Bethan Jenkins: The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that custody is meant to be the sentence of last resort for children, yet twice as many children are locked up today than was the case a decade ago. There is only one secure children’s home in Wales: Hillside Secure Centre in Neath. High prison numbers mean that children are being placed further away from their families, increasing the risk of their inflicting self-harm or even committing suicide. Many are being placed in adult prisons and approximately 84 per cent of incarcerated Welsh youths are placed in England. Will you, therefore, agree that the National Assembly for Wales needs powers over criminal justice policy in Wales and the power to create a Welsh youth justice board, the main aim of which would be to reduce the child prison population and ensure that any young Welsh prisoners are incarcerated in Wales?
The First Minister: That is yet another issue that forms part of the very complex set of issues to be considered by the Ministry of Justice. We have mentioned the fact that there is no prison in north and mid Wales, but, allied to that is the Welsh language issue, the women’s issue, the general expansion of the prison population, and, finally, as you said, young people in prison. I have been to Hillside, and I must admit that I was pretty impressed by the quality of care provided there, but, as you say, it is not big enough, and we need another facility of that sort. However, we must then decide whether it should be located in north, mid or another part of south Wales. We would want to have detailed discussions with the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales and the Ministry of Justice on such issues, particularly issues regarding young people, as those tend to be on the fringes of our area of responsibility for children.
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