1. What assessment has the First Minister made of the Commission on Justice in Wales's report that was published last month? OAQ54638

Llywydd, thank you. The commission's report is an important landmark, which deserves serious and careful consideration. I will be making an oral statement on the report later this afternoon. 

Thank you for that answer. The report concluded that the Tory cuts to legal aid have hit Wales disproportionately hard—their words, not mine. Since the budget was slashed in 2013, the number of firms providing legal aid in Wales has fallen by nearly a third, creating what the report calls 'advice deserts' in many parts of the country. So, in response to the commission's report, how will your Government promote equitable access to justice as a distinctly Welsh legal system emerges in the coming years?

Well, Llywydd, I thank Joyce Watson for that important question. She's quite right, of course—the report highlights that whereas legal aid cuts in England have been a staggering 28 per cent in real terms, in Wales the cut has been 37 per cent and that that has left so many vulnerable people without access to the advice that they need when relying on the justice system. And just as there have been cuts in legal aid, so other cuts in the system. Court closures in Wales—50 courts in 2010, 28 courts left today, and people expected to travel 20, 30 miles to attend a court hearing. I see in the report, Llywydd, that the Ministry of Justice believe that it is reasonable, if you are a litigant or a witness, that you would leave your home by 7 o'clock in the morning and wouldn't return to it until 7.30 at night and that that is a reasonable expectation of somebody who may be doing that two or three days in a row to attend a hearing. We don't regard that as acceptable here in Wales and neither did Lord Justice Thomas in his report. 

Llywydd, the report sets out the way in which the Welsh Government has had to deploy our budget to make good on the deficits that have been created by cuts imposed upon us by the UK Government—a single advice fund with over £8 million in grant funding made available to information and advice services for 2020. This is plugging gaps that should not be there, and it's money that would otherwise be allocated to services for which this Assembly is responsible. But we do it because of the scale of challenge that there is there—a scale of challenge that this report exposes. 

The benefits of devolving the criminal justice system have been clear for a long time to Plaid Cymru. It was the basis of a policy paper that I wrote back in 2008, called 'Safer Communities'. So, it was heartening to see the findings of the commission on justice back this position up when the report was published. The evidence provided by this independent commission was forensic and indisputable. I agree with you when you say that the current situation is unacceptable. With that in mind, will the devolution of the criminal justice system, and specifically the recommendations of the Thomas report, form part of UK Labour's manifesto?

Well, Llywydd, there are a number of us in the Chamber who have long histories of arguing for devolution of aspects of the criminal justice system. I first gave evidence on this topic in 1985, when I gave evidence to a Labour Party commission, where I argued that the probation service should be amongst the first items to be part of devolution that the Labour Party was then planning. The justice commission's report is not yet two weeks old and deserves careful consideration. It will get that from my party, certainly, and I look forward to having a Labour Government at the other end of the M4, where we can have those mature conversations.