Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:06 pm on 6 December 2022.
I powerfully welcome the Gordon Brown report, and I powerfully welcome its very specific commitment that the devolution of criminal justice will begin with the next Labour Government. And let's be clear, Llywydd: only a Labour Government will ever be able to set off on that journey and complete it. The Tories won't do it, Plaid Cymru can't do it, only Labour. Only Labour is able to deliver that, and the Brown report commits the party to begin that journey. I think it will be a fantastic thing if, in that next term, youth justice and the probation service are both transferred to this Senedd. That will be the start of that process. Of course, we want that process to go further. It's the policy of the Welsh Government that the whole of the criminal justice system should become the responsibility of this Senedd. But every journey begins with the first step, and those steps are very clearly endorsed in the Gordon Brown report.
If you were serious about devolution, Llywydd, if you were serious about the powers of this place, you would welcome that first step. It's all very well shaking your head in that, 'Oh, dear, aren't they dreadful?' sort of way. Actually, the only progress there will ever be will be with a Labour Government determined to do all the things that Gordon Brown sets out for this Senedd. And not simply in criminal justice, Llywydd, but the other things that that report sets out for this Senedd as well—those constitutionally protected statutes, which mean that the Sewel convention will be made legally binding and inescapable for Governments at Westminster. What protections there would have been for this Senedd since 2019 if that had been in place. I think a welcome for the report on your part would be very welcome, because it puts devolution where we would like it to be, it entrenches the permanence of devolution, it enhances the status of this Senedd, and it widens the power of Welsh devolution. What is there not to welcome in that?