Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to this oral evidence session of the Welsh Affairs Committee. My name is Ruth Jones and I am Chair of the Committee. This is the fourth oral evidence session in the Committee’s inquiry into prisons, probation and rehabilitation in Wales. In our first panel, we will hear from public bodies that are responsible for inspecting, advising and assessing various aspects of the criminal justice system in Wales. Witnesses and Members are welcome to speak in either Welsh or English. The translation can be heard by putting on the headphones in front of you. If anyone is having technical difficulties, please raise your hand. On behalf of the Committee, I thank the witnesses, who have come to appear before us in person today. That is much appreciated—thank you very much. I will ask each of you to introduce yourselves very briefly—just say who you are and which organisation you are here to represent.

I am Adrian Usher, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman.

I am Martin Jones, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Probation.

Good afternoon. Keith Fraser, Chair of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales.

Efa Gruffudd Jones, Comisiynydd y Gymraeg. (Translation) I am Efa Gruffudd Jones, the Welsh Language Commissioner.

Diolch yn fawr iawn—thank you very much. Martin, how would you summarise resourcing, morale and delivery in the Probation Service in Wales right now? We have had quite a few different takes on that, and I wonder if you can give us an overview.

The Committee is talking to me at a timely moment. We have just about completed our regional inspection of the Welsh Probation Service. Looking nationally at what is happening across England and Wales, my assessment is that the Probation Service currently has too few staff with too little experience managing too many cases. It is under huge pressure. It is managing somewhere in the region of 244,000 cases. Against that backdrop, we have undertaken our inspection of Wales. What we have seen in Wales is somewhat reflective of the picture that we have seen in other inspections, but there are some differences. Generally speaking, the staffing picture in Wales is marginally better than elsewhere in the country, but there are still significant resourcing challenges. One of the real challenges is that, particularly over the last 10 years or so, the Probation Service has lost a significant number of experienced probation officers. That is a legacy that it finds very difficult to cope with, on the basis that very newly qualified officers are having to cope with significant workload demands. When we undertook our inspection, we saw the continuing impact of some of the early release schemes. We had the SDS40 scheme and the release schemes around fixed-term recalls, placing enormous additional pressure on probation officers in Wales. I would say, from the inspections that we saw, that the Probation Service in Wales did a very good job of preparing people for those releases as well as could possibly be expected in those circumstances. They performed heroics in response to that, but it was, of course, laying extra pressure on top of their existing resources. We are currently looking at how we are going to cope in the long term with all the changes that are flowing from the sentencing reforms that are coming downstream. Looking more specifically at Wales, I would pick out one highlight. North Wales probation unit was the strongest-performing probation unit that we have seen across the whole of our inspection programme so far. It was impressive in terms of the services that it was delivering to people on probation, their engagement, and developing relationships with people. We also saw, across almost all the probation units in Wales, good leadership: people who were leading their staff through often very difficult circumstances to deliver better outcomes. The final thing I would note from our inspection programme is that the Welsh service is at the vanguard of change in the system. It has been testing new tools that have the potential to be transformative for the Probation Service more generally. There is a tool called Justice Transcribe, which it is suggested is saving 73% of probation officer time when they meet with an offender. At the moment, in many areas, you are sitting there and writing down notes, and after the meeting you are writing up those notes. This tool captures the conversation, summarises it and allows the probation officer to concentrate on the conversation. The probation staff we talked to were absolutely over the moon about that tool. They are testing that; it is a successful pilot. The challenge for the forthcoming period will be ensuring that we shore up so that they have enough staff to do the job and give them a chance of succeeding.

You alluded to the early release scheme and the pressures that has put on staff. What else could the UK Government do to address the significant challenges that you have outlined?

One area that we are currently looking at—the issue is endemic across all the probation areas that we have seen so far—is the work on public protection. What we saw in Wales was some pretty good work in relation to identifying the reasons why offenders were committing crime—quite often, drugs, mental health issues and homelessness—and tackling those issues. There was some good work in relation to building those relationships. But the work on public protection—ensuring you understand the risk that somebody presents to the public and tackling that—is something that we have seen as a consistent theme, running through every inspection that we have done. We are doing some specific work to get right underneath that. At the heart of it is, first, experience. If you are a relatively fresh-faced probation officer, you do not have 20 years’ experience of working with loads of people and you do not have colleagues to work with. Some of that will come over time. The area where I think there is a need for national action is information sharing. Whenever you look at cases in the system where things have gone badly wrong, there is generally information in the system somewhere that would have assisted the probation officer in managing the case. I am talking about information sharing with, for example, police forces and social services departments to ensure they understand the risk that somebody presents to the public and how it changes, because the other thing that we know is that if people are living in the community, you have to manage that risk, but it is dynamic and may change, so ensuring that information flows is critical. It is an area where, in our experience, the better local linkages you have with local authorities and local police forces, the better results you get in the long term. I am very supportive of that work, but we need to keep improving it.

I thank all the witnesses for coming in today—welcome. Martin, your predecessor in the role, Justin Russell, stated that probation standards have got “worse” in recent years. Do you agree?

Certainly, if I look through the lens of what I am seeing, I have seen very scant sign of improvement. In particular, the public protection scores that I have seen are pretty much the same under this programme as my predecessor saw under his programme. However, there are some signs of progress in relation to some of the work on tackling the underpinning reasons why people are offending. Of course that is a good thing, because if somebody is committing crime due to, for example, a drug addiction and you get to the heart of that, you reduce the risk generally as part of that. But you need to improve the public protection work as well. Some of that is about resourcing and stabilising the service and ensuring you give it a chance of success. I have seen some much better results in, for example, Greater Manchester, where there is much better local join-up of services to meet those needs. The Probation Service cannot sort the problems of offenders out on its own. That is about local agency join-up.

You mentioned having too few staff and losing experienced staff. Are probation services in Wales taking that into account? Are they sufficiently resourced to ensure successful rehabilitation and to keep communities, and especially victims and survivors, safe?

