Prisons in Wales

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Hywel Williams

Wednesday 29th November 2023 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts]

That is exactly why it is important that we have the data that allows us to scrutinise what is happening in Wales, which appears to be different from what is happening in England. We have higher numbers of prisoners and, as I will return to, not surprisingly, Wales operates in a social policy context that is different from that anywhere else in the United Kingdom. Health, housing and much of the social policy framework have been devolved since 1999. This is not just a constitutional anomaly; it is affecting outcomes for offenders in prisons. I emphasise that that then affects our communities: people return from prison to communities in Wales, and if they return less healthy, less able to work and without a roof over their heads, the likelihood of reoffending appears to be higher, as we see from some of the crime figures.

Staff retention is a significant problem in Berwyn. Staff from other prisons as far afield as Swansea and Hull are sent there to make up for recruitment short- falls. Detached duty, as that is known, is expensive and is not a long-term answer. The officers do not know the prisoners they are working with; it is just a matter of people making up the numbers. That is not a sustainable solution, and unless we draw attention to it we will not find a solution.

Staff also complain of an experience gap, because more experienced staff are exhausted and burnt out. Let us recall that the Professional Trades Union for Prison, Correctional and Secure Psychiatric Workers has long said that 68 is too late for officers to retire. We lose people because they cannot take it any more.

Just as Berwyn staff are brought in from everywhere else, so too are the prisoners. Berwyn was meant to serve local populations, including, fairly enough, the north-west of England. We were told that was the intention at the time. However, Berwyn has housed prisoners from 75 English local authorities since it opened in 2017, and 62% of the population came from outside of Wales in 2022. For women, the opposite is true: in December 2022, Welsh women were held in 11 of the 12 women’s prisons in England, and were on average—it would be far further from my constituency—101 miles away from home.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

The situation of women is particularly acute. Until 2018, I think, there was no provision whatsoever, so women from Wales are housed in Staffordshire, Gloucestershire and elsewhere. The principle should be that prison is punishment—the punishment is not being able to leave at the end of the afternoon—but it should not be for punishment. Many women from Wales and their families are suffering a double penalty because they are held so far away.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Yes, indeed. Of course, the residential women’s centre in Swansea was first mooted in 2018, but it has yet to arrive. We have concerns about the exact nature of the services: will it effectively be just another prison, or will it be equipped to make a real difference to the lives of women?

Welsh women prisoners are on average 101 miles from home, which makes it difficult for them to maintain contact with families, children and support networks, as well as creating issues related to housing and work upon release. Welsh men struggle with issues including identity, discrimination and access to the Welsh language in jails, and Welsh women have their own distinct set of issues.

As 74% of all women sentenced to immediate custody were given sentences of 12 months or less, and one in five given one month or less, there is a real need to consider these issues and opt for alternatives to custody for low-level, non-violent crimes. When I was in Styal in May, I saw in reception that a woman had been admitted to the prison from Wales on the Friday before a May bank holiday, and was due to be released on the Tuesday. What good was that going to do her, except disrupt her life?

The Welsh Government’s women’s justice blueprint is an attempt to do that but, without the political will of the UK Government, such attempts are doomed to fail. Although the Swansea residential centre is a sweetener from Westminster, there are real concerns that it will become a pathway to conventional custody. Swansea remains, but is far away from home for those in northern areas of Wales, who will still be sent, of course, to Styal near Manchester.

The over-representation of certain groups also underlines the need for alternatives. In Wales, black people represented 3.1% of the prison population in 2022, despite comprising only 0.9% of the general population. Those from a mixed or Asian ethnicity background were also over-represented. The average custodial sentence length, between 2010 and 2022, was 8.5 months longer for black defendants than for those from a white ethnic group.

The link between incarceration and homelessness is difficult to justify, as the BBC alluded to in its recent drama “Time”. Like Orla, the character played by Jodie Whittaker, 423 people were released from Welsh prisons without a fixed address in 2022-23. That is the equivalent—this is striking—of eight people a week. The number of those rough sleeping after release into Welsh probation services more than trebled in a year.

Devolution of Justice: Wales

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Hywel Williams

Tuesday 29th November 2022 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of the devolution of justice to Wales.

Diolch yn fawr iawn, Cadeirydd—thank you very much, Mr Vickers; it is an honour to serve with you in the Chair. I am pleased to have secured this debate on the potential merits of the devolution of justice to Wales.

Wales, of course, has its own distinct legal history dating back to the laws of Hywel Dda, prior to the Acts of Union in the 16th century. In spite of the fact that many of us enjoy talking about Welsh history immensely, I am not here to make the case for devolution by looking into the past. I am here today because of the potential for a better future and because the case for devolution of justice is self-evident for those who care to look. It is a permanent question seeking an answer in the constitutional landscape of the United Kingdom, and I believe this to be irrefutable, whether the matter is approached from a Welsh viewpoint or from a Westminster viewpoint: that is an important point to make.

