I'd like to thank Plaid for bringing this motion and I do agree with much of what Plaid have said today and what other Members have said. I think it's entirely right for people in this place to call out the abysmal conviction rates for rape and sexual abuse. The difficulties faced by victims of rape and sexual abuse are well known, and it appears the situation is worse now than it was 10 years ago. It's just as bad if not worse than it was when I was at university 20 years ago.

Many victims of rape and sexual abuse must feel utterly abandoned by the very people who are supposed to be there to protect them. How must those victims feel when they see the rape and sexual abuse of vulnerable girls in Rotherham and elsewhere go unpunished for years, or the perpetrators set a paltry sentence? How can they feel confident that justice will be done for them when they've seen other victims so appallingly let down?

I agree with much of Plaid's motion, and I agree with them that increasing conviction rates is important in preventing rape and sexual abuse. Only a proportion of rape and sexual abuse are reported. Of those, only a fraction result in a conviction. This is a perennial problem that academics and lawyers on both sides of the border and various women's groups and all sorts of different people have been wrestling with the decades. So, I do wish Plaid had, as part of their motion, proposed some actual policies and changes in the law to improve prosecution and conviction rates that we could examine. I know that you've come out with some suggestions during the debate, but, I'm sorry, that just isn't good enough, and the failure to include them in the motion just makes those proposals look like a bit of an afterthought. The meat and potatoes of your motion is about devolution. It seems that Plaid are more concerned about pushing their own political agenda. Their motion makes two references to increasing the Assembly's powers; it doesn't contain a single tangible suggestion that would improve detection and conviction rates for rape.

The issue of rape and sexual abuse is an extremely emotive one, which is why I suspect Plaid have chosen this subject to hang their campaign for future devolution upon. Plaid could have cited any number of crimes, but they chose the most emotive crime they could, without any regard to the victims and survivors across Wales. This motion is basically sending out a message to rape survivors that they're more likely to see justice served on their attacker if Wales had more independence. That argument is as tasteless and crass as it is unfounded. Tasteless and crass because rape victims are being used without their consent in a political argument that is essentially nothing to do with furthering justice for them, and unfounded because history shows us that, when a matter is devolved to this Government, far from improving, it gets worse. Both education and the NHS have been devolved to Wales for years, and every year are shown to be worse for the people of Wales than education and the NHS is for every other UK nation.

A while ago, I asked the First Minister if he agreed with me that the family court should never give fathers of children born from rape rights to see those children. For some reason, he refused to back my request—a refusal that I think any decent, functional family in Wales will find impossible to understand. Today Plaid has a chance to show that they're actually committed to helping rape victims in a tangible way, and that you use any additional powers that this place may have in the future to stop rapists having contact and influence on a child conceived through rape.

If, today, Plaid fail to explicitly support such a ban in their response to this debate, it will be clear to everyone that, as I suspect, this motion is more about furthering their desire for independence than it is about doing the right thing for victims of one of the cruellest crimes there are. So, Plaid, if this place were given the power, would you support a ban on fathers of children born from rape gaining access to those children? And in the meantime, will you join my call for such a ban to be introduced? A simple 'yes' or 'no' will suffice. Thank you.