Commission on Justice in Wales

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2020 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the report of the Commission on Justice in Wales.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer, and an honour to have the opportunity to discuss the landmark report by the Commission on Justice in Wales for the people of Wales. First, I thank the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, for our discussions prior to the debate, and all commission members, whose conclusions and recommendations in the report were—I emphasise—unanimous. I also thank Jeremy Miles, the Welsh Government’s Counsel General, for his advice. I look forward to that level of co-working continuing on such matters. The excellent report offers a description and a critique of how the public good, justice, operates in Wales and, more importantly, how justice is experienced by people in Wales. It is clear that there has been a great deal of cross-party agreement on the issue but there is room for further co-operation in and between Westminster and the Senedd.

Of course, Wales has its own legal history. Until the Acts of Union in the 16th century, much of the law of Wales was based on a legal system codified by the lawyers of Hywel Dda, King of Deheubarth, which covered almost the entirety of Wales in the mid-10th century. The attribute “dda” translates as “good”—Hywel the Good—and referred to the fact that his laws were perceived as good and fair by the people who lived under them.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing the debate. The report is a serious piece of work. Does she agree that what has not been good and fair is the fact that, in the last decade, the Justice Department has been unprotected and there has been a 40% cut in its budget from Westminster? That is clearly a driving factor in a number of the faults that Lord Thomas identifies.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Exactly. Lord Thomas identifies the discrepancies in cost and how much a local citizen contributes to justice in Wales. When I talk about justice being good and fair, I am describing the situation more than 1,000 years ago, not in the present day.

The legal system of Hywel Dda covered the law, procedure, judges and the administration of the land. It was notable for being based on retribution rather than punishment, for its pragmatic and arguably more compassionate approach than that which we now experience, and for granting higher status to women than most contemporary legal systems. Following the Acts of Union, of course, Welsh law was officially abolished and Wales as a legal jurisdiction ceased to exist.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on securing the debate. While the debate is focused on justice for Wales, the same argument applies in Scotland or Northern Ireland. There are differing laws. Does she agree that it is essential that regional laws are fully considered when the Government introduce legislation centrally in Westminster and that the Government need to work with the regional Administrations to achieve the goal that we all wish to see?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. There is a sense that we can learn from and compare with the other nations within the United Kingdom, if we have the information and the means to act upon that. That is invaluable for each of those nations.

In the last 21 years of devolution, the power of our National Assembly has expanded and its confidence as an institution has grown. Now, in 2020, Welsh Government policy made in that Assembly has a greater impact on the lives of the people of Wales than ever before, yet extraordinarily my country still operates without a corresponding legal jurisdiction, despite having a full law-making legislature, its own Parliament, the Senedd.

In the broader sense, that means that while devolution divergence is expanding Wales-specific legislation, it is being enacted without the underpinning structures of jurisdiction. That creates a jagged edge, duplication, a lack of accountability, additional costs to the citizen without transparency, and confusion. As the commission’s report says, the people of Wales both need and deserve a better system. Justice is not an island; it should be truly integrated into policies for a just, fair and prosperous Wales.

I hear myself using these abstract words, but of course justice is not an abstract concept; it is put into action or it does not exist. It is put into action through a range of agencies—education, social services, health and housing—all of which are devolved to the Senedd. Does that matter? Yes, it does. Bingham’s first rule of law is that the law must be accessible and, so far as possible, intelligible, clear and predictable. That simply is not the case in Wales in the 21st century.

The commission’s report is comprehensive, but today I intend to concentrate on three areas: criminal justice, family justice and legal aid. There are not many other areas that are worthy of more attention, but I urge that we have further discussion, because this problem will continue to be exacerbated. It is serious, given people’s experience in Wales.

On criminal justice, the report states:

“If criminal justice is to be effective, most particularly its treatment of victims, in policing and in the administration of the sentences of the courts (the principal role of the prison and probation services), it must be closely integrated with services which are the responsibility of other parts of local, devolved and central government—for example, health, drug and alcohol misuse, housing, education, employment, accessing benefits and managing debt and other welfare services.”