It has been more than eight years since the Silk commission recommended devolving police and youth justice to Wales, although those powers were not incorporated into the Wales Act 2017. It has been three years since the Thomas commission on justice in Wales published its report in October 2019, setting out a long-term vision for the future of justice in Wales. The Thomas commission produced 78 different recommendations on how Wales can have a justice system fit for the 21st century, the central one being the devolution of justice and policing and the creation of a separate Welsh legal jurisdiction. To quote the report directly,

“the people of Wales are being let down by the system in its current state. Major reform is needed to the justice system and to the current scheme of devolution.”

The weight of evidence is behind devolution. There is a growing consensus across civil society, academia, the Welsh legal profession and justice workers in the system that this needs to move ahead. That consensus is also to be found at the political level. All of Wales’s police and crime commissioners have said that the devolution of justice and policing is the next logical step. All the representatives of the justice unions who speak here and who also speak with the Senedd are engaged with how matters could be dealt with better if justice were devolved—that is the point of devolution: how the outcomes could be better. A majority of Members of the Senedd support the devolution of justice, as outlined in the Welsh Labour Government’s co-operation agreement with Plaid Cymru, which is a year old this week.

Despite having a Parliament and a Government, a legislature and an Executive, Wales is a nation without its own legal system and courts. For a nation with 22 years of policy making characterised by the values of social justice, equality and community strength, Wales can only stand by and watch the Westminster Government impose fundamentally different values through the arc of the criminal justice policy. Imagine if Wales had policy control over that arc, from crime to arrest—namely, policing—and prosecution, and then from sentencing to imprisonment and probation. Imagine that the Government of Wales had even the powers equivalent to those held—wait for it—by the Mayors of Greater London and Manchester. This is in stark contrast to Scotland and Northern Ireland, and it is unheard of internationally. When the Minister responds, could he tell us of any other examples of nations that have their own Executive and legislature but no judiciary? Does he honestly believe that this is the best way to structure an effective justice system?

The response by the UK Government to the Thomas commission was characterised by a combination of “Westminster knows best” and funding scaremongering. Here we had a former Lord Chief Justice in Lord John Thomas of Cwmgiedd, heading up an expert commission whose work across two years included a vast amount of evidence from across Wales. That extensive overview and analysis of justice in Wales was dismissed out of hand by the UK Government, who did not even bother to formally respond.

Not content with being told no by Westminster, we in Wales have instead been doing what we have had to do all along: building the institutional frameworks and capacity, piece by piece, so that we are ready for proper control and responsibility over justice. The unification of the Welsh tribunals, which put them on a proper footing, is in effect creating a nascent justice institution, which could in turn be the basis for the transfer of the courts to Wales. We are developing our capacity properly to scrutinise the operation of justice in Wales. At present, the Senedd’s Legislation, Justice and Constitution Committee—the clue is in the name—undertakes the work of three committees in one. We are also addressing that capacity through the expansion of the Senedd, which again is thanks to Plaid Cymru’s co-operation agreement with Welsh Labour.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

On my right hon. Friend’s earlier point about tribunals, the seven administrative tribunals that operate in Wales are in a sense Welsh bodies, but control from Westminster—from Whitehall, actually—is very strong. That point was made when the tribunals were set up: Whitehall runs them and has the final responsibility.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

We will look at areas where there has been a little moving ahead on other aspects of the courts that have been proposed in Wales.

In that respect, I refer to a groundbreaking new book by Dr Robert Jones and Professor Richard Wyn Jones of Cardiff University, entitled “The Welsh Criminal Justice System: On the Jagged Edge”. It is a rigorous and thoughtful analysis of criminal justice in Wales. Indeed, it is the first of its kind, because the evidence is only now beginning to become available, and at present we have only a snapshot. I think that all will agree that, if we are looking for an evidence-based system, we do not want a snapshot: we must be able to track trends and developments over time. That is one of my key asks of the Minister, to which I hope he will be able to respond anon. The book presents a thorough overview of how justice operates in Wales, and shows why devolution is a vital step for aligning policy, values and legislative powers. As I have already said, that is the case for Northern Ireland and Scotland, and also to a degree for Greater Manchester and London. It is not possible to over-emphasise that inconsistency.

Justice in Wales is currently controlled at Westminster, but the Senedd controls key devolved services that are just as important for the delivery of justice. That has created what Lord Thomas originally called the “jagged edge”—a jagged edge of intersecting competences and responsibilities. That results in serious disadvantages, which include financial and opportunity costs; a lack of coherent, joined-up policy making; and an overly complex system that leads to a lack of understanding of how justice operates in Wales.

