Paul Davies says that he's unconvinced of the case for devolution of the criminal justice system. I'm left wondering what could ever convince him if this report does not, because you will never find a more compelling case set out than the one assembled in the report. I think it is less a matter, Llywydd, that the Conservative Party in unconvinced, than the Conservative Party will never allow itself to be convinced of this case, because it simply doesn't reflect the way in which they think about devolution.

Now, let me say that, having said that, there were a number of points that Paul Davies made that I think were a positive attempt to draw out those aspects of the report with which he does have agreement. I look forward to being able to continue to discuss those with him as implementation of the report proceeds.

He's right, of course—the report says a great deal about legal education and a great deal about the state of the legal profession. It's why my colleague the Counsel General instituted a rapid review of the position here in Wales during the time that Lord Thomas was sitting, in order to inform the report. That's well evidenced in its pages, and we've drawn on what the profession has told us. And one of the things that I think the report says—. And I think maybe I didn't quite agree with what Paul Davies said. The report is clear that the profession and the higher education institutions in Wales cannot continuously look to the Welsh Government to take the lead. Law schools in Wales are staffed by very senior, very well-regarded people with excellent reputations and they don't need us to do things for them. The things that are in this report that fall to them, the report says they must show the lead. The profession must show a lead in dealing with the issues that the report identifies as being important to them. We will want to be there with them, supporting them in that work, but the report never says, 'Every time there is a problem, it's the Welsh Government that has to find the solution.' It has to be much wider than that.

I want to thank Paul Davies for drawing attention to the chapter in the report, chapter 7, on family justice. It's a very substantial report. It's a compellingly argued report. I don't want to rehearse again some of the discussion that I had on the floor of the Assembly a fortnight ago about the approach that the Welsh Government is taking to dealing with issues of looked-after children, but you will see in this report what it refers to as the compelling evidence of the need for reform in the way that that service is delivered here in Wales; the way in which the costs in the current system for funds could be spent far, far better, the report says, in avoiding the need for children to be taken into local authority care; the testimony that it gives from young people themselves taken into care, who said to Lord Thomas that, if a fraction of the money spent on looking after them in care had been spent on their families to help their families to go on looking after them what a better outcome that would have been for them and for those families. It's a report any Assembly Member who maybe doesn't regard this as central to their interests here—if there was a single chapter in this report that I would ask them to read, that chapter on family justice would be the one that I think would merit anybody's consideration.

Paul Davies pointed to the issue of a separate jurisdiction. The report doesn't actually recommend, using those words, 'a separate legal jurisdiction', but it does recommend a separation of the judiciary—that there should be a formal creation of Welsh courts and a Welsh judiciary, and I think it sets out, very persuasively, why that would not run into some of the difficulties that Paul Davies set out in his statement. Of course, the devolution of something as huge as the justice system is not entirely straightforward, but nor is it unachievable. Some of the issues that Paul Davies raised really are old canards that we've heard time and time again in this debate. There are 50 states in America where people are able to move between one and another, and the justice system is not frustrated by that, just as it is not frustrated by the fact that there is a separate system in Scotland and in England.

Of course we want an effective relationship with the Ministry of Justice, and, during that brief period when we had a Secretary of State in David Gauke and a Minister in Rory Stewart, we were able to agree blueprints for women offenders, blueprints for young offenders—to have an approach to imprisonment that we would have been prepared to work with here in Wales. The problem we face, Llywydd, is that no sooner have you struck up a relationship with a team of Ministers than the merry-go-round at Westminster moves them on to somewhere else and we're back to square one again. We will go on making those efforts, but it does sometimes feel that it's very much uphill and against the grain of the way in which Whitehall operates in these matters.