3. Statement by the First Minister: Report of the Commission on Justice in Wales

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 3:44 pm on 5 November 2019.

Alert me about debates like this

Photo of Mark Drakeford Mark Drakeford Labour 3:44, 5 November 2019

Llywydd, I thank Alun Davies for that. Let me respond to three or four points very quickly. He's absolutely right to point to the human consequences of the failures that the report outlines, and the human consequences are there right through the report. They stand out to you when you read them. The point I made earlier this afternoon about the apparent acceptability of saying to a witness, 'You've got to leave your house at 7 o'clock in the morning, maybe don't get back there till 7.30 p.m. at night'—that's fine as far as the Ministry of Justice is concerned. I don't think that's something that you would expect a vulnerable person, faced with the ordeal of a court case in front of them, to be able to just undertake without any consequences. So, the human part of this report—I thank Alun Davies for drawing attention to that.

We haven't talked about resources this afternoon, Llywydd, but Alun reminded me, and I should have said earlier, that funding will have to follow function if this report is ever to do what we want it to do. No Government can take on the responsibilities that are outlined in this report without being given the money that is necessary to discharge them properly.

I'm interested, of course, in the point Alun Davies made towards the end about symmetrical devolution. What I certainly think the report aims for is stable devolution. It aims for a coherent way of going about these responsibilities, putting them together in a package that will provide coherence and stability. There is an urgent need to get on with it. We will do that in terms of the recommendations that fall directly to us. And then we will inevitably be dependent on the willingness of others to move down that path with the same sense of determination.