The Cardiff University book lays out how outcomes in Wales are particularly poor. When English and Welsh data are disaggregated, we see that Wales performs even worse than England, which is one of the worst performers in Europe. The figure that we will keep coming back to is imprisonment. England and Wales have the highest imprisonment rates in Europe. Because of the disaggregated data, we now know that Wales has the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe. That fuels a cycle of poverty, as well as health and mental health problems. Wales has higher violent crime and conviction rates than England. Black people are six times more likely to be in prison than their white counterparts. Nearly half of Welsh children who are imprisoned are detained in England, far from their homes and family support, and court closures have restricted access to justice across whole swathes of rural Wales. The lack of coherent policy making is one of the key features of the jagged edge, and it is the people in the system—and the communities from which they come and to which they return—who lose out.

First, let us take the case of women in the justice system in Wales. Welsh Women’s Aid notes that the women in the prisoner population, and those in contact with the police and other related services, are far more likely than men to have additional support needs such as mental health diagnoses, a history of drug and alcohol abuse, and homelessness, or to have experienced violence, domestic abuse and/or sexual violence. Importantly, the Welsh Government, with the backing of the Senedd, have a specific policy to reduce the number of women entering custody, given their vulnerability. That is a piece of policy extant in Wales from our Senedd and our Government. However, the aim comes crashing down against the reality of how the criminal justice system operates in Wales and the differing Westminster policy in relation to putting more people into prison.

There are no women’s prisons in Wales. Welsh women are sent most often to either His Majesty’s Prison Eastwood Park in Gloucestershire or HMP Styal in east Cheshire, which are tens or hundreds of miles away from their support networks, and getting to these prisons, particularly by public transport, is extremely difficult. Given that roughly 50% of women prisoners are also mothers, the effect of such distance on the mental health of those women and their children, and on the outcomes for the children, must not be underestimated.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I will return to that later, but because the right hon. Gentleman has raised the point, I will engage with it now as well. There is a residential unit in planning for one area of Wales, but we really need to know exactly which services will be there. Will it effectively be a small-scale prison, or will it actually offer the services that women need? We also need to know what the interface will be between the devolved service and the reserved provision. That is a very timely point, because it has just become apparent at the private prison near Bridgend, HMP Parc, that the local authority has had to step in to take over social services there. Again, this ad hoc arrangement, the lack of clarity and the lack of scrutiny over who is providing what is resulting in bad outcomes, which is why the debate is so timely.

It is evident that there are not many of us in this room. That is actually part of the issue, because Westminster will concentrate on where the loudest majority issues are. However, there is a phenomenon in Wales: the disconnect. Frankly, if this is the best we can do in relation to the disconnect with the highest imprisonment rates in western Europe, we must consider looking at the issue in an alternative way.

[Hywel Williams]

My right hon. Friend is being very generous and I will pipe down after this, as I hope to speak in the debate. Another small example is when we were campaigning for a prison for north Wales some years ago. We almost got a prison, which would have been a community facility, for the 600 or so men from north Wales who are imprisoned. We also campaigned for units for women and for young people who are held, contrary to the regulations, further than 50 miles away from their homes. What we actually got from Westminster was a 2,000-man super-prison in Wrexham, which does not serve the needs of local people.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Again, I will return to that. This is not just a matter of serving the needs of Wales. Sending thousands of prisoners miles away from home—men or women—does not serve the vast majority of those prisoners well either. If we want a joined-up magic connection with housing, work and maintaining kinship, family and friendship connections, which we know are the routes to successful rehabilitation, we should not send prisoners hundreds of miles away from where they will return, because those links will not be made, be they back home in Wales or in communities in England.

European Union Citizenship

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Hywel Williams

Wednesday 7th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams]

I can only say, frankly, that my ambition and that of my hon. Friends is to ensure that Wales has an independent future. That may mean that we are reconciled to a British identity as a multiple identity for now, and hon. Members will know all about this—one can allegedly be Welsh and British, which is an argument that I hear from Members on both sides of the House, or Welsh and European, which is our argument. I certainly feel Welsh and European.

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

This goes to the crux of the argument. We are talking about our rights as individuals and the identity of individuals. I speak as a Londoner born and bred. I live in Wales and I claim Welsh nationality, and I am also proud of being European, but our rights as individuals are under threat. That is the point we have brought to the Chamber.

[Hywel Williams]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I was going to go on to say that this is more than just a matter of self-ascribed identity. It is about the real practical matters of the rights to travel and work—the European rights that have benefited people in Wales and throughout the UK. There is an argument about identity, and I will talk about that in a moment, but I do not think that it has the force that the hon. Member for East Renfrewshire (Paul Masterton) seemed to imply.

I was talking about Gwynfor Evans, who would often remind us of three pillars of Owain Glyndŵr’s policy during the 15th-century war of independence, as related to the King of France in the Pennal letter, which some people will have seen when it was on a visit to Aberystwyth some years ago. He said to the King of France that one of the central pillars was the need for a direct relationship with Rome for the Church in Wales—it was a very long time ago, and that was important then. It was about a direct relationship with the overarching European institution, rather than an indirect link mediated through Canterbury—some people will hear the echoes of the current situation in that policy.

