Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:54 pm on 14 March 2023.
Llywydd, I was able to discuss with Keir Starmer the work of the McAllister-Williams review. He referred to it specifically in the speech that he made to the Labour Party conference, and I was very heartened by the fact that he is determined to show proper respect to the work of that Welsh commission, and to await its recommendations before taking decisions on policies that will enter the Labour manifesto. That's very good news for Wales, particularly given the calibre of the work that the Williams-McAllister commission is undertaking.
The policies of the Welsh Labour Government are unchanged in relation both to justice and gender recognition. We believe that the Thomas review concluded, in any sensible sense, the argument in favour of devolution of justice to Wales. The authoritative nature of its analysis and recommendations we believe mean that that case is made, and we'll continue to advocate for that.
Implementation of that policy has to start somewhere, and the Gordon Brown report suggests that it should start with youth justice and with probation, and those would be very, very important first steps. First steps are often the most difficult steps of all on a journey, and, in relation to gender recognition, we continue to pursue now, with the current UK Government, the devolution of those powers here to Wales. There is no reason why powers that we seek under one set of circumstances would not be powers that we would continue to seek in others.
The way that decisions are finally made in a Labour Party manifesto, which covers the whole of the United Kingdom and will have many, many competing priorities for an incoming first-term Labour Government, are well known. There will be Welsh voices in the room when that manifesto process is being undertaken, and they will be arguing for the sorts of policies that the leader of Plaid Cymru has rehearsed this afternoon.