Prison is the sharp end of our justice system, and an important and integral part of the criminal justice system in every country. Depriving someone of their liberty for a period of time is one of the most significant powers available to the state. Prison plays a crucial role in upholding the rule of law, by helping to ensure that alleged offenders are brought to justice, and by providing a sanction for serious wrongdoing. Its core purpose is threefold: protection of the public; punishment, depriving offenders of freedoms enjoyed by the rest of society and acting as a deterrent; and rehabilitation, providing offenders with the opportunity to reflect on and take responsibility for their crimes, and prepare them for a law-abiding life when they're released.

As we heard in Parc prison, few prisoners would either use a right to vote or see it as an incentive to rehabilitate. The committee admits in the report that the empirical evidence to support the theory that voting aids rehabilitation is 'limited'. The report also notes that when Cardiff prison took steps to encourage prisoners on remand to register to vote at the last election, not one took up the opportunity. Our focus should instead be on giving offenders opportunities to build positive lives. Rights go with responsibilities, and not voting is just one of the facts of life arising from being in prison, reflecting a decision by the community that the person concerned is not suitable to participate in the decision-making process of a community.

Following the European Court judgment referred to, some 17 per cent of prisoners are already eligible to vote. Prisoners in the community, on a temporary licence, can now vote, and both unconvicted prisoners being held on remand and civil prisoners jailed for offences such as contempt of court also already have the right to vote, although very few do. The UK Government has also said that it should be made more clear to people given prison sentences that they will not have the right to vote while in prison.

This report quotes a Welsh Government consultation, in which 50 per cent agreed that prisoners should be allowed to register to vote, and an Assembly Commission consultation, in which 49 per cent agreed that prisoners should be able to vote in Assembly elections if they were due for release during the period for which Members were being elected to serve. However, both these consultation responses were self-selective, rather than weighted representative samples. In contrast, only 9 per cent of people in Wales said that all prisoners should be allowed to vote in a 2017 YouGov survey.

It is not having boundaries that contributes to offending, but a lack of them. It is concerning that some committee members believed in the principle of votes for all prisoners. But despite that, the committee, as we've heard, only recommended that the Welsh Government and National Assembly legislate to give Welsh prisoners serving custodial sentences of less than four years the right to vote in devolved elections. For the reasons already outlined, Mohammad Asghar and I could not agree with that recommendation.

Responding to this report, the Welsh Government stated that it will work to introduce legislation in this Assembly to enable prisoners from Wales serving a custodial sentence of less than four years to vote in devolved local government elections. Responding on behalf of the Assembly Commission, the Llywydd stated that it does not consider that amendments should be introduced to the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Bill to address this issue. In a letter to the committee Chair last week, the Welsh Government added that it is committed to the principle of prisoner voting in all local elections, and it will seek an appropriate legislative vehicle at the earliest opportunity to enable prisoners from Wales to vote in Assembly elections on the same terms as will apply for local government elections.

To be clear, according to the Law Pages, giving the vote to prisoners serving a custodial sentence of less than four years will include those convicted of having a blade or sharp point in a public place, racially aggravated common assault, racially aggravated criminal damage, procurement of a woman by threats, attempted incest by a man with a girl over 13, abduction of an unmarried girl, causing prostitution of women, soliciting by men, ill-treatment of patients, assault with intent to resist arrest, and procuring others to commit homosexual acts, and many more. It is this that Labour and Plaid Cymru are supporting, further evidencing, dare I say, the growing gap between the expressed will of the people of Wales and their elected so-called representatives here.