By the way, the other two pillars of Glyndŵr’s policy were for Welsh to be the state language and for two universities to be established at a time when they were first being established across Europe by ambitious leaders. Some 600 years later, we have excellent universities in Wales. We are nearly there on the language issue, but on the European issue we are taking a serious step back.

From the start, my party took inspiration from continental developments of economic and social co-operation, as exemplified in the writings of D. J. Davies. We found European multilingualism far more congenial than the stifling monolingualism of so much of the UK’s public life. I say in passing that right hon. and hon. Members may not know that the most recent meeting of the Welsh Grand Committee was held here in Westminster with simultaneous translation. Half those who spoke did so partly or wholly in Welsh. No one was hurt. Revolution did not break out. Hansard published what I think is its very first wholly bilingual record—I should mention that the Under-Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) spoke in Welsh, and I congratulate him sincerely on his efforts—but that reflection of the actual linguistic condition common in these islands is still very much the remarked-upon exception, rather than the rule. That is not so over much of the rest of our continent.

Turning to present times, given our radical political stance, Plaid Cymru has always supported the growth and development of European policies beyond the narrow confines of the common market, which we initially joined. Ordinary people across the UK have derived so much benefit from those social, workforce and environmental policies, and EU citizenship is, for me, in that category. Importantly for our country, the EU has an overt regional economic cohesion policy, from which Wales has derived substantial additional funding. Of course, it is a cruel irony that we benefit thus only because of our poverty and our economy performing so badly, on a par with regions of the former Soviet bloc at the eastern end of the European Union.

In passing, I must also refer to other EU measures such as Interreg Europe, which promotes inter-regional contact between Wales and Ireland. Wales faces west as well as east, although many people, including Government Ministers, sometimes do not realise that. My colleague, the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen), used to say occasionally that Holyhead was east Dublin rather than north-west Anglesey. We have also benefited from the Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme and the Erasmus programme on student exchange, to name just three from which Wales along with other parts of the UK has benefited, and in respect of which, I say to the Minister, there is much concern, not least at our universities, and I mention my own, Bangor University.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hywel Williams]

That is exactly the point I intend to make.

Many young people told me after the referendum that the result had been a profound emotional shock, an assault on the very foundations of their personal identities as Europeans, one telling me that she had been in floods of tears. They told me how they regretted losing key practical rights—this is not just an emotional identity matter—such as the right to travel without hindrance within the EU and the unqualified right to work and to study in other European countries. Today the UK Government have an opportunity to heal some of these divisions—intergenerational divisions and divisions between all peoples of these islands, particularly, as we have heard, in Ireland.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I am sure that my hon. Friend shares my concern that many of these young people now coming of age, who will be most directly affected by our leaving the EU, had no say whatsoever. From year to year, this situation is worsening.

[Hywel Williams]

My hon. Friend makes a telling point to which I will return in a moment and which is covered by the two aspects of citizenship that we are proposing. The first concerns continuing citizenship for those of us who are citizens of the EU now by means of a bilateral treaty. The second concerns those who, being unborn, cannot access that citizenship—this is a matter for our children and our children’s children. Particularly acute, however, for me at least, is the position of those aged 14, 15 and 16 who understood the issues in the referendum but were unable to vote. I should say in passing that my party has always been in favour of reducing the voting age to 16, which would have made a considerable difference to the result.

As I said, today the UK Government have an opportunity to heal some of these divisions. This is a positive point from the Plaid Cymru Benches, and I hope that the Government see it in that light. We are calling on them to secure and retain our right to European citizenship and not to take away what is already rightfully ours, so that we might leave the EU with just a little less self-inflicted injury.

We are European citizens, although I have to confess that I am biased: I am married to a European citizen—she is from Llanelli. She likewise is married to a European citizen—I am from Pwllheli. I do not want to labour the point, but we are both Welsh and European. I am therefore biased, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts) said, so are our many friends and colleagues who have chosen to live and work in Wales and become Welsh, but not by rejecting their European citizenship or identity. To quote Gwynfor Evans again:

“Anyone can be Welsh, so long as you are prepared to take the consequences.”

That is our definition of citizenship. The citizens of Wales are those who are committed. I would commend that as a general definition of civic identity—I suppose I should say “civic nationalism”, but perhaps I should let that pass.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hywel Williams]

I must confess that I was entirely unaware of the issue that the hon. Gentleman has raised. If that is indeed the case, I think that it bears more examination, and I should be interested to discuss it with him further.

I was talking about Irish citizens and those of Irish extraction. There is a certain serendipity in the fact that UK-Irish citizens have those rights on the basis of one grandparent while the rest of us do not. There will be people like me with British citizenship, people of Irish extraction with Irish citizenship, Irish people with Irish citizenship who live, work and vote here, and EU citizens with a certain status, whatever that may be. There is a certain randomness about the whole arrangement, which would in some respects be addressed by an overarching European citizenship. I fear that that serendipity will inevitably become more pressing when those with the favoured passports join the short queue at holiday airports while their less fortunate neighbours wait in the “others” line. It will have hit us a bit harder by then.

