The Welsh Government and UK Ministry of Justice published women's justice and youth justice blueprints in May 2019, to improve partnerships, as the Minister indicates, between devolved and non-devolved services, developed jointly with HM Prison and Probation Service and the Youth Justice Board. I'm sure the Minister will agree with the statement by the UK Government justice Minister at the time that:

'It is important that within the context of the existing devolution framework, we have a distinct local approach for delivery on the ground in Wales—one which provides tailored support for offenders to boost rehabilitation and diverts people away from crime for good.

'These new blueprints will build on the work we're already doing to better support offenders in Wales and help to break the cycle of offending.'

These blueprints were designed to set out the Welsh Government's key aspirations and guiding principles for women and young people in or at risk of entering the criminal justice system, focused on early intervention and prevention, and recommending a holistic and rehabilitative approach. To what extent does the Minister therefore recognise that this aligns with the UK Ministry of Justice's prison strategy White Paper to rehabilitate offenders and cut crime; the UK Government's female offender strategy to divert vulnerable offenders away from short prison sentences; and the UK Government's Turnaround scheme to catch and prevent youth offending earlier than ever, to help stop these children and young people from moving on to further, more serious offending?

The commissioning partnership, established between police and crime commissioners, His Majesty's Prison and Probation Service in Wales and Welsh Government enabled last month's evaluability assessment for the Wales women's justice and youth justice blueprints. What action plan do you therefore have or propose to deliver on its specific recommendations for evaluating the youth justice blueprint focused on working with the Youth Justice Board and Ministry of Justice to undertake a systematic baselining exercise and establish the mechanism needed to enable trends in data to be monitored over time? This is particularly pertinent where recommendations for evaluating prevention include using child and adolescent mental health services referral-to-treatment time data to show service supply versus demand. I continue to receive regular casework regarding neurodiverse children refused assessment or misdiagnosed.

What further consideration have you given to the recommendations in the 2010 Assembly Communities and Culture Committee report, 'Youth Justice: The experience of Welsh children in the Secure Estate', when I was a committee member, including that the Welsh Government engage with the UK Government towards enabling the development of new secure estate placements in Wales—obviously only for those children who can't be addressed otherwise—using the Hillside secure unit in Neath as a model, and including the development of provision in an appropriate location in north Wales?

What action plan do you have or propose to deliver on the evaluability assessment's specific recommendations for evaluating the women's justice blueprint, which calls, for example, for an expansion of the women's offending evidence base? It states:

'Baselining and tracking service user’s progress through the Blueprints’ priorities is essential. To achieve this, we recommend developing a sufficiently resourced multi-agency performance and monitoring framework prior to any evaluation.'

In consequence of the UK Government's female offender strategy, you wrote to Members stating that you'd been working closely with the UK Ministry of Justice and that one of the pilot women's residential centres, announced by the UK Government as an alternative to imprisonment, would, with your involvement, be located near Swansea in south Wales. How would this have helped vulnerable women offenders in north, mid and west Wales to access the services they need closer to home? Further, in September, plans for this centre were turned down by Swansea Council. So, what is the current state of play, where women prisoners from England can now be released from Welsh prisons for rehabilitation in centres in England but women prisoners in Wales cannot be released to equivalent centres in Wales?

Finally, the Senedd's Equality and Social Justice Committee recently visited His Majesty's Prison Eastwood Park in Gloucestershire, where 148 of the 340 prisoners are from Wales. On the visit, MSs were told that, when released from the prison, nine out of 10 Welsh prisoners go on to reoffend, compared to one in 10 of those from England. So, how do you account for this, where the UK Government has responsibility for criminal justice functions, including prisons, but the Welsh Government is responsible for housing, health, social care and education when these women return to Wales?