My honest assessment is that they are in a better position than those in some areas of the country. London currently has probably about 60% of the probation officers it needs. Wales is much closer to the level of staffing that you need to provide a decent probation service as a whole. There is, though, a need to shore up the totality of the service to ensure that you meet the need. Wales is better provided for than other areas of the country, but there is that experience gap, on the basis that somebody who is new to the service is going to be less able to manage a significant volume of cases than a more experienced colleague. You need some stability. You also need to ensure that there is morale in the sector. That is the other thing that worries me as chief inspector. We want people to be excited about working for the Probation Service, the ability to change lives and the ability to make communities safer, and part of that is about ensuring that the job is doable. If it is not, there is the stress of the job and the worry that things may go wrong and that you are somehow responsible for that. We need to look at all those aspects. I certainly know the Government are looking at those areas seriously, because I raise that with them all the time.

Obviously, staff are the main resource, but what about other resources? I am thinking about things like data systems and premises. Are the services that probation relies on for delivery in Wales sufficiently resourced?

I would probably always say that there should be more—I think all of us will know that from working in public services. I recently—in the summer, I think—met the police and crime commissioners for Wales, and there is a real attempt, I think, to join up those services and meet those needs. I have seen some excellent best practice, which I am more than happy to share with the Committee in writing if that would be helpful, in relation to places where Wales is an exemplar of how the Probation Service should join up to meet the needs of people, whether that is somebody who is at risk of domestic abuse or drug abuse, or women in the criminal justice system. We have certainly identified many areas of best practice. For me, it is all about joining up those resources. You spend to meet the total need of different agencies, rather than the Probation Service on its own looking at commissioning.

If you could send that information, that would be much appreciated. Thank you very much.

Mr Usher, in the year ending December 2024, there were 21 deaths across the Welsh prison estate. How safe are Welsh prisons?

For any member of the Committee who does not know, the prisons ombudsman investigates all complaints from prisoners who have exhausted the prison complaints system, and we investigate every death of every prisoner in England and Wales and in the immigration estate. I have no reason to believe that Wales is an outlier in terms of deaths. There are around 400 deaths a year in the prison estate. The majority of those are from natural causes, and that number is going up as the prison population is ageing. Very sadly, there are around 100 self-inflicted deaths a year. Then we come to a category that does give me cause for concern and that I have been raising for some time. The category is called “other non-natural deaths”, but for that you can read drug overdose deaths. Those numbers have been going up across the whole prison estate. Of course, there was the notable incident at Parc relatively recently, in which six prisoners lost their lives in a very short space of time through the use of nitazenes. The advent of synthetic opioids in the prison system is a major cause for concern. We have not done the complete classification—drug death classifications take a little bit longer—but if they are classified the way I think they will be, across the whole estate, we might have seen an 80% increase in deaths in just one year through drugs. I do not see that prisoners are dying at a higher rate in Welsh prisons than in the wider estate, and in some areas they are performing better.

Between 2020 and 2024, there were 18 confirmed self-inflicted deaths in Welsh prisons, including of someone I knew personally. What should HMPPS and prison leaders be doing to reduce that number? [the Member has subsequently clarified that the death of the individual referred to was in 2018, not during the 2020-2024 time period].

It is an enormously emotive issue, particularly if you know somebody in those circumstances, but it is a complex picture. I try to speak to the next of kin of every person who takes their life in jail in England and Wales. Very often, the one thing I have to say to them is, “At the end of my investigation, I am not going to be able to tell you why.” We can describe how well the prison looked after them and whether they did what they should have done—sometimes they have, and sometimes they have not—but in terms of why somebody makes that decision, some cases are completely out of the blue. Having said that, there are known evidence-based risk factors that I expect the Prison Service to take very seriously. We know that the loss of family ties, length of sentence and type of sentence are factors. We know that the early days in prison are the time of greatest risk, and that certain types of prison are at greater risk than others. Reception jails are the riskiest places in the country for deaths, and the reception processes in reception jails are the riskiest part of that process. It is my belief that the Prison Service in general, including in Wales, does not put enough emphasis or value on that process of assessing. You go from knowing nothing about an individual to having to know everything you can to make some intelligent, risk-based decisions about their care. You are doing that at 8 o’clock at night when 40 prisoners have just come through your door, as the court van has offloaded. That is not ideal, and very often prisons do not understand the risk they are holding, sometimes until it is too late. I hope you do not think this is crass—this is a very emotive subject, and I very much appreciate that there is a person and a next of kin behind all these numbers—but for your information and to contextualise it, if you do the maths, around one self-inflicted death per thousand prisoners per year gives you the ability to look for outliers. You quoted the number there had been since 2020, which was—

Eighteen.

Well, with a prison population of around 5,000, over five years, you would have expected perhaps 25, so that is actually lower than the average.

You have partially answered this, but excluding deaths from natural causes, what are the biggest causes of self-inflicted and non-self-inflicted deaths in Welsh prisons?

There is one issue that is specific to Wales that is probably worth commenting on: there are no women’s jails in Wales. That means that Welsh women who are in jail are likely to be considerably more cut off from their families and loved ones, and we know that that is an important safety factor when considering the mental health and the physical wellbeing of prisoners. Many cases come across my desk of people who have taken their lives. I quoted this example in front of the Justice Committee: there was a male who had only one relative who cared about him who lived in Scotland, and he spent a long time making application after application to go to a prison in the north of England so that his sister could visit him. Very sadly—there was no malice in this; it was just the prison system being at capacity—he had to be moved. He was moved to the Isle of Wight, and he killed himself within eight hours. That is an example of how family ties are vital. You may wish to familiarise yourself with the cost of telephone calls in prisons and how iniquitous that situation is. They pay far more for their telephone calls than we do, and I still fail to see why that is.

Setting aside deaths—I am just trying to get a picture of Wales versus England in the rest of the prison estate—could one of you say a word on the data on prisoner-on-prisoner attacks, whether that is ABH or GBH? Is there anything particularly distinctive, noteworthy or worrying in the Welsh data on that?