The Government say that they want a close relationship with our EU partners. That is their ambition, cited over and over again. They now have a practical opportunity to support that relationship through continuation citizenship for current British EU citizens, and, for all those who will not be EU citizens at the point of our leaving—that is, the unborn—a future status through associate EU citizenship.

So far the debate has been dominated by trade issues, the divorce bill and the Irish border—those are the issues with which we have been grappling for many months—but many Brexit promises before the referendum had an individualistic quality. People felt that they were being promised something individually. We would be richer and have better services, not least through having an extra £350 million every week to spend on the NHS. Promises such as that persuaded people, along with, of course, the immigration issue.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

We were also promised that we would be freer, with all the implications of independence. We are having to discuss this issue today because we must face the fact that we are unlikely to be so free.

[Hywel Williams]

The paradox has not escaped me.

Here is a chance for the Government to redeem themselves partially by securing for all UK individuals in the future that which they already have: UK and European citizenship. That would be popular. According to research findings published last year by the LSE and Opinium, six out of 10 people want to keep their EU citizenship. Support for retaining rights is particularly strong among 18 to 24-year-olds, 85% of whom want to retain their EU citizenship. They are the generation, more than any other, that will have to deal with the long-term fallout from Brexit over the coming decades, and to deal practically and emotionally with the loss of their firm expectation of continuing EU citizenship. Many members of that generation did not have a vote in the referendum, although they will be profoundly affected by its consequences—unless, of course, the Government take heed of our argument today. Thankfully, it is not my responsibility to drum up support for the Conservatives, but were the Government just to look to their own enlightened self-interest, they would see that at least one path is clear from the debate. If they will not do so, can we at least expect the Labour party to see where its interest lies, to support the motion, and to protect our people’s rights?

I am advised by wiser heads that there would be no new treaty requirements, so now is the time for the Government to give a clear and practical sign that they are taking UK citizens’ rights seriously—not by withdrawing our rights without our explicit consent, but by securing European Union citizenship for all, not just the random few. What is needed now, and what is currently lacking, is vision and clear political leadership to mend some of the divisions that Brexit has opened up. In the Prime Minister’s own words last Monday,

“let us get on with it.”—[Official Report, 5 March 2018; Vol. 637, c. 28.]

Catalan Independence Referendum

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Hywel Williams

Tuesday 10th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Hywel Williams]

I agree entirely with what the hon. Gentleman said at the end of his remarks.

Having witnessed what I saw in Catalonia on Sunday, I think it is incumbent on anyone who believes in the fundamental values of democracy to stand up, explain their views and act as honourable and honest witnesses, which is what I am trying to do.

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

I hope my hon. Friend will agree that if legislators are not allowed to legislate, democracy is hobbled.

[Hywel Williams]

Indeed. There is a philosophical argument, which we cannot go into today, about the competing legitimacies of the democratic mandate. The Catalan Government have a majority, which was properly established at an election. The Government in Madrid have a different view and, although they are a minority Government, are also elected. We could pursue that at length, but I will not do so now.

The fact that Switzerland has offered to mediate is indicative of the European Union’s failure to act, which is very troubling indeed, given that these events affect a very large EU partner—the eurozone’s fourth largest economy. Catalonia itself hosts large multinational companies and provides a large proportion of Spain’s tax take.

I believe that a line has been crossed in terms of how an EU member state believes it is proper to treat its citizens. That attitude may be dangerously contagious at the other end of the European Union, where there are growing concerns about right-wing authoritarianism. It is also disappointing, given that the UK has direct experience of an independence referendum in Scotland, which was held peacefully and largely within an agenda of respect. I am not going to ask the Minister a large number of questions, but did the Spanish Government solicit any views or advice from the UK Government about the Scottish experience? Was any such advice offered of the UK Government’s own volition? Clearly, we have relevant experience.

It would be impossible for me to close without referring directly to last week’s events and the background to them—I will do my best to stay in order. We were in Catalonia for five days as part of the international delegation. By now, people across the world will have seen pictures on television—or more likely on their computer screens—of the long queues of people standing for hours in the rain; of people trying to vote and being beaten back by the police; of ballot boxes being confiscated; of the police shooting rubber bullets and tear gas at the crowds; and of women and old people staggering, their heads streaming with blood. They will have also seen the counter-demonstrations—this relates to the point that the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) made—made up not just of the old supporters of Franco’s fascist party singing their anthem and giving straight-arm salutes, but of ordinary Spanish people in Madrid and other cities. In Barcelona, they included some of the people who did not turn out to vote, who are split between people who want no change, people who want change but not independence, and people who just want all concerned to sit down and talk, which is a commendable view.

