Diolch, Llywydd. As last month's HM Crown Prosecution Service Inspectorate's '2019 Rape Inspection' report for England and Wales said, there has been a substantial increase in the number of allegations of rape, and yet, the number of rape prosecutions has fallen significantly. As it also said, rape is a crime that is committed primarily by men against women. However, it's also perpetrated against men and boys, so in this report, they refer to the complainant. Responding to this report, the new UK Government said that these findings are deeply concerning and that victims deserve to know that they will be supported, and the Prime Minister has been clear that more has to be done to bring perpetrators of violent and sexual crimes to justice. To put this right, they're conducting a full review of the criminal justice citizens response, recruiting 20,000 more police, giving £85 million to the Crown Prosecution Service or CPS, creating extra prison places and making sure that violent and sexual offenders spend longer behind bars. Clearly, this said, there is more to do, but the UK Government is committed to restoring confidence in the justice system, and critically, providing better support for victims. I move amendment 5 accordingly. 

As our amendment 4 notes, this report found that both the number of cases referred to the CPS for a decision by the police and the number of cases prosecuted by the CPS fell, despite reports of rape to the police nearly doubling. It was reported that HM Chief Inspector, Kevin McGinty said that, since 2016, there's been a substantial increase in rape allegations, while the number of rape prosecutions has fallen significantly, which indicates that there is a serious problem. The CPS, he said, has been accused of only choosing easy cases to prosecute, but we found no evidence of that in our report. He said that, while the CPS needs to improve the way it works with the police, the CPS is only a small part of a large systemic problem in the criminal justice process in dealing with complex cases. More work is needed, he said, to investigate the discrepancy between the number of cases reported and the number of cases prosecuted by the CPS. 

The Office for National Statistics has also said that the increase in sexual offences reported to the police is,

'most likely a result of both better recording practices on the part of many police forces, which had previously been found inadequate by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary...and increased willingness of victims and survivors of these offences to report.'

But as Welsh Women's Aid states, survivors are often placed on waiting lists whilst capacity for support becomes available. Of course, this is not an England or Wales issue, but a cross-border and no-border one. We therefore support amendment 1, which replicates our withdrawn amendment 2. 

Although, south Wales saw a 179 per cent increase in recorded rates between 2014-19, Dyfed Powys, a 167 per cent increase, Gwent, a 147 per cent increase and north Wales, 126 per cent increase—a total of 2,218 recorded cases—all four police forces saw big decreases in the number of cases referred to the CPS, the numbers charged and the numbers resulting in a conviction. However, I can only find one reference in the Thomas commission report on justice in Wales to any cross-border criminality, and that's only in the context of county lines along the M4 corridor and north Wales. And the solution it proposes is joint working across the four Welsh forces in collaboration with other agencies, without reference to partners across the border. In reality, for example, North Wales Police report increased collaboration with Merseyside and Cheshire forces and share their regional organised crime unit with neighbouring English forces.

I've said this before, but it's true: Wales has an east-west axis of crime and justice, and calls for the devolution of criminal justice to Wales fail to recognise that criminal activity does not recognise national or regional boundaries, and that 48 per cent people in Wales live within 25 miles of the border with England and 90 per cent within 15 miles of the border. Crime is not national by identity. 

In contrast, only 5 per cent of the combined population of Scotland and England live within 15 miles of their border. It's therefore regrettable that the Commission on Justice in Wales report focuses, to a large extent, on the transitory policies of Governments and parties each side of the border, which come and go, rather than whether the constitutional principle of the devolution of criminal justice would create a fairer, more just system for everybody.