I think we all share some gratitude to the Wales Governance Centre for the work they're doing in the reports and analysis that they've published, but also in publishing Welsh stats and an understanding of the secure estate, and how the prison and probation service works and serves Wales. Taken together, all of this work is describing a failing system. The system is failing, and it is our job here today and here in this place to fix that. We have to ask the fundamental question: why is this system failing and why is it failing so consistently and over time? My answer to that question is that it's because we have a broken settlement. Until the settlement is fixed, we are unable to solve the problems that are endemic in the criminal justice system.

The England and Wales jurisdiction is a relic of history. That is what the Welsh Government says in its evidence to the Thomas Commission on Justice in Wales. It describes how the system—the final legacy of the Acts of Union, the Tudor Acts of Union—how it today creates a system that is failing people in Wales. The Welsh Government was very clear, in the evidence that I gave to the Thomas commission, the evidence that the former First Minister gave to the commission, and the evidence that the Counsel General, who is in his place today, gave to the commission—that the system is failing Wales, it's failing the people of Wales, and that the criminal justice system must be devolved to Wales. We were very clear about that.

We need to understand the real implications of this. If a jurisdiction, and if policy over criminal justice, was simply some sort of dusty, academic subject, I frankly wouldn't be that interested in the devolution of it. It's because of its human impact on people today that I've been persuaded that this is not simply a matter that is important, but a matter that is urgent. [Interruption.] I will give way.