Let me conclude by talking about what the delegation saw on the ground and what our report says. We concluded that on the day, the referendum was carried out as fairly as possible. Officials worked hard to enable people to vote. The police had taken down the Catalan Government’s website, so in many cases officials could not access the electoral roll. Despite all that, the vote was, as far as we could see, as fair and scrupulous as possible.

The police’s behaviour was, in many cases, violent, oppressive and wholly disproportionate. I witnessed the police breaking into a polling station in the face of wholly non-violent opposition by hundreds of ordinary local people—men, women and even youths and children—who streamed to the polling station when they heard that the Guardia Civil were on their way. The ballot boxes containing many cast votes were carried out and away in heavy police vehicles. The crowd shouted, “Votarem!”—“We want to vote!”—and that was it: there was no violence.

Many people slept in polling stations overnight to ensure they could be opened in the morning. People showed astonishing patience, queuing in the rain for hours and meeting the police batons with determined and unshakeable non-violence, but nearly 900 people and 30 police were injured. That so many turned out is significant—2.26 million voters on a turnout of 42.3%—in the face of huge hostility from the central Government, reflected in the media beforehand, disruption of the process and widely reported police violence from the start.

I do not know what will become of all this. Given the Spanish Government’s attitude, many have said that they had already lost the argument before the referendum was held and would still have lost the argument had there been a majority against independence, which there was not, because minds have been changed. It was clear to me that for many Catalans, this had become a vote not just on independence but on a sticking point—on the democratic right to have a say and on the core European values of democracy, openness and self-determination. It was impeded and, in places, thwarted violently by a central Government whom they saw as being of little or no relevance to them, at best. That has profound significance for all parts of Europe, and the response from Governments and the EU itself has been wholly wanting.

Cavity Wall Insulation: Wales

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Hywel Williams

Wednesday 19th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered cavity wall insulation in Wales.

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Nuttall—I think for the first time—and to lead a debate on this issue. Unfortunately, after many years of campaigning, lobbying and debates, it is still unresolved.

Many of my constituents had cavity wall insulation installed, having been persuaded—in fact, I would use the phrase “deceived by omission”—that it was suitable for their homes and for local weather conditions. How wrong they were. Many have found that out to their cost, as they have suffered damp and damage, stress, threats to health and ever-present black walls.

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

The whole of Wales and indeed much of the UK’s western seaboard is categorised as having very severe exposure to wind-driven rain. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Building Research Establishment maps that point that out should have been widely publicised by the Government so that people could assess whether cavity walling was appropriate in their area?

[Hywel Williams]

That is certainly the case. It is an elementary step. One just needs to look at the map of the UK. The west of Wales, the south-west of England, the north-west of England and Scotland are all coloured a deep blue, and areas such as East Anglia are coloured white. A five-year-old could look at that map and see where the rain was going to be and where there might be problems. Unfortunately, many people were not aware of those maps or of this issue.

The consumer redress process so far has been unsatisfactory. Vulnerable people have been left in damp and damaged homes. The industry guarantee scheme has failed many victims and has shortcomings, including sometimes—I am sorry to say this—a hostile attitude to victims. There is an opportunity for the Government to put things right, and my demand—I put it as strongly as that—today is for the Minister to take decisive action to protect consumers from further bad practice, identify all victims and fully compensate all those who have been affected by what is clearly a Government-backed scheme.

Wales Bill

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Hywel Williams

Monday 12th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams]

I agree entirely that it has been very generously funded, and funded without very much review for 25-odd years until fairly recently. [Interruption.] Indeed—and then what happened? The hon. Gentleman asks whether I am aware of the genesis of S4C. Let me say clearly that I have the conviction to prove that I am very well aware of what happened during that period. I think I had better leave it at that.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that S4C’s funding has resulted in it currently running more than 50% repeats, which is not satisfactory.

[Hywel Williams]

The television landscape has certainly changed enormously. Many broadcasters are now running a great number of repeats. The point about Welsh language television is that it has a purpose beyond just providing entertainment, or even informing or educating: it is there as part of the national project to sustain, speaking in dramatic terms, the rescue of the language.

Wales Bill

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Hywel Williams

Monday 11th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Hywel Williams]

Does my hon. Friend not think it scandalous that there is no provision for women prisoners in Wales? There are very few women prisoners, but they are held in England in Styal and in Eastwood Park outside Gloucester. That causes problems for prisoners’ families, particularly from the west of Wales.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Indeed. We are aware that in the north that there is no prison for women or for young offenders. There are many steps afoot, which are to be welcomed, to improve how women who enter the criminal justice system are treated in Wales, alongside imprisonment. HMP Styal is a long way from people’s homes and there must be a better way to deal with offenders’ families.

Policing and Crime Bill

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Hywel Williams

Monday 13th June 2016 Commons Chamber

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I intend to speak to new clauses 2, 3, 4, 5, and 44, and I intend to press new clause 2 to a Division. The other new clauses are intended to test discussions that took place in Committee.