That, again, is the jagged cutting edge of justice. Whether a criminal reoffends or not is, of course, that individual’s responsibility, but that does not absolve the state of any responsibility as the provider of justice. If the state’s criminal justice system has contributed to the breakdown of family bonds, the release into homelessness, a failure to grasp the opportunity to address health issues such as addiction, and the likelihood of unemployment implicit in the toxic combination of low skills and a criminal record, what has it achieved, save to tighten the vicious circle of criminality?

I want to mention the case of Conner Marshall, whose inquest concluded last week. I pay my respects to Conner’s parents, Nadine and Richard, for their courage and perseverance in seeking justice for their son, and to my colleague and friend, the late and dearly missed Harry Fletcher, who supported the family in their search for answers. Conner was only 18 when he was murdered by a violent serial offender released on licence and on the books of community rehabilitation company Working Links.

Last Friday, the coroner in the inquest into Conner’s murder said that the probation caseworker of Braddon, the offender, was “overwhelmed” and

“essentially left to her own devices”

in what is an extremely challenging job at the best of times. Conner’s murderer had missed eight probation appointments, six of which were sufficient to return him to prison. The coroner—this is important—noted that that was not the fault of the probation officer. She had a case load of 60 offenders and was new in her post. Rather, Conner’s death was the collateral result of a failed social experiment—an ideological concept put into action by a Conservative Secretary of State for Justice in the belief that the profit motive of private enterprise can be trusted with a public good. Who would ever suspect that private companies might interpret contractual payment targets to reduce criminal acts by the simple means of seeing, hearing and recording no such acts? Clearly not the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling). It is to the credit of the former Secretary of State for Justice, David Gauke, that he recognised the abject and costly failure of the transforming rehabilitation programme, and that Wales led the way in bringing probation back into public control with the new National Probation Service of Wales.

The case of Conner Marshall revealed how difficult it was for his family to get to the root of the circumstances leading up to and following their son’s tragic death, but the lack of hard data about the crime and offenders in Wales, disaggregated from the wider England-and-Wales picture, was also an issue for the commission. The crime survey for England and Wales warns that separate estimates for Wales are subject to sampling volatility and variability, and that extreme caution should be taken in interpreting figures under the present reporting arrangements when trying to extract Wales-specific data. I am glad to note, however, that CSEW intends to produce Wales-specific estimates for the first time this summer.

Additionally, it is distressing to note that the then Secretary of State for Wales effectively enforced a veto by insisting that all requests from the commission to UK Ministers and entities had to be passed by him. That caused a significant delay to the commission in receiving evidence, which the commission itself expressed. Indeed, in May 2019 he said that he

“did not think it would be appropriate for UK Government Ministers or officials to give evidence on reserved policy to a Commission established by a devolved administration.”

Such high-handedness does not engender confidence that the needs of the citizens of Wales were foremost in his mind.

[Jonathan Edwards (Carmarthen East and Dinefwr) (PC)]

My right hon. Friend is making a fantastic speech and a very persuasive case, based on the commission’s evidence. Do the UK Government’s heavy-handed dealings in relation to the commission’s work indicate that their objection to devolving these powers is based not on practicality but on ideology?

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[Liz Saville Roberts]

That question will be running through my speech. Of course, we should always be looking to measure and gather evidence about the public costs and what this does for the people of Wales. The fundamental conclusion here is that the present arrangement is not serving the people of Wales effectively. I urge the Minister to consider that. It is not simply matter of asking for the devolution of everything or nothing at all, although the commission recommends the devolution of jurisdiction. There are many stations on the way in the recommendations. I sincerely hope the UK Government will look at them in the spirit of what is best for the people of Wales. I find it difficult to believe that anybody could argue otherwise.

On the effort required to get a picture of what is happening to Wales, another person to whom I must give credit is Rob Jones at the Wales Governance Centre at Cardiff University, who has done excellent work. Dr Rob has made effective use of all research tools at public disposal to extract information of great public interest about the criminal justice system as it is experienced in Wales. That source reveals that Wales has the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe—154 prisoners for every 100,000 people. Although imprisonment dropped by 16% in England between 2010 and 2017, it increased by 0.3% in Wales, at a time when everybody has been talking about the pressures on the prison system in England and Wales. Rob Jones’s work exposes that the Government plans for additional prison places will eventually result in Wales becoming a net importer of prisoners from England. Despite that evidence, we simply do not need more prisons in Wales, but unfortunately the Justice Secretary has recently indicated that the UK Government still want to build an extra prison. It begs the question why.