That is not something that my office investigates. I can tell you, because I read the HMIP reports, that jails that are at capacity tend to see a rise in violence because the regime is restricted. The fuller the prisons get, the more likely they are to grind to a halt, and then the day-to-day regime does not take place because they do not have enough staff and it is not safe. That means that prisoners are in their cells for very long periods of time, and that tension boils over into violence very frequently. As I say, I think the whole system is under that pressure, including in Wales.

Mr Jones, do you have an observation on that?

I agree with what Adrian said.

Mr Usher, I understand the statistics and the way you outlined them, but at HMP Parc there were 17 deaths in one year. I know they were investigated and everything, but that is far more than you would expect in one year. It is more than anywhere else in England and Wales, I believe. Are you confident that the conditions at Parc have improved sufficiently and that the management there are taking on board what needs to be taken on board?

To be fair to Parc, when I first heard of the six deaths and issued the public warning to prisoners to get rid of the drugs they had because I believed it was an ongoing health crisis, I believed that what I was going to find when I investigated was that the local police had not told the prison that there were some extremely dangerous nitazenes in the drug community, as they had told the local drug community, or that, if they had told the prison that, the prison had not passed it on to the prisoners. That is an evidential prejudice I went in with, and I was completely wrong. The local police had told the jail, and the jail had told prisoners and tried to educate them. Particularly with drugs, an awful lot of effort is put in on the supply side—on the security of prisons, on ensuring that staff and visitors do not bring drugs in, on protection against drones, and on preventing all the other methods of getting drugs into prisons—but the reality is they do get in. It is a multimillion-pound organised crime industry. We know drugs get in. Where I am sometimes critical of prisons is that they do not concentrate on the demand side: informing prisoners to the best of their ability of the dangers of what they are doing. They do not talk to them. There is very often confusion over nomenclature. If I said the word “spice” to you, to a prisoner and to a different prisoner, it would mean different things to each of you. A prisoner may think that if he asks for spice, he will get a synthetic cannabinoid, but in fact he may well end up with a synthetic opiate, and that may kill him. Prisons need to be clear about language and education. In the Parc example, those numbers are affected by that spike of six. As I say, I did find that they had in fact done an awful lot to try to educate their prison population. I should also mention that in those investigations I was so impressed by the work of a drug recovery worker there that I wrote to Lord Timpson about her. My investigators were being told by prisoners in that jail, “I am only alive because of that woman,” which was extraordinary. They do have some good practice. There is always work to be done with drugs. It is a never-ending battle and an extremely expensive one, but the demand side is cheaper to do something about, and effort should be made in that space.

Thank you. I find the reason you gave for issuing that unprecedented warning to the prisoners really helpful. I have to ask: in terms of HMP Parc being a privately run prison, different from the rest, which are obviously publicly run, do you think that had any bearing on the deaths there?

I do not. My own experience of private prisons—and there are advantages and disadvantages to both public and private prisons—is that they often have the very best rehabilitation programmes, both in offender management, rehabilitation and drug recovery. That is because the directors, as opposed to the governors, have a lot more freedom. Once they have secured the contract, they understand the finances from that point on and know exactly what they can budget for over the next five or 10 years. They are also at liberty to go to any organisation they want that can provide the service they want quickly, and they can change the contract if they do not like it. The world in HMPPS public service is not that. It is a world of often badly signed contracts and services that are very difficult to change if they are not performing. The evidence I have is that, on that specific point of providing rehabilitation and drug recovery services, private prisons are better placed.

Er mwyn egluro’r cyd-destun, mae gwasanaethau sy’n ymwneud â charcharorion yng Nghymru yn gallu ymwneud â dwy broses wahanol: bydd rhai asiantaethau yn dod o dan y gyfundrefn o greu cynlluniau iaith o ran y Gymraeg, ac fe fydd y gwasanaeth iechyd a gwasanaethau sy’n cael eu darparu gan awdurdodau lleol wrth adsefydlu yn dod o dan gyfundrefn Safonau’r Iaith Gymraeg. Mae’r ffaith bod y gwahaniaeth yna’n bodoli yn achosi problem. Fodd bynnag, mae’r Gwasanaeth Carchardai a Phrawf wedi datblygu cynllun iaith newydd. Dw i wedi cymeradwyo’r cynllun iaith newydd yna, ond bydden i’n hapus iawn ymhelaethu ar y ffaith fy mod i yn ddiweddar wedi agor ymchwiliad i’r cynllun hwnnw gan fy mod i wedi gweld a’m llygaid fy hun nad yw pethe fel y dylen nhw fod, yn benodol yng ngharchar y Berwyn. (Translation) Just to provide a bit of context, services around prisoners in Wales can be engaged with two different processes: some agencies will come under the system of Welsh language schemes, and the health service and services that are provided by local authorities around rehabilitation will fall under the Welsh Language Standards system. The fact that there is that difference causes a problem. However, the Prison and Probation Service has developed a new Welsh language scheme. I have approved that new Welsh language scheme, but I would be more than happy to expand on the fact that recently I have started an investigation into that scheme, because I have seen with my own eyes that things are not as they should be, specifically at Berwyn prison.