I note what the Minister said earlier in support of localism, but would cautiously remind him if he were still in the Chamber that although Wales is one of the four nations of the United Kingdom, it is the only one that has no responsibility for its police forces. The Governments of both Scotland and Northern Ireland are able to acknowledge the specific needs of their communities and direct their police forces to work effectively in response to those needs, but Wales must follow the policing priorities of England.

The four police forces of Wales are unique in the United Kingdom in that they are non-devolved bodies operating within a largely devolved public services landscape. They are thus required to respond to the agendas of two Governments, and to serve a nation whose people have the right to use either the English or the Welsh language. It should be noted that the Assembly’s budget already funds 500 extra police community support officers.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

Does my hon. Friend, like me, find it peculiar that other services that are vital to Welsh communities, such as social services, education, economic and health—including mental health—are all devolved? Would it not greatly aid the coherence of public policy in Wales if this particular service were also devolved?

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I understand that the very fact of having to work to, and be answerable to, two agendas is the reason our colleagues in the Assembly, and the four police and crime commissioners in Wales, are calling for the devolution of policing.

What I am describing contrasts starkly with the situation in Wales. Power over policing is due to be devolved to English city regions: Manchester and Liverpool, for example. The present approach to devolution has been criticised in a House of Lords Constitutional Committee report, published last month, which described it as piecemeal and lacking a coherent vision. I would strongly argue that the devolution of policing to Wales would benefit the people of Wales, and that they are ill served by the antiquated England and Wales arrangement, which, inevitably, is designed with the priorities of English cities in mind.

Our demographics are different in Wales. The need to maintain effective services in rural areas with scattered populations cries out for better consideration. The impact of tourism—populations rocket at bank holidays and in summer months—stretches resources to the limit. Abersoch, in my constituency, has 1,000 year-round residents, yet North Wales police have to deal with an influx of 20,000 visitors in the summer season. I went on patrol with officers last August, and saw that drunken behaviour meant that police officers had to focus attention on that one community, travelling for hours back and forth along country roads to the nearest custody cells 30 miles away. The current arrangement of policing in England and Wales is dominated by English metropolitan concerns, and fails to provide for Wales's needs.

Macur Review of Historical Child Abuse

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Hywel Williams

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts]

One thing that has saddened me is perceiving how vulnerable these children were, which made them vulnerable to abuse in the first place, and how that abuse in turn has affected them for the rest of their lives and in part condemns them to being unreliable witnesses. We have not served them well; there is no denying that.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the speech she is making. In terms of process, is she surprised, as I am, at the paucity of reference to the linguistic context in which this happened in Wales—specifically in north Wales and north-west Wales, where a percentage of the children would be Welsh-speaking? I detect very few references to that in either the Macur report or, in fact, the Waterhouse report, which I read many years ago.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Indeed. We are talking about children’s voices, and one aspect of that is whether people are able to use their first language, in which they are most confident and express their emotions most fluently.

Finally, one critical lesson to be learned—I again echo the Children’s Commissioner for Wales—is that reviews from now on must be centred on the victims and the survivors. They should have the opportunity to advise on both the remit and process of an inquiry and should be properly supported at all stages. They, of course, are the people who live with this experience for their whole lives, and it has been a terrible experience. Diolch yn fawr iawn.

Capel Celyn Reservoir (50th Anniversary)

Debate between Liz Saville Roberts and Hywel Williams

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts]

It does indeed. Another poet, Twm Morys, says of people who drive past the lake, which is of course strikingly beautiful:

“Be’ weli di heblaw dwr?”

There is more to the place than just the water that we now see and appreciate. The water was for industry in Liverpool, and, indeed, excess water for the Liverpool Corporation to sell at a profit.

But why Wales? Wales is a small country, whose language and way of life was, and is, threatened with extinction—inundation. England on the other hand was a country with 10 times Wales’s area, whose language and life were in no peril. It is safe to say that the English language was then, and remains, the most politically powerful and richly resourced language in the world. There were untapped resources in Cumberland and Westmoreland, where the water of many natural lakes was not being used by any authority. Why insist on flooding a Welsh community for its water? The answer has been given quite openly by those behind the project: they came to Wales, not because water was unavailable elsewhere, but because they could get it at a lower cost. It was purely a matter of business—profits. The issue was not whether Liverpool was to get more water, but how cheaply it could get it.

Another reflection of Liverpool’s attitude towards Wales was its lack of candour. Neither the people of Capel Celyn, nor the people of Wales as a whole, were informed by the council of its intentions. They were left to infer from reports of engineers that the work afoot in the Tryweryn valley would mean something significant to their lives. Those who lived in Capel Celyn facing eviction learned of their fate for the first time from the press. Their reaction was predictable. They put their names to a statement expressing uncompromising opposition. They established a defence fund, contributed liberally to it and, in the best Welsh tradition, set up a Tryweryn defence committee, to which representatives were elected by the public bodies directly concerned, such as the county councils, national park authorities and the Dee and Clwyd river board.

