I wholeheartedly agree with Huw Irranca-Davies that human rights are universal. We can't pick and choose who we believe have rights and who don't. I think that's what's fearful in a lot of this dialogue: this idea that some people are deserving of rights and some aren't, and that we can pick and choose what constitutes human rights.

As was mentioned, there is no compelling rationale or reasoning for these reforms, the three Bills that we are seeing: the Human Rights Act reform, the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill and the Nationality and Borders Bill. I fundamentally and wholeheartedly disagree with the tone in which many Conservatives in the UK Government are conducting this review. 

Though we know that the Human Rights Act hasn't been without fault, and that not all rights are being implemented as they should, we should be listening to those who are working front-line, through the third sector and so on, who have an understanding of what is achieved through having these key protections in place for citizens that advance human rights, equality and the protection of minority groups.

There is also no issue occurring in the UK that would appropriately match the scale and the weighting of the proposals contained within the Bills. We should heed the warnings of those third sector and charity organisations, and I welcome any move if we are to strengthen here in Wales embedding human rights. We have seen warnings that the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act may actually increase violence, crime and arrests as a consequence, and also may increase costs to the taxpayer, due to its harsher sentencing. It fails to focus on the causes of crime and the chronically underfunded, overly punitive and unequal nature of the justice system, and instead will exacerbate an already broken cycle.

It doesn't properly address inequalities that appear within the system, or our acutely overcrowded prisons. As we've seen, while the Human Rights Act reform is being marketed by the Conservatives as a modernisation of human rights legislation, it is little more than regression in human rights legislation, which will actually fail to provide key protections and access to justice, which a human rights Bill should do.

The Nationality and Borders Act is unlikely to break the model of people-smuggling and trafficking, or save lives or strengthen safe routes to asylum, or increase protections for refugees or survivors of modern slavery, or clear backlogs—