A confident Assembly turns its gaze on turmoil-hit prisons
THE Welsh Government is responsible for making sure you get good treatment from the NHS and that your children have a decent school to go to – but should it be in charge of locking you up if you break the law?
Prisons are the responsibility of the UK Government’s Ministry of Justice but last week a Welsh Minister announced that the Cardiffbased Government will “not facilitate the further development of prisons in Wales”.
The Ministry of Justice insists it remains “committed” to building a new prison in Port Talbot. This follows the opening of the super-prison in Wrexham, HMP Berwyn, which can hold up to 2,106 inmates.
There has been loud opposition to the prospect of another new prison, with Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform last year warning that “Wales is becoming the Botany Bay of the 21st century” with “England shoving its urban poor” behind bars in this nation.
But this stand-off is about more than whether the UK Government can build prisons on this side of Offa’s Dyke.
The Welsh Government-established Commission on Justice in Wales is examining the devolution of the policing and criminal justice system. Back in 2014, the cross-party Silk Commission recommended the devolution of policing and the youth justice system; it would be remarkable if the latest commission did not push for at least as great a transfer of powers.
The Assembly has just gained a host of new responsibilities in areas including income tax. But it is clear that the recent transfers of power have by no means exhausted the aspiration for an even stronger degree of self-government in Wales.
Welsh Public Services Secretary Alun Davies is not only concerned that building new prisons in Wales is placing greater demand on the nation’s public sector. He worries that men and women are “not receiving the services and support they need to ensure that they can be effectively rehabilitated”.
He is pressing for a “better understanding of why people end up in prison and what we could do to prevent many people being sent to prison” and warns that short sentences can have a “devastating impact” on lives.
In other words, prisons may remain the responsibility of the UK Government, but this is not going stop Welsh ministers thinking about an area of life that is not devolved. There will not be co-operation in building more prisons until there is a “more meaningful dialogue” between the two governments.
Members of an increasingly confident Assembly – which may increase in numbers and be officially renamed a parliament in the near future – look to Scotland and see a nation within the UK that is proud of its own courts system and legal tradition; for both Welsh nationalists and unionists who champion further devolution there is a treasure trove of new powers to be won.
The idea that whenever possible laws affecting Wales should be made in Wales has been grasped by people of different tribes. But Mr Davies’ intervention comes at a time of particularly heightened tensions and debate about how the UK’s different nations should interact after Brexit.
There are vexing questions about how the development cash that has come to Wales from Brussels will be replaced. There will be fury in the Welsh Government if the proposed UK Shared Prosperity Fund means bids for funding have to be submitted to Whitehall.
An immediate flashpoint is whether AMs will grant consent to the UK Government’s flagship Brexit legislation. If that is refused relations between the two governments will sink even lower.
Just as the construction of new prisons in Wales reminds AMs of powers that are still held in Whitehall, last week’s surprise announcement that the second Severn crossing will be renamed the Prince of Wales bridge ignited online consternation. Only a fraction of Wales’ 3.1 million people have signed the petition opposing the name change, but the more than 29,600 signatures indicates there is significant unhappiness that an iconic landmark can be rebranded without public consultation.
These debacles demonstrate how after nearly two decades of devolution people have very different ideas about how decisions affecting Wales should be made.
Anyone who thought the Assembly would operate as a super-council and limit its debates and aspirations to the areas in which it was assigned the “devolved” responsibility of governing on Westminster’s behalf have been proven wrong. That was never going to be the case.
It is not just nationalist sentiment which has driven the ambitions of AMs.
There is a special power that comes from the popular sovereignty invested in the institution and its members by the voters of Wales.
The 60 men and women sent to the Senedd have a democratic mandate to act as the representatives of their communities at a time when Wales, the UK and Europe are in throes of change.
The presence of this legislature has enhanced Wales’ sense of nationhood and it would be bizarre if AMs muted their concerns about non-devolved issues directly affecting their constituents.
Last month it was reported that between 2015 and 2016 assaults and serious assaults increased by 53% in Wales’ prisons, with attacks on prison officers going up 108%.
There has been deep alarm at deaths at HMP Swansea, with the Chief Inspector of Prisons warning that the institution “had actually gone backwards”.
When avoidable violence and deaths are causing suffering in the heart of Welsh cities it should come as no surprise if local politicians and ministers ask if there is a better way of dealing with crime and then start to imagine what they would do if they had the daunting responsibility for prisons and criminal justice.
Such a thought process could culminate in a desire to take control.