Dim ar hyn o bryd. Beth dw i’n gallu rhannu ydy fy mod i wedi agor ymchwiliad o ran adran 17 Deddf yr Iaith Gymraeg 1993, fel dw i’n gallu gwneud. O dan y ddeddf honno, dw i’n gallu cynnal ymchwiliad a rhoi argymhellion. Yn wahanol i gorff fyddai’n dod o dan Safonau’r Gymraeg, does gen i ddim pwerau gorfodi. Mae’r ymchwiliad wedi cychwyn. Ry’n ni wedi ysgrifennu at y gwasanaeth yn gofyn am dystiolaeth ynglŷn â nifer o bethe. Ar ddiwedd y broses honno—mae’n deg i fi ddweud wrthych chi, mae’n gallu cymryd rhai misoedd i ni dderbyn yr wybodaeth a’i ystyried e—mi fydda i yn gwneud canlyniadau’r ymchwiliad yn gyhoeddus oherwydd y diddordeb cyhoeddus yn y mater, a wir, oherwydd pwysigrwydd carcharorion sy’n siarad Cymraeg a ‘mod i’n teimlo bod gen i ddyletswydd i roi llais iddyn nhw. O ran rhesymau pam wnes i agor yr ymchwiliad hwnnw, byddwch chi fel fi wedi gweld ymchwil hanesyddol, i ryw raddau, gafodd ei gyhoeddi yn ddiweddar. Ond yn ogystal â hynny, es i ar ymweliad i garchar y Parc a dw i eisiau diolch i’r swyddogion yn fanna ac i’r Prif Lywodraethwr am roi mynediad rhwydd i fi i siarad gyda’r carcharorion. Fe glywes i dystiolaeth gan fwy nag un grŵp o garcharorion yn annibynnol o’i gilydd oedd yn codi pryderon difrifol. Dw i’n hapus rhannu peth o hynny os hoffech chi nawr. (Translation) Not at the moment. I can share that I have started an investigation under section 17 of the Welsh Language Act 1993, as I have the power to do. Under that Act, I can carry out an investigation and I can make recommendations. Slightly differently from organisations that come under the Welsh Language Standards, I have no enforcement powers. The investigation has started. We have written to the service asking for evidence about a number of issues. At the end of that process—I think it is fair for me to say that it can take a few months for us to receive the information and consider it—I will make public the results of the investigation because of the public interest in the matter and, indeed, because of the importance of prisoners who speak Welsh. I feel that I have an obligation to give them a voice. As for the reason why I opened the investigation, you, like me, will have seen what is, to some degree, historic research that was published fairly recently. However, on top of that, I went on a visit to carchar y Parc—Parc prison. I thank the officers and the Director for giving me easy access to speak to the prisoners. However, I heard evidence from more than one group of prisoners independently of each other that raised serious concerns. I am happy to share those concerns now if you wish.

Roedd rhai o’r pethe glywes i ddim o angenrheidrwydd yn faterion sy’n gallu cael eu delio â nhw o dan y cynllun iaith. Mae i gynllun iaith gyfyngiadau. Ond dw i’n meddwl o ran adsefydlu carcharorion, ac yn dilyn o’r sgwrs ry’n ni newydd glywed, mae materion sy’n ymwneud â’r Gymraeg a hunaniaeth yn hynod o bwysig iddyn nhw. Mae’r pethe nes i glywed yn ddiweddar yn y carchar yn cynnwys rhai materion syml fyddech chi’n disgwyl i allu cael eu datrys, ond dydyn nhw ddim ers peth amser. Er enghraifft, dydy carcharorion ddim yn gallu gwrando ar Radio Cymru na S4C yn eu celloedd nhw. Mae gohebiaeth trwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg yn cymryd llawer hirach i’w cyrraedd nhw os yn eu cyrraedd nhw o gwbl. Mae hynny’n wir am ebyst a llythyrau. Does ganddyn nhw ddim mynediad i wasanaethau crefyddol drwy gyfrwng y Gymraeg. Oedden nhw’n dweud dydyn nhw ddim yn gwybod gweddi’r Arglwydd yn Saesneg; erioed wedi’i glywed e. Mae hwnna’n bwysig iddyn nhw. Mae materion teuluol hefyd yn berthnasol. Mae carcharorion yn awyddus iawn i gynnal diwrnod i deuluoedd Cymraeg fel bod plant yn gallu cwrdd â’i gilydd hefyd. Mi oedd ‘na achlysuron yn sicr o garchararion wedi dweud wrthyf fi eu bod wedi cael eu gwahardd rhag siarad Cymraeg gyda’i gilydd. Mae hyn yn fater difrifol yn fy marn i. O dan Fesur y Gymraeg (Cymru) 2011, yng Nghymru mae gan bobl hawl i siarad Cymraeg gyda’i gilydd. Pan mae’n nhw’n cael eu gwahardd rhag gwneud hynny, mae gyda fi’r hawl i ymchwilio. Fel mae’n digwydd, fyddai hynny ddim yn wir mewn carchardai yn Lloegr, ond mae e’n wir yng Nghymru. Doedd dim gwrandawyr—listeners—Cymraeg ar gael i’r carcharorion, ac ar y diwrnod o’n i wedi bod i’r carchar, roedd ‘na garcharor mewn argyfwng oedd dim ond yn fodlon ymateb i’r Gymraeg. Fe wnaethon nhw ffeindio aelod o staff, ond roeddwn i’n cael y teimlad mai drwy lwc, nid cynllun, oedd hynny’n digwydd. Mae ‘na res o bryderon gyda fi mewn gwirionedd am y mynediad sydd gan garcharorion mewn carchardai yng Nghymru a thu hwnt i allu siarad Cymraeg gyda’i gilydd. Dydyn nhw ddim yn cael eu cyd-letya gyda’i gilydd mewn celloedd, ac mae hynny’n sicr yn ddymuniad ganddyn nhw. Mi glywes i gan swyddogion carchar oedd yn egluro bod ymddygiad carcharorion yn gwella pan oedden nhw’n cael mynediad at siaradwyr Cymraeg eraill. Felly mae ‘na res o anawsterau, rhai dw i’n meddwl dylai fod modd eu datrys yn weddol ddiffwdan. Dw i’n siŵr ‘mod i yr un mor rhwystredig â chi bod y mater yma wedi’i drafod yn y Pwyllgor bron i ddegawd yn ôl. I fynd yn ôl i’r cwestiwn blaenorol: ydy’r gwasanaeth yn cymryd y materion hyn o ddifri? Ydyn, o ran y staff y des i ar eu traws nhw, ond mae ‘na rywbeth o’i le yn y system gyfan ac angen mwy o adnoddau arnyn nhw i wneud y gwaith yn iawn. (Translation) Some of the things that I heard were not necessarily issues that can be dealt with under the Welsh language schemes. A Welsh language scheme has its limitations. In terms of rehabilitation of prisoners, and following the conversation we have just heard, issues around the Welsh language and identity are very important to them. What I heard recently on my visit to the prison includes some basic issues that you would expect to be resolved, but have not been for some time. For example, the prisoners cannot listen to Radio Cymru or S4C in their cells. Correspondence through the medium of Welsh takes much longer to reach them, if they receive it at all. That is true of letters and emails. They do not have any access to religious services through the medium of Welsh. They said that they did not know the Lord’s prayer in English; they have never heard it. That is important to them. Family issues are also relevant. The prisoners were keen to hold family days in Welsh so that children could meet each other too. There were certainly occasions when prisoners told me that they had been banned from speaking Welsh to each other. That is a very serious matter in my opinion, because under the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, in Wales people have the right to speak Welsh to each other. When they are prevented from doing so, I have powers to investigate. As it happens, that is not true for prisons in England, but it is for prisons in Wales. There are no Welsh-speaking listeners available to the prisoners. The day that I visited the prison, there was a prisoner in crisis who was willing to respond only to Welsh. They found a member of staff, but I had a feeling that it was by luck more than planned. To be honest, I have a number of concerns about the access that prisoners have in prisons in Wales and beyond to being able to speak Welsh to each other. They are not accommodated together in cells, and that is certainly their wish. I heard from prison officers who explained that prisoners’ behaviour improved when they had access to other Welsh speakers. There are a number of difficulties. It should be possible to resolve some fairly easily. I am sure that I am just as frustrated as you that this issue was discussed in the Committee almost a decade ago. To go back to your previous question: does the service take those matters seriously? Yes, the staff I came across do, but, there is something wrong in the whole system and they need more resources to do the work effectively.