There is more. The commission notes that people who are charged are disproportionately likely to come from black, Asian and minority ethnic groups and that there is currently a lack of a joined-up approach to address that inequality as well as inequalities with regard to women, LGBT people and disabled people. The Wales Governance Centre found that there were 72 black men—they would all be men—from Wales in prison for every 10,000 of the population in 2017. That rate compared to just 15 white people per 10,000 of the population. There were 25 Asian people in prison per 10,000, and 37 people from a mixed-race background per 10,000.

For women the current system is, for lack of a better word, simply inadequate; there are no facilities for women in Wales. It is perhaps in relation to women’s justice that a public health approach is most needed. There is significant evidence about the prevalence of a wide range of mental health problems afflicting many vulnerable women caught up in the criminal justice system. Most are the direct result of difficult childhoods, trauma, addiction and abusive relationships. In 2018, Wales was promised a residential unit for female offenders. Will the Minister, in due time, update us on where in Wales that unit will be, when it will be opened, and how his Government will work with the Welsh Government in its operation?

I will give the Minister another immediate opportunity to acknowledge the difference between England and Wales and to improve legislation at the stroke of a pen. The serious violence Bill will see new laws to require schools, police, councils and health authorities to work together to prevent serious crime. That will introduce a much-needed shift towards a public health approach to tackling serious violence in England. The Bill’s provisions will also apply to Wales, however, where most of the areas mentioned in the description—schools, councils and health authorities—are the responsibility of the Welsh Government.

I refer the Minister to pages 138 and 139 of the commission’s report. Page 138 shows the bodies that his Government has charged with implementing the justice system in Wales. On page 139, we have the Welsh Government’s crime prevention support networks. Will the Minister commit to ensuring that the Serious Violence Bill starts off on the right foot by acknowledging that the implementation of many of its measures will require the recognition of the existence of devolution in Wales? Will he commit to acknowledging the existence of those bodies, and to making sure that their best and effective use is planned at the early stage of planning legislation?

Will the Minister also commit to responding to the commission’s eminently sensible request to establish an overarching Wales criminal justice board with executive authority to set overall criminal justice strategy for Wales and to provide the means for accountability in Wales, which is presently missing in the delivery of an overall strategic approach? That degree of complexity goes against the first principle of Bingham’s rules of law. There is such complexity and presenteeism, and such a lack of coherence and answerability to strategy, that it has a direct impact on the people of Wales and their experience of justice.

Family justice is another area that was covered in the report, and is closely linked with the issue of women’s justice and with the part of the justice system that deals with concerns relating to children and interfamilial relationships. Again, unquestionably integrating education, health and social policy with family justice would be significantly more suitable than the current state of affairs. Shockingly, in August last year, Dr Sophie Hallett’s study into children in care found that in Wales, one child lived in 57 different places while in contact with social services. Although that individual case is extreme, the researchers found that on average, children were moved nine times and saw seven different social workers.

The rate of children in care is significantly higher in Wales, at 102 per 10,000, than in England, where the figure stands at 64 per 10,000. Scotland’s rate is higher still, but interestingly, it has fallen in recent years, while the rate continues to rise in Wales. That raises the question about how justice is applied, about the traceable differences between England and Wales, and about the job that we have just getting hold of that data, let alone actually applying it.

Cardiff University research shows that since 2010, spending on children in care in Wales has gone up by £95.9 million, or 33%. That in itself shows that the problem is specific to Wales and requires a solution specific to Wales, in the context of devolution. As family law is reserved to Westminster, however, there are complexities between non-devolved and devolved matters.

Although law-making powers in social welfare are now the responsibility of the Welsh Government, the current law is a mishmash of older laws that cover both England and Wales, such as the Children Act 2004; some that differ slightly between England and Wales, such as the Care Act 2014 and the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014; and some that apply to Wales only, such as Cafcass Cymru. Different legislation and different structures are in place, and we are still finding our way through that.

To cut through the complexities, the commission recommends that the law relating to children and family justice in Wales be brought together in one coherent system, aligned with functions in relation to health, education and welfare. I cannot perceive a logical argument to counter that.

