3. What action is the Welsh Government taking to protect the human rights of Welsh people in the criminal justice system? OAQ54486

The Welsh Government seeks to ensure that the Ministry of Justice and its agencies embed and uphold all human rights issues associated with Welsh people within the non-devolved criminal justice system. 

Thank you for your answer, Deputy Minister. Last week, we debated giving prisoners the vote, which I opposed and was criticised for. My point in that debate was that we should be focusing on rehabilitation and support, and far too many ex-offenders are released without housing or any support mechanism according to their needs, which often relate to mental health issues. Deputy Minister, do you agree with me that this is a contravention of the human rights of ex-offenders, and will your Government ensure that every ex-offender has housing, support and welfare in place upon release, and not just a black bag containing a few possessions when they leave?

I thank the Member for that question, and I would say that we were pleased to accept the recommendations of the Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee in its report on voting rights for prisoners, and we'll work to introduce legislation in the Assembly to enable some Welsh prisoners to vote in local government elections. But, I entirely agree that we need to invest, and ensure that the Ministry of Justice is investing in appropriate services for rehabilitation. That includes not only employment, but housing, education, and health services as well. And we are working, of course, with the Ministry of Justice at a local level, particularly in relation to female offending and our youth justice blueprints as well. But it is clearly crucial that we have rehabilitation, particularly in relation to housing, and we are working closely with the Minister for Housing and Local Government to ensure that rehabilitation and housing linked to the probation service are followed through.

When the Wales Governance Centre reported that Wales has the highest rate of imprisonment in western Europe, and although the total number of prison sentences have risen in Wales between 2010 and 2017, they've fallen by 16 per cent in England, they said that wider research is needed to try to explain Wales's high rate of imprisonment. This is particularly relevant given that many of the services required to manage offenders, ex-offenders and promote rehabilitation are already devolved, raising questions about the comparative effectiveness of these devolved services, where, for example, the acting Prisons and Probation Ombudsman said last year that, unlike English prisons, Welsh prisons do not offer integrated drug treatment systems, and where we heard at lunch time, at the cross-party group on policing, that the Welsh Government's advisory panel on substance misuse has not met in the last year, or so we were told. What research is the Welsh Government, or has the Welsh Government commissioned, undertaken or accessed since this report to meet the call by the report's author, so that we have a better understanding of the true causes of this excessive imprisonment rate?

It is, I think, very important that we do engage, as we have responsibilities for, with the devolved services around offenders and the criminal justice system. Of course, I've already mentioned the importance of our responsibilities relating to housing, to health and social care, and welfare, and of course substance misuse comes into that line of responsibilities. It's also very important that we see that the Ministry of Justice is delivering on expectations in terms of their responsibilities, and also in terms of funding.

I'm very pleased that we are now looking towards the reunification of the probation service, on 2 December of this year. The reunification of the probation service is vital in order for us to work together in an integrated way in terms of our services. The privatisation of the probation service was one of the worst policies of the Conservative Government, which did so much harm. But we can now see this reunification in Wales. But I would also expect the Ministry of Justice to deliver on the recommendations of the inspections of prisons. We know that there have been unannounced inspections of prisons, particularly at Berwyn, recently, and we would expect those recommendations to be delivered in terms of non-devolved services, and we will play our part in terms of our responsibilities.