Doedden i heb weld y llythyrau sydd wedi bod rhyngoch chi a’r arolygaeth tan yn ddiweddar iawn. Fel y’ch chi’n gwybod, dw i’n gyfrifol am gyfundrefn rheoleiddio. Dw i’n awyddus iawn i wneud hynny mewn dull sy’n golygu ein bod ni’n cefnogi y rhai ni’n rheoleiddio a’n bod ni’n cyd-reoleiddio. Felly dw i’n hapus iawn i gynnig cymorth i’r arolygaeth wneud hynny. O ran pwy sy’n cynnal yr holiaduron, dw i ddim yn siŵr bod gen i farn benodol—jyst, yn amlwg, mae angen gwneud y gwaith holi yna er mwyn gallu cynllunio a gweld a oes cynnydd i’r materion sy’n cael eu gosod yn y cynllun iaith neu fel arall. Felly dw i’n awyddus iawn i gynnal y sgwrs yna. Mae’n math o sgwrs dy’n ni’n ei gynnal, er enghraifft, gydag arolygaethau iechyd. Felly mae fy swyddfa i a finne yn hapus iawn i gynnal y sgwrs yna. Dw i’n meddwl ei bod hi’n hynod o bwysig bod arolygon gyda charcharorion a staff yn digwydd. (Translation) I did not see the correspondence between you and the inspectorate until very recently. As you know, I am responsible for the regulatory system. I am very keen to do that in a manner that means we support the people we regulate and that we joint-regulate. I am more than happy to offer assistance to the inspectorate to do that. On who runs the questionnaires, I am not sure I have a specific opinion—just that obviously those questions need to be asked in order to plan and to see whether any progress is made on the issues in the Welsh language scheme. I am keen to continue that conversation. It is the kind of conversation that I have, for example, with health inspectorates, so my office and I are very happy to have that conversation. I think it is very important that surveys of staff and prisoners happen.

Fydden i ddim yn cymeradwyo unrhyw gynllun iaith sydd ddim yn welliant ar gynllun blaenorol. Ar bapur, mae’r cynllun yn welliant. Mae ‘na rai pethe wedi gwella ers y cyfnod cychwynnol. Mae gwell casglu data yn digwydd. Mae gyda fi bryderon am beth sy’n digwydd wedyn. Mae ‘na amcanion clir o ran recriwtio a denu swyddogion sy’n siarad Cymraeg yn y cynllun. Mae’r amcanion yn eu lle yn gywir ac yn gymeradwy, ond dw i ddim yn siŵr a ydy’r gweithredu wedi digwydd. Yn amlwg, rhain yw’r math o bethe y bydda i’n gallu edrych arnyn nhw wrth i fi gynnal yr ymchwiliad, ond yn sicr mae’r cynllun ei hun yn ddatblygiad ac yn mynd i’r cyfeiriad iawn. (Translation) I would not approve any Welsh language scheme that is not an improvement on a previous scheme. On paper, the scheme is an improvement. Some things have been improved since the initial period. There is better data collection, but I have concerns about what happens afterwards. There are clear objectives in the scheme in terms of recruiting and attracting Welsh-speaking officers. The objectives in place are correct and acceptable, but I am not sure that the implementation has taken place. Those are obviously the kind of things that I can look at as I carry out my investigation, but certainly the Welsh language scheme itself is a development that goes in the right direction.

I fi gael bod yn glir, dy’ch chi’n gywir, mae’n ofyniad iddyn nhw ddarparu’r cynllun. Rydyn ni wedi bod yn gofyn yn gyson am yr adroddiad. Dw i’n meddwl i ni ddod i gytundeb erbyn 2023-24 y byddai un adroddiad yn cwmpasu’r tair blynedd blaenorol. Eglurwyd bod y pandemig yn rheswm am fethu darparu hynny. Ein disgwyliad yn sicr yw ein bod ni’n derbyn adroddiad blynyddol ar y cynllun ond wrth gwrs dy’n ni ddim wedi cyrraedd diwedd blwyddyn gyntaf y cynllun presennol. Gallai’ch sicrhau chi bod ‘na ddisgwyliad ac y bydda i’n disgwyl derbyn adroddiadau. (Translation) To be clear, and you are correct, it is a requirement for them to provide the scheme. We have consistently requested the report. I think we came to an agreement by 2023-24 that there would be one report covering the previous three years, and it was explained that the pandemic was one of the reasons why the report was not provided. We certainly expect that we will get an annual report on the scheme, but, of course, we have not yet come to the end of the first year of the current scheme. I assure you that it is an expectation and that I will expect to receive a report.

