence will in turn suffer. As the Prison Reform Trust report, 'What about me?', published last year states, only 5 per cent of children whose mothers are in prison are able to stay within the family home. The longer-term impacts of the imprisonment of women are far reaching and must be considered seriously. Any proposal to reduce the impact of incarceration on women should therefore be welcomed.

I'd also like to thank Alun Davies, my predecessor, for the work that he undertook in this key area of policy, and the commitment he made to address these issues across the full range of aspects arising within this debate, and widely welcomed. We need to ensure that, as far as Welsh women are concerned, they have safe and secure facilities that are fit for purpose, and I do look forward to, obviously, moving the female offending blueprint for Wales. Alun announced it last year in December. It was developed jointly with Her Majesty's Prison and Probation Service, and that will help identify the additional support required for the delivery of appropriate justice system services for women in Wales.

So, I think it's important, Llywydd, to say that in setting out his immediate priorities for reform—and he did that in his first First Minister's questions—the First Minister identified those immediate priorities that youth justice and female offending are areas we are working on with the Ministry of Justice, through the blueprints announced in December, to see what progress can be made within the constraints of the existing devolution settlement. The Welsh Government didn't establish the commission to ratify its own view; it is independent and it has heavyweight expertise from across all the areas it's investigating. Our amendment was laid in order to recognise the important work of the Thomas commission, and, of course, we all across this Chamber look forward to the conclusions and recommendations that it will provide.