I will move on to legal aid, although there are many other points in the report. The deep cuts to legal aid in 2012 have led to serious deficiencies in Wales, with deserts where legal aid is not available. Before the cuts, there were 31 providers of publicly funded benefits advice; now there are three. The number of firms providing legal aid has fallen by 29% in Wales compared with 20% in England. That has led to an increase in the number of people representing themselves in courts and tribunals, and leaving significantly disadvantaged.

The Welsh Government have rightly chosen to support people by spending their own funds on advice services for a policy that is reserved to the British Government. They are doing that to make amends for the harsh effects of cuts to legal aid, and because they believe it right for the people of Wales. Regardless of one’s political leanings, that one Parliament, for the good of the citizens it serves, has to provide its own additional funding to make up for the failings of political decisions made in this place must be seen as being unsustainable and unjust. The commission recommends that the funding for legal aid and the third sector providing advice and assistance should be brought together in Wales, to form a single fund under the strategic direction of an independent body.

To conclude, in the time available I have only been able to touch on certain matters raised in the commission’s report. Suffice it to say that the current system clearly does not work. For too long, Wales has put up with complexities that lead to the people of Wales being systematically let down. My party, Plaid Cymru, has long argued that it is time for Wales to take responsibility for justice and to have its own legal jurisdiction. There is a growing cross-party understanding that the devolution of policing and criminal justice, as well as powers over prisons and the probation system, is sorely needed. Surely now, with this landmark report, commissioned by Labour’s Welsh Government, we can move away from the accusations of partisanship.

We in Plaid Cymru are calling for devolution of justice, not just because we like the idea and believe in the principle, but because the evidence shows that it will improve the lives of the people of Wales. That is the point of devolution, and all acts that we take in respect of devolution should be with that aim in mind. We should have the tools, the data and the information to measure whether what we do is improving people’s lives, so that if it is not, we can make amends and improve the situation; but for all of us, in Cardiff and here in Westminster, that must be the driving force behind why we act.

[Craig Williams (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

I thank the right hon. Lady for securing this important debate, and I welcome the tone she has adopted. However, in the overriding, constant call of, “Devolve, devolve, devolve!” what is missing is the people’s consent, as is any mention of the cost. The estimate in the report is of between £105 million and £115 million; that is a substantial amount. She has outlined the cuts that have taken place. But where is the people’s consent? At the last general election, we stood on a platform of not devolving justice, but I understand that the right hon. Lady’s party did not.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

On the costs, we know from past evidence that policing was funded under the Barnett formula. We have yet to apply that to the new police funding, but the per head rate of Barnett funding should produce an additional £25 million. The people of Wales directly fund the maintenance of the frontline presence of the police on their streets. The people of Wales are funding that themselves, in a way that does not happen with police forces in England. Wales is also already contributing funding for legal aid and advice over and above what happens in England, because that is believed to be best for the people of Wales.

That situation is not sustainable. One Government is propping up the failures experienced by the people of Wales that have been imposed on them by the Government here. By working together we can ensure that no other family will have to endure the pain and suffering that Conner Marshall’s family had to suffer over the last four years, by building a probation service that is fit for purpose. We can ensure that no child has to live in 57 different homes while in contact with social services, and design a Welsh policy integrating social services and family law. We can ensure that no one in Wales loses out on justice as a result of lack of access to legal aid.

Justice is a public good. Good governance exists not for its own sake but for the public good. If not now, when? Over the weekend, the Justice Secretary told the BBC:

“What is more important…from the point of view of residents is outcomes”—

rather than “who holds the pen”. That is evidence that the UK Government are merely opposing the devolution of justice on ideological grounds, and that the good governance that the Welsh people deserve to enjoy is of secondary importance.

I will close my speech with three specific asks in addition to those that I have already mentioned. Could the Minister tell us what will be the UK Government’s formal response to the report on justice in Wales, and when it will be released? Will he commit to providing a response that acknowledges all recommendations individually? When will the working group that the Welsh Government and the Ministry of Justice have agreed to set up to consider the user needs for Welsh justice data be convened? I understand that no timetable has been provided. Finally, I really hope the Minister will be able to find common ground with me on this: will he ensure that the Serious Violence Bill will include the Welsh Government and their agencies for all strands of co-operation?