Galla’ i ddim ateb y cwestiwn yna’n benodol, ond beth galla’ i ddweud wrthych chi yw ‘mod i wedi gofyn i Lywodraeth Cymru, ac yn sicr yn gofyn i lywodraeth nesaf Cymru, i gyflwyno safonau ar gyfer cyrff y Goron ac asiantaethau sy’n gweithredu. Mae ‘na gyrff sy’n cael eu henwi yn atodlen 6 Mesur y Gymraeg (Cymru) 2011 sy’n gosod allan proses ar gyfer sut y gallai’r cyrff yna ddod o dan Safonau’r Gymraeg. O lle dw i’n eistedd, yn gallu edrych yn ôl ar 10 mlynedd o gyflwyno Safonau’r Gymraeg ar gyfer cyrff yng Nghymru, mae ‘na welliant sy’n gallu cael ei weld a’i deimlo o ran gwasanaethau Cymraeg. Felly fy ngalwad i yn sicr yw bod cyrff ac asiantaethau’r Goron yn dod o dan Safonau’r Gymraeg yn y cyfnod nesaf. (Translation) I cannot answer that question directly, but I can tell you that I have asked the Welsh Government—I certainly ask the next one—to introduce standards for Crown organisations and operating agencies. Bodies are named in schedule 6 of the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure, which sets out a process about how those organisations could fall under the Welsh Language Standards. From where I sit, looking back at the past 10 years of placing Welsh Language Standards on organisations in Wales, there has been an improvement that can be seen and felt around Welsh-language services. I call for Crown organisations and agencies to fall under the Welsh Language Standards in the next period.

O ran y Gwasanaeth Carchardai, nac oes. Fel dw i wedi egluro, beth fydda i’n gallu gwneud ar ddiwedd yr ymchwiliad yw rhoi argymhellion. Bydd dim pwerau gyda fi i orfodi unrhyw gamau. Fy ngobaith i yw y bydd y gwasanaeth yn gwneud y peth iawn. Mae’n bwysig nid yn unig o ran y Gymraeg ond o ran adsefydlu carcharorion ar sail yr hyn dw i wedi’i weld a’i glywed. (Translation) In terms of the Prison Service, no. As I have explained, what I can do at the end of the investigation is make recommendations. I have no powers to enforce any steps. I hope that the service will do the right thing. It is important in terms of not only the Welsh language but the rehabilitation of prisoners. That is based on what I have seen and heard.

We have heard that there are no women’s prisons in Wales. Eastwood Park is a good example of where lots of Welsh women prisoners go. Have you been to Eastwood Park? Have you explored what kind of opportunities those women in prisons in England are provided with to maintain those cultural links, the Welsh language and the sense of identity, despite being across the border?

Diolch yn fawr am y cwestiwn. Mae sefyllfa menywod mewn carchardai yn bwysig iawn i fi. Mae yna gymalau yn y cynllun iaith ar gyfer darpariaeth i garcharorion mewn carchardai y tu hwnt i Gymru ond dyw statws y cynllun ddim yr un fath. Dyw’r cynllun ddim yn mynd mor bell yn ei ymrwymiadau ar gyfer carcharorion sydd y tu allan i Gymru, ac wrth gwrs mae hynny’n cynnwys menywod, ond dynion hefyd. Dw i heb fod yn ymweld â menywod mewn carchardai ond dw i yn gobeithio gwneud hynny cyn bo hir. Fe ddylwn i nodi bod ymdrechion gan y Gwasanaeth Carchardai i sefydlu cymunedau o siaradwyr Cymraeg mewn carchardai i fenywod. Dw i’n ymwybodol o rai ohonyn nhw a dw i yn awyddus i fynd i’w cyfarfod yn y cyfnod nesaf. Ond chi’n hollol gywir: mae’n fater pwysig iawn y dylen ni i gyd fod yn ymwybodol ohono fe. (T) Thank you so much for the question. The situation of women in prisons is a very important issue for me. There are clauses in the Welsh language scheme on provision for prisoners in prisons outside Wales. However, the status of the scheme is not the same. It does not go as far in its commitments for prisoners outside Wales, and that includes women, but also men. I have not visited women in prisons, but I hope to do so soon. I should state that there are efforts by the Prison Service to establish communities of Welsh speakers within women’s prisons. I am aware of some of those and I am keen to meet them in the next period. But you are quite right: it is a very important issue, which we should all be aware of.

A question for Mr Fraser and Mr Jones. Can you provide an assessment of the performance of youth justice services in Wales, please?

I will start off by describing the Youth Justice Board, what we are about and what the approach is. First, we are an evidence-based organisation and the type of system that we are looking for in relation to youth justice is one that is based on a child-first approach. There are four principles in that regard. First, it is about treating children as children and it is developmentally led. Secondly, it is around pro-social behaviour and development, so that everything you do is based on that development of children in that way, so that we have fewer victims and safer communities. Thirdly, it is about collaboration and working with children to achieve that. Fourthly, it is around doing all that you can to keep children out of the youth justice system, because we know that once they touch that system, they are more likely to come into it. Wales is an outlier in following that evidence-based approach as well, with its adoption of the UNCRC back in 2004. In relation to a general assessment of youth justice services across Wales, the picture is generally positive. If we were to look at the adult system and compare that with the youth justice system and the way it is performing, the youth justice system is in a far, far better place than the system in relation to adults. What you will see is reductions in the numbers of children coming into the system for the first time and the number of arrests of children are going down significantly, and that has been happening consistently over the last 10 years or more. I think that is a result of the partnership that has happened at a national level—in Wales and across England and Wales—and at a local level. The youth justice service and the youth justice system overall are in a very good place. I would not want to say that there are not challenges there, and I will go on to talk about those if you want to ask some questions, but in general it is in a very positive place. Also, some of the things that I sometimes hear people say is that things get done in Wales because it is smaller. I do not think it is about that; it is about the conversations that those statutory and non-statutory partners have at that local level around getting things done. Where I have not seen things perform so well is where those youth justice service boards locally do not work together well. It has to be driven by those boards locally and then that gets filtered down. It would be remiss of us to focus on what we might call the service. I want to underline the partnership element because there can be too much focus on the head of service in relation to delivery. It is about all the statutory partners coming together to deliver partnerships locally. I therefore implore the Committee to focus on partnership because we need to put pressure on all those statutory members to play their part.