One of the committee’s first actions was to ask Liverpool City Council to accept a strong and representative deputation from Wales, which would put the Welsh case. The request was refused. The town clerk stated that though the water committee would be willing to meet the deputation, the council itself dealt only with important local matters. The rebuff captured clearly the mentality of those behind the scheme—that Welsh opinion was of small importance in comparison with local Liverpool needs.

[Hywel Williams (Arfon) (PC)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing a debate on a significant matter for people in Wales, particularly north Wales. She will be familiar with the pictures of the march through Liverpool by the people of Capel Celyn and elsewhere. Women and children carried banners saying:

“Your homes are safe…Do not drown our homes”

to the council offices only to be met with a locked door. She spoke of Liverpool Council’s priorities; it is clear in this case that the fate of the people of Capel Celyn was not its priority, and that is certainly a lesson for us for the future as far as Wales’s other natural resources are concerned.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I thank my hon. Friend. I am aware that many people feel strongly about Capel Celyn, and were present and saw the events or were nearer to the events than I was. I find a certain irony in the fact that I am from south-east London, but it is a matter of pride to me that I am talking about this issue today.

Despite the clear and unmistakeable opposition, from not only the people of Tryweryn and the people of Wales, but every single MP from Wales, bar one, Capel Celyn was flooded. Those who advocated the flooding of the village spoke of the employment created by the reservoir. They spoke of the hundreds of jobs created temporarily during the construction phase and “about 20” permanent jobs. Almost any atrocity can be justified in Wales on the grounds that it creates employment. That justification is still used today, most recently perhaps in the case of the so-called “super prison” in Wrexham. Despite the number of prison places needed across the whole of north and mid-Wales being between 700 and 750, a prison to house 2,000 prisoners will be built in Wrexham to accommodate the needs of the north-west of England. The justification? One thousand jobs.

No Welsh man or woman can feel happy about the position of their country when it is possible for anybody outside Wales to decide to take Welsh land and resources regardless of the social and economic impact of that decision on Wales. As the private Bill was passing through this Parliament in 1957, the late Gwynfor Evans, who would be Plaid Cymru’s first MP, spoke of its being

“part of the crippling penalty paid by a nation without a government.”

He also said:

“Had Wales her Government, Liverpool would have had to negotiate with a responsible Welsh body for the resources it required. A unilateral decision to take Welsh land would be as unthinkable as it would be for an English authority to walk into Ireland and take a valuable part of the Gaeltacht.”

It was that blatant disregard for the social and economic impact of the UK Government’s decision on Wales that sparked the national debate about Wales’s constitutional future. Arguably, it led to the election of Gwynfor Evans in July 1966 to the House of Commons, who became, as I mentioned before, the first ever party of Wales MP—Wales’s first independent voice in this Parliament.

The combination of sadness and anger that the events at Capel Celyn caused in Wales also played its part in the demand for the creation of the Crowther commission, or the Kilbrandon commission as it was later rebranded. It sparked a realisation in the minds of the people of Wales that we were not adequately represented in Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liz Saville Roberts]

Thank you, Mr Gapes. I appreciate the opportunity to wind up the debate.

To hear the words “Cofiwch Dryweryn” quoted by people from the other two parties present is a source of pride. It shows that there is a general appreciation of the impact that the event had on people in Wales during the 1950s and 1960s. We are still seeing the repercussions now.

I am delighted by the very wise comments of fellow hon. Members this afternoon. It was borne in on me in preparing for this debate that the act of remembering is integral to the wellbeing of a nation, and the debate here today denotes part of the remembering process for Wales.

[Hywel Williams]

One of the points in my hon. Friend’s speech that impressed me immensely was the call that she made for Wales’s natural resources to be controlled by the people of Wales. I do not want to introduce a discordant note into the debate, but does she share my disappointment with the less than fulsome reply from both Front Benchers? One would have hoped—

[Hywel Williams]

I am sure that my hon. Friend understands the point I was making.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

I would like to refer to some of the Minister’s remarks. I mentioned the Government of Wales Act 2006, which specifically provides that the water that England takes from Wales must not be in any way restricted, and I like to think that Wales will be able to make best use of its resources in future. Although I am delighted to hear about rationalisation and realignment of border arrangements with the various water authorities, I think we are possibly talking about different things.

To come back to the prison in Wrexham, and jobs perhaps being perceived as a panacea for all ills, I think that the people of Wrexham feel differently about it and there are concerns about the social impact of having a prison of that size, and about who will come to fill those jobs.

I am delighted to have had the opportunity to hold the debate today. My agent, Elwyn Edwards, who spent much of his childhood years involved—indeed, he got into terrible trouble for missing school to protest in Liverpool —will also be glad that we have held this debate. Some of us will speak in a rally on the dam in Capel Celyn on Saturday—weather permitting—and we will take the message forward. Diolch yn fawr.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the 50th anniversary of Capel Celyn reservoir.