Part of 1. Questions to the Minister for Social Justice – in the Senedd at 2:15 pm on 22 September 2021.
Diolch yn fawr, Jane Dodds, and you've given us shocking statistics. I won't repeat them, but they are in Dr Robert Jones's report. I think I want to just make one quick point, which actually does reflect on Rhys ab Owen's question as well, that we have a major issue in the justice system about a lack of specific data for Wales, and you commented on that in terms of other protected characteristics. This was focusing particularly on black, Asian and minority ethnic people in terms of the Wales Governance Centre, but we need to look at this from a wider perspective. I have made this point regularly with the Ministry of Justice, and I raised it in a meeting in July with the then justice Minister, Alex Chalk. He indicated that, actually, there was progress being made on this issue, because in fact Robert Jones was stymied by this, in terms of his research, having to go to an FOI to get the data. We need that data. We need more power. And we need to address the ways in which the criminal justice system is failing so many with protected characteristics and with other characteristics, including socioeconomic.