I echo what Keith has said. I have already talked about the performance of the probation system. Since I was appointed chief inspector, 100% of probation units have been rated as requiring improvement or inadequate. Looking at the youth justice system, under our old programme, 75% of areas were rated either good or outstanding. There was a really good, healthy spread. There were areas where improvement was needed, but overall, there was a much a stronger performance. Strong areas include Carmarthenshire, where we rated the youth justice service outstanding. Under our new programme, we have just undertaken an inspection of the Bridgend service. That is not quite completed, but we have some positive findings from it. There are also areas of challenge. Ceredigion was picked out as an area that requires significant attention. I echo Keith’s point that, generally, in the youth justice system, we see people focused on meeting the needs of the children they are working with; partnerships working together to ensure that they understand those needs, and providing the necessary leadership so that caseloads are manageable. However, if the strategic partners are not focused on that, they lose sight of it, do not resource it properly and there are much worse outcomes for the children. That means a missed opportunity to turn children’s lives around. The figures for the fall in the number of children in custody are startling. Across the system in England and Wales, they have fallen by more than 90% in the past 10 to 12 years. That is an extraordinary success story. Part of that is down to the leadership of the Youth Justice Board and others on the frontline trying to do the right thing. Looking forward, the challenge is not to think that youth justice is sorted. We need to ensure that we are getting the necessary resources across the system. For example, in education, we know that exclusion from school is a fast track into the justice system and worse long-term outcomes. It is crucial to get such things right, with support for special educational needs and mental health. However, generally across Wales, I see a much healthier picture in comparison with other parts of the system. The youth system has had much greater stability over the past 10 or 15 years than the adult probation system, which has been turned on its head twice in the last decade. That has had consequences for stability.

Thank you, both. Let me follow up with four questions for Mr Fraser. You mentioned that some outcomes are improving, but Wales and the north-east had the highest increase in reoffending by children between 2024-25. Why does Wales seem to struggle so much with reducing reoffending among that cohort?

If you are looking at reoffending per se, that is not a straightforward question to answer. In general, reoffending among children is a bigger challenge than in the adult population. However, as I said earlier, given the success of the youth justice system, we are working with and supporting a much smaller number of children. There are two ways of looking at the rates. There is the binary rate, which is the number of times an individual offends in a year. That is slightly higher in Wales than it is England. The frequency rate is the number of times a child commits an offence in a 12-month period. That is slightly higher in England. Reoffending is therefore a mixed picture. The rates are higher than we would like, but within that, a series of complexities applies to the children we work with and support. For example, that cohort will include children who have witnessed family violence; those who have experienced substance misuse, and those with experience of care. It is not simply a matter of looking at the justice system. We need to look elsewhere on how we tackle reoffending. It goes back to treating children as children. Taking an adult approach to children will not work. Children, because of where they are developmentally, and given brain maturity, are more likely to take chances and engage in risky behaviour. Our approach therefore needs to be different. In Wales, through the enhanced case management system and through working with the Welsh Government, the Forensic Adolescent Consultancy Service, we have developed a trauma-based approach, which is quite innovative. That is having some traction. We believe in focusing on the trauma that children in the justice system have often faced in their lives. I think the answer that you are asking for in relation to the why probably lies outside the justice system in the areas that I just mentioned around violence, neglect and trauma, and also substance misuse, which I mentioned earlier. There is the issue of children’s educational attainment as well. It is not just about looking at the justice system; we need to look more widely to resolve that. That is why I stressed that partnership was so critical.

What are the most pressing needs among the young offender population in England and Wales? What should other services do to meet those needs prior to a young offender coming into contact with the criminal justice system?

I think we want to start to answer that question in relation to what I have said. I was a police officer for 30-odd years and I did not realise that the youth justice system was actually a collection or a concentration of children—I was going to say kids, which they are; that is the way to look at them—with a whole host of vulnerabilities. They are a real concentration of children with vulnerabilities. I think we need to flip it on its head, so rather than looking at whether we are hard or soft on crime, we look at what works for positive outcomes for children, and what works to keep communities safer and with fewer victims. So it is about focusing on those needs. I touched on substance misuse, for example. A significant number of children in the youth justice system have substance misuse issues. Some of the discourse that you hear outside of here downplays some illegal drugs in relation to recreational use. I have just gone round a number of youth justice services and I have been really disappointed by the number of children using cannabis to self-medicate, so more needs to be done on that around education. We need stronger messages for children. There is also an over-representation of children in the system with speech, language and communication needs. There needs to be a greater focus on that in relation to prevention. Why do 71% of the children, or more in some cases, have speech, language and communication issues? Those are really challenging questions that we need to ask outside of the system.

Just picking up on the 71% of children sentenced with speech, language and communication needs, is there sufficient provision for those young offenders in Wales?

My view is that the awareness around that is getting a lot better. That is to do with the fact that we work at a strategic level across Wales to ensure the information is passed down. We also have a very good communication system locally with the partnerships, and also working with the inspectorate, so we pick this up. There is a greater awareness, although not everywhere, as I would like. There are sometimes local funding challenges in relation to who will meet the needs of the children who require additional support around speech, language and communication. As I say, the picture is getting a lot better, but more needs to be done to cater for that.

Thank you. Final question: is there sufficient clarity around the funding streams for youth justice services in Wales? If not, what changes would you like to see?

On the funding, I think we would all want to see—a colleague spoke about it earlier—a consistency of approach so that services can plan for the future. We would like to see a settlement whereby the youth justice services knew at least three years in advance how much money they were going to get so that they could actually plan. I welcome the recent decision by the Welsh Government that I have heard will be a three-year settlement. How the money is actually delivered to youth justice services is quite complex. They will get about 16% from us, the Youth Justice Board, a mix of 61% from the Welsh Government, and the rest is made up—about 16%, if I have my maths right—from all the other statutory services. It is quite a mixed bag. In relation to that, it is then about asking, “What is going to be your commitment from those particular statutory partners in relation to that?” I think we would want to have some more leverage on the statutory partners, to say, “Okay, if you give this amount of funding cash, this is what your obligation is in relation to delivery.”

