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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Mike Freer)
It has been a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Vickers; I think this is your first outing in the Chair. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) on securing the debate, and am grateful for her significant contribution on justice in Wales over the past several years. I thank all hon. and right hon. Members for their contributions.
The right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd secured a previous Westminster Hall debate, which took place on 22 January 2020, on the report by the Commission on Justice in Wales, otherwise known as the Thomas commission, which was published in October 2019. It is inevitable that we have touched on many of the same issues today. In the intervening period, work on considering and, where appropriate, implementing the Thomas commission recommendations was delayed by the coronavirus pandemic, but the right hon. Member has ensured that it remains a live issue for this House.
It will not come as a surprise that the Government’s position on the devolution settlement has not changed. We disagree with Lord Thomas and with the Welsh Government, and do not think that justice should be devolved. Indeed, the many challenges brought by the coronavirus pandemic demonstrated in a number of areas that the settlement is working well.
Alun Cairns
The Minister has provided a clear response, and we understand that the Government’s view is that we should not devolve justice. Does he understand Labour’s point of view on the issue? It seems to me that two different messages are coming from Cardiff Bay and from the Opposition in Westminster.
Mike Freer
My right hon. Friend asked a very pertinent question and did not get a clear answer from the hon. Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin). My understanding is that the official Opposition do not support the devolution of justice—that is what I took from her speech.
Let me go back to what happened during the coronavirus pandemic. The pandemic served to demonstrate that in a number of areas the settlement is working well. In fact, the justice system performed better in Wales than it did in England in several respects, and I will say more on that later. Among the key arguments made by those who support devolving justice to Wales is what they see as the principle that a holistic approach is required to ensure that policy objectives can be delivered effectively. Of course, we agree that policies on substance misuse, education, mental health and social welfare need to be aligned with measures to reduce reoffending and protect the public, which is the responsibility of Westminster, but the notion that justice must be devolved to achieve that is misplaced. The Ministry of Justice works closely with the Welsh Government to ensure that justice policies are aligned and that we take account of distinct Welsh needs.
Ben Lake
On the specific point about the alignment between the UK Government, the Ministry of Justice and the Welsh Government, does the Minister accept that it is frustrating, as a Member representing a rural constituency, to have witnessed so many court closures in the past decade? The court closures were made without any clear consideration of the fact that there are no direct transport links, so people have quite literally lost access to justice. Does he understand my constituents’ frustration that, contrary to what some Members have said today, the system is not working in lockstep, is not co-ordinated and is not in alignment to ensure the right access to justice?
Mike Freer
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. For every community that is affected by a court closure, the judiciary and the MOJ have to take into account access to justice. My understanding is that the senior judiciary take that very seriously, but I understand the frustration that he vocalises.
The joint MOJ and Welsh Government blueprints on youth justice and female offenders are successful examples of the co-development of strategies across the devolution boundary. The women’s justice blueprint seeks to transform services for women in Wales, to help keep women and their communities safe and free from crime. A key aim is to reduce the number of women coming into the criminal justice system, while doing a better job of meeting the needs of those already in the system. Services are in place to support women in Wales at all stages of the criminal justice system, avoiding fragmented delivery and enabling greater consistency in the support that women receive. More than 2,075 women across Wales were referred to diversion support in the two and a half years from January 2020 to September 2022, and 2,700 women were referred to the women’s pathfinder whole system approach, which services south Wales and Gwent, over the same period. The service remained operational throughout the covid pandemic, providing support to women with complex needs at a time of increased vulnerability.
Improving family ties is an important part of the blue- print. Through joint HMPPS Wales and Welsh Government funding, a Visiting Mum service is being re-established in HMP Eastwood Park and HMP Styal to help ensure that Welsh mothers are able to maintain positive relationships with their children throughout their prison sentence. Collaboration between the Ministry of Justice and the Welsh Government has led to the procurement of a site for a new residential women’s centre in Swansea. That is a particularly important development for Wales, given that there is no women’s prison in Wales—a position that the Welsh Government support. The new centre will offer vulnerable women an opportunity to stabilise their lives, with a range of support and interventions designed to tackle the causes of their offending.
We worked closely with partners, including the Welsh Government, police and crime commissioners and local authorities, to identify a suitable location for the RWC. We are grateful for the support that we have received from Julie James, the Member of the Senedd for Swansea West, and others at a local level, but it is disappointing that after so much collaborative work, the application for planning permission was turned down last month, and we will now have to consider the next steps with our Welsh colleagues. However, there are other examples of where the justice devolution settlement is delivering for Wales.
I mentioned earlier that Welsh justice services performed well during the pandemic, often exceeding the performance seen outside Wales. A good example of that is the performance of the Welsh courts, where the MOJ, His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and HMPPS worked together to keep the courts operating as effectively as possible. As a result, the magistrates courts in Wales were the first to recover to pre-pandemic levels in England and Wales.
During the passage of the Wales Act 2017, it was argued that it was necessary to devolve justice for Wales to operate properly as a legislature in its own right. In fact, we noted in the debate here in January 2020 that the 2017 Act ensures that the Senedd can make law on devolved matters, including the setting of criminal offences and other measures that enable the proper enforcement of its legislation. We have seen examples of where the Senedd has set its own legislative direction and introduced measures to enforce its policies. I again refer to the action taken by the Welsh Government during the pandemic.
Devolving justice would not simplify the system in a divergent landscape. It would simply shift the so-called jagged edge, to use Lord Thomas’s term, so that the devolved justice system has to manage challenges posed by reserved matters, which I would argue would be more complex than the current position.
There are also strong economic arguments in favour of maintaining the current justice settlement for Wales. A fully devolved justice system, akin to the Scottish and Northern Ireland models, would require Wales to be self- sufficient, including with regard to offender management and a prison estate that met the needs of the full range of prisoners. There are no category A prisons or, as I have already noted, women’s prisons in Wales. Wales benefits from the economies of scale that flow from being part of a larger offender management system, including the allocation of prisoners based on need and the risk they pose.
Even under other models, such as making use of the current prison estate but putting in place agreements between the Welsh and Westminster Governments on criminal justice and offender management, there would still be a need for the Welsh Government to have a justice function to manage policy across the board. They would have to develop and implement policy on criminal, civil, family and administrative law, and on matters such as legal aid. They would have to recruit staff sufficiently experienced and knowledgeable in those matters. The result of all that activity would be a significant interface between a devolved justice system and a larger body of reserved law; a much more complicated jagged edge. We are talking about a huge expense for the Welsh Government and, ultimately, the taxpayer.
I am conscious of time, but I will address one particular point raised by the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd. That is the call for greater transparency of data. That is not an unreasonable request, and I am pursuing it vigorously as a new Minister to the Department. I am happy to give the commitment to work with her and others to ensure that the data is more accessible and transparent in the interests of justice.
Robin Millar
Will the Minister undertake to ensure that that is a reciprocal agreement, and that data is made available from the Welsh Government to facilitate that free exchange of data between the two Governments?
Mike Freer
My hon. Friend makes a good point. Only half a picture is no picture at all. There must be transparency both ways.
The UK Government remain firmly opposed to devolution of justice to Wales. We believe that the current devolution settlement is working well and should be retained.