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[Chris Bryant]

Actually, the police settlement figures that are out today make it pretty clear that that would not do Wales any favours. We would simply be robbing the police budget to pay for the legal aid budget. I am not sure that solves the problem.

The hon. Gentleman says that my historical views are well known, but I am not sure that he does know my views on this subject, because I have tried to keep them to myself. To be honest, I am agnostic about the devolution of justice and policing, but I am not prepared to have the Welsh Assembly take responsibility for an area of policy if the money does not go with it. That would be cutting off your nose to spite your face.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Would the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

If the right hon. Lady does not mind, other Members want to speak and she spoke for nearly 30 minutes, so I will not give way. I think she gets time at the end to wind up the debate, so if she wants to have a go at me, she can do so then.

There are enormous dangers. The right hon. Lady raised specific issues about children in care. I am not sure that there is a higher number of children in care in Wales because the matter is not devolved. I suspect that is much more related to poverty and deprivation, at historic levels in some of the valleys communities that I and others represent. I want to see causation, not just correlation. That is a fundamental principle in all our policy making.

During the general election, not a single person on the doorstep raised any of these matters. In fact, in all my time as an MP—18 years—I have never known anybody on the doorstep in the Rhondda raise the issue of devolution, except sometimes to say that the Welsh Assembly should be dismantled or done away with. I am in favour of devolution. It is terrible when a higher power arrogates to itself matters that should be decided at a much more local level. I am in favour of devolution. However, I do not think we should spend all our time in Welsh politics picking at the constitutional settlement. We should be trying to deliver better outcomes for our constituents. We should be trying to make sure that the money that is spent in Wales is well-spent. We should be trying to improve the national health service, the education service and all the rest of it. Frankly, I think the constitution can wait for—

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[Chris Philp]

That is good. Clearly, I need some lessons in Welsh pronunciation. The right hon. Member who moved today’s motion made a case for what essentially amounts to the full devolution of justice functions to Wales in line with the recommendations of the report that Lord Thomas recently published. I respectfully disagree with her conclusion that the wholesale devolution of justice to Wales would be in the interests of Wales for, broadly speaking, two or three different reasons.

I will start with the right hon. Lady’s argument that there should be congruence between the Parliament of Wales and the justice jurisdiction of Wales so that the justice system matches the laws. That argument—to avoid the “jagged edge” that Lord Thomas refers to in his report—is not wholly valid, because many or most laws that apply in Wales are reserved matters that have been legislated on in this Parliament. In fact, if we look at the laws that have been passed in the 11 years since 2008, the Welsh Parliament has passed 62 new laws and this Parliament has passed 600, the vast majority of which also apply to Wales. Looking at the law on reserved matters, legal principles such as criminal responsibility, incapacity, mental elements of offences, criminal liability, sentencing, the law relating to homicide, sexual offences and offences against the person—the very fabric of the legal system—are all reserved matters where England and Wales law applies.

Devolving justice in the context of a body of law where the majority of it applies to England and Wales would actually exacerbate or worsen the jagged edge problem the right hon. Lady referred to, because it would then apply to these reserved matters, which are far larger in number than the matters that have been legislated for separately at the Welsh level. Indeed, it would be further exacerbated because the Thomas report, interestingly, does not recommend that the legal profession, its regulation and its qualifications be separated, but instead that they remain the same. If we were to devolve justice to Wales, we would have a further incongruity in that we would have a single legal profession with the same qualifications across two different systems. That would be a further exacerbating jagged edge.

Some Members speaking today have referred to the interface between justice and other devolved matters, in particular education and health. I put the question to a senior official working in the Ministry of Justice’s Welsh department who deals with day-to-day justice matters. Their view was that whether justice was devolved or not would make no real difference to the interface between justice and education and health. Whether education and health were being run in Wales and talking to an England and Wales MOJ or a Welsh MOJ, that interface between Departments would still exist, whether the MOJ sat under an England and Wales umbrella or a Wales-only umbrella.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

At the same time, the probation service in Wales has been specifically set up to reflect the fact that education, health and housing are different in Wales in relation to probation. We have not been able to do justice to this report in the time we have had, but my one specific ask, if I may press the Minister, is when will his Department respond in full to the recommendations of this report? I understand that it has already been indicated that it will. When will that occur, and will the Department respond to all the recommendations in turn?

