Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. We've had an interesting debate, and I think it's been measured and temperate, as it should be. It's an important issue for democracy, but it's also, beyond that, as Alun Davies pointed out in his speech, which I thought was an extremely good speech, about the way in which we treat people even though they are incarcerated and outside the scope of general society. I strongly believe that prisoners should be treated in a humane way. I've been involved for many years with a charity that was set up by Lord Longford, who was a great friend of mine, called the New Bridge to reintegrate ex-prisoners into society, and I appreciate the excellent work that they've done. Mark Isherwood, in his contribution, referred to others, like Clean Slate and SToMP, doing similar work. This is absolutely vital if we are to reintegrate people into society as law-abiding individuals. Prison, of course, has a deterrent purpose and a punishment purpose, but it's no good if at the end of it people have learned nothing and simply reoffend, and as Jenny Rathbone pointed out in her intervention in my speech earlier on, recidivism is an important element of this, and whether granting prisoners the right to vote is going to have any impact, I very much doubt. I do believe that it's a matter for us as legislators to decide—not judges, least of all foreign judges—whether, as part of the punishment for the commission of crime, prisoners lose the right to vote whilst they are inside. Huw Irranca-Davies, of course, in his contribution gave us a bit of the history: of course, before the 1830s, the right to vote was very largely a property right and not a right in the sense that we would understand it today as a democratic right, and the Forfeiture Act of 1870 was the start of the process of removing the right to vote from prisoners in its modern context.

I strongly support what Alun Davies said about what happens to prisoners on release, and it's very important in advance of their being released that we should begin the process of reintegration. I can see the arguments for the proposition that he's put forward. I think it's an attractive proposition because you can see the practical purpose of it: prisoners reach the end of their sentences, they're getting to the end of the deterrent effect and the punishment effect of their sentence, and you can see, then, that the rehabilitative element is much more important, perhaps, than it is at the beginning. So, that's certainly something that I would be prepared to consider supporting as part of the process.

I'll say to John Griffiths, as the Chairman of the equalities committee, that this debate is not intended in any way to pre-empt the committee's report. One of the things that has most impressed me about this Assembly since I've been here is the way that these cross-party committees are genuine cross-party committees, and in their reports, they genuinely try to achieve a consensus that can inform the debate, and I hope that this debate, like the Plaid Cymru debate a couple of weeks ago, is part of the process—a contribution, if you like, to your work and not an attempt to supplant it or substitute for it.

I appreciate that the Minister was limited in what she could say in her speech by having to consider this issue once the equalities committee has produced its report. I do strongly agree with something that she said also in relation to the number of people serving sentences that are very short term that don't actually provide much of a deterrent effect and they certainly produce problems in prison. Prisons can be very brutalising places. I've been inside lots of prisons in the course of my life—as a lawyer, I hasten to add [Laughter.]—and places like Wormwood Scrubs and Strangeways and Wandsworth prison, as it used to be, were very dehumanising places, and actually set back the process of rehabilitation. So, the building of new prisons is a vitally important element, I think, in restoring people to civil society in a better way than they went in, and that, of course, is to the benefit of us all. But I remain to be convinced that an essential part of this process is granting prisoners the vote. We will await the results of the equality committee's deliberations and indeed, then, the Government's proposals.