Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution – in the Senedd at 2:36 pm on 9 November 2022.
Well, I think you've just put a very good case for the devolution of justice, because that's exactly one of the reasons why we have been doing that, why we work in partnership where we can, but you need a proper, consistent and organised devolution of responsibilities to enable us to get rid of that jagged edge within the criminal justice system. You talk about the numbers of people that are in care, and you talk about the numbers in prison, and so on. What is very clear from the data is that Wales has one of the highest numbers of women that are actually in prison. We also have almost the highest level of, I think, people from ethnic backgrounds actually in prison—some of the highest figures in Europe. They are all part of the non-devolved justice system, and they're all part of the evidential base as to why the devolution of justice actually is necessary.
You referred again to the policing figure, et cetera. Well, you've been in power since 2010; it's taken you 12 years to begin to repair the damage that has been done in terms of the massive cuts to policing that actually occurred.
With regard to the turning down of the planning application in respect of the women's centre in Swansea, of course, that is a matter for the Ministry of Justice to now consider how it intends to respond to that. But that, again, is a responsibility of the Ministry of Justice.