[Chris Philp]

I was going to come to that point at the very end, but I will answer it now, since the right hon. Lady has raised it. This report was commissioned by the Welsh Government, by the previous First Minister of Wales. It was not commissioned by the UK Government, so there is not an intention to produce a full and formal response to the Thomas report.

However, we are of course going to discuss in detail with the Welsh Government in Cardiff the issues that it raises, to see where we can constructively improve our working relationships across some of them. The right hon. Lady has touched on a couple of those already. We want to improve the level of co-operation we have with the Welsh Government. We want to ensure that, where there is joint working and an interface with, for example, the health system, which many Members have mentioned, that interface works as well as it can, and that we are co-operating and reflecting some of the unique circumstances in Wales. Those conversations will certainly happen, and we will approach them with a constructive and an open mind.

As I said a moment ago, however, I am afraid we do not agree with the conclusion that we should wholly devolve justice and create a Welsh jurisdiction. One reason for that is the second point I was about to come on to before the intervention: cost. The Thomas report does not talk about the cost at all; perhaps the reason is that there is a very significant cost.

The Silk commission, which reported a few years ago—I think in 2014—did cost the establishment of a separate Welsh jurisdiction. It estimated, adjusting for changes that have happened since, that the extra incremental cost of creating a separate jurisdiction would be about £100 million a year. That is £100 million that could be spent on more probation officers, more police and all the things we have been talking about, and we do not feel that the imposition of that extra cost is at all justified.

For example, we would have to replicate the Ministry of Justice’s functions at the Welsh level. Wales does not have a women’s prison, which itself is an issue, or a category A prison. All those issues would have to be addressed. The MOJ is currently hugely upgrading its IT systems, and there are obviously economies of scale. If a Welsh Ministry of Justice had to do that itself, it would be extremely expensive. We do not believe that that cost of £100 million a year can be justified.

Thirdly, and perhaps unusually, I concur quite strongly with some of the analysis offered by the hon. Member for Rhondda, who asked us to concentrate on outcomes and how our systems work in practice, and on improving those rather than endlessly talking about process and arguing about where powers get exercised. In many ways, it is slightly sterile to argue over who holds the pen and exactly where a power is exercised. Our collective energy, ingenuity, creativity and everything else are better directed at trying to improve the services that are being delivered, so I embrace the point that he made.

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[Liz Saville Roberts]

I welcome certain of the Minister’s comments, particularly his commitment to close working. However, I note that, although he referred to the sentencing review, the health intervention is, in essence, devolved in Wales. In that respect, if there is additional expectation from Westminster, I can only presume that the funding to enable that will follow.

I also mentioned the serious violence Bill. Again, there is an opportunity to reflect the structures that exist in Wales to ensure that it is better proceeded with in Wales, but that was not referred to. Even when I was working on the Domestic Abuse Bill, the fact that there are different structures in Wales was not thought about; it was not even an afterthought—it was not remembered. That is a weakness in governance, and goes back to how these things affect the people of Wales and the quality of the services that they receive.

Of course, the current joint work is not done with transparency, and we do not effectively have the means to compare what is for England and Wales in its entirety with what is happening in Wales. I hope that there will be a commitment to continue with the crime survey for England and Wales, so that we can have a proper picture and talk about crime not in the abstract, but as it is experienced by real people in the real communities of Wales, to make that comparison properly. This report has endeavoured to emphasise that justice is not an island; it is not isolated from the services that support the victim on the one hand or that punish and rehabilitate the offender on the other hand.

I will conclude with that old “Encyclopaedia Britannica” trope: “For Wales, see England”. The nagging question for this Government is whether, when it comes to Wales, they see only England. Diolch yn fawr.

[Chris Bryant]

On a point of order, Mr Stringer. I am sorry to be a pain, but some of us were a bit confused about the timing this afternoon. Obviously, we have had votes and so on, which have interfered with the system, and I know that the second half of the day is three hours, but I wonder whether, in future, when there has been an afternoon such as this, there might be a means of making the House generally aware of when each of the new debates in Westminster Hall is going to start.