I will deal with those issues in reverse order. I would like to be really frank about where we are in the provision of services. You are right that there are some challenges around individual youth justice services and provision. At the moment, we are dealing with one where we are working with the health services locally on the provision of speech and language, so we are having those conversations and trying to support the youth justice services. On the trauma-informed approach, that is something that the Youth Justice Board is totally supportive of. From the perspective, too, of the Welsh Youth Justice Advisory Panel, which is the strategic body that oversees youth justice in Wales, it is supported. Also, as I said earlier, we have the enhanced case management system, which was built on a trauma-informed process by two partners in Wales, alongside the Youth Justice Board. It is very much an approach that is driven by us, but supported by the partners.

I shall answer that. As the Chief Inspector of Probation, we are absolutely committed to ensuring that there are Welsh-speaking inspectors where we are inspecting Welsh services. Certainly in completing the recent regional inspection of Wales probation, we had Welsh speakers. We bring in additional inspectors, if necessary, to supplement that, but I have Welsh speakers in the inspection team who are absolutely key to the delivery of our operation. If there are any concerns, if anyone brings them to my attention, of course I will act on that. We have a well-developed Welsh language scheme, which we monitor carefully.

I have a question for Mr Fraser on the specifics of the young offender institution at Parc and the Hillside secure children’s home. How would you assess the performance of those in comparison with other young offender institutions across England and Wales?

First, on our role, as a result of some decisions made by the UK Government, it is not our role to monitor the secure estate, but we do have oversight of the whole system across England and Wales, so we have good insight and, I would say, a pretty good understanding of what it is as a result of our role in relation to oversight. To move to your question on Parc, I would say that Parc YOI is an outlier when compared with all the YOIs, when we look at them over Wales and England—in a positive way. For me, having done my job and having been in this position for the past five years, I have been asking that question: why is Parc YOI such an outlier in relation to others? I saw a report recently that looked at the restraint that is used across the secure estate—in the YOIs. You had children at Parc saying that they understood why they had been restrained and why force had been used, and talking about relationships being repaired afterwards. You don’t get that consistently in other parts of the secure estate. You also have PAVA, an incapacitant spray, which is used in other parts of the secure estate but not at Parc. You have lower levels of violence and self-harm, children are out of their rooms for longer, and education and enrichment opportunities are generally more positive at Parc. I am not going to say that Parc is perfect, but its positive performance makes it an outlier, compared with other parts of the system across England and Wales. The big question for me is: why has it consistently been in that position for a number of years? Without saying that Parc is perfect, I think there is a lot that the whole system across England and Wales can learn from what is happening there.

I have a follow-up question. You talked about family connections. Both those facilities are in Wales, but the population of young people is not necessarily from Wales. How important is the proximity of children to family and home connections? Building on that, would you like to see additional YOI capacity to enable that support across Wales?

You make two points. One is about the importance of family connections and the location. What we would say works around youth offender institutes is not the current system, and not the current make-up that we have now. We would support smaller units in local areas, with children closer to their families so that they can keep those bonds and ties with their communities. That would support resettlement post their time in the YOIs. The general position is that we would support smaller units closer to where children live in Wales and England. You will be aware that both the secure parts of the estate in Wales for children—Hillside and Parc—are in the south; there isn’t anything in the north. As a general rule, rather than saying that we want another YOI up in the north, I am looking for smaller units to maintain family connections, which are so important to stability in the secure estate and the rehabilitation of those children once they have completed their term within the secure system.

I am conscious of time, so we are going to do a quickfire round with one-word answers only—otherwise, hellfire comes coursing down. This is to each and every one of you. Is the MOJ policy sufficiently tailored to the needs of Welsh service users? That is a simple yes or no.

I have not received any complaints about it.

That is a long one-word answer, but not too bad.

I still think there needs to be more devolution of services.

Sorry, I can’t answer that with one word. I think there are some gaps, and it doesn’t always cater for us. The girls board, which has just been established, is really positive, but does it adequately cater for girls in Wales? The Young Futures hubs are again England-focused—are they looking at Wales? So I think there are some gaps.

Dwi’n mynd i ateb yn Gymraeg. (Translation) I will answer in Welsh.

You are allowed to say yes or no in Welsh or English, and I will understand it, so fire away.

Mae’r ffaith bod y Papur Gwyn wedi ei gyhoeddi heb unrhyw gyfeiriad at y Gymraeg yn profi mai na yw’r ateb i’r cwestiwn yna. (Translation) The fact that the White Paper has been published without any reference to the Welsh language proves that no is the answer to that question.

Would you support devolving probation and youth justice to the Welsh Government—yes or no?

I am ambivalent.

My view is that you get better services if you have them devolved to a more local level.

I don’t think that is the question. My focus is on what is right for—

It is the question, because I have just asked it. Your job is to answer the questions; my job is to ask them.

Mr Fraser, you may phrase the question back at Mr Hoare.

Such leniency, Chair!

My focus would be on what produces the right outcomes for children, communities and victims.

So it doesn’t really matter as long as the outcomes are good. Fine.

Dyw hwnna ddim yn fater i fi, ond beth hoffwn i weld yw bod yr un safon o ran gwasanaeth yn Gymraeg yn wir pwy bynnag sy’n darparu’r gwasanaeth yng Nghymru. (Translation) It is not a matter for me, but I would like to see the same standard of service being provided in Welsh, whoever provides that service in Wales.

Would you describe as effective or ineffective the relationship between the UK and the Welsh Government when it comes to supporting offender management, both in the community and in custody? Let’s go from the other end of the panel this time. We’ll do it in reverse, just to fox you all.

Mae’r ffaith bod systemau’n dod o dan gyfundrefnau gwahanol yn golygu bod anawsterau a bod pethau syml fel casglu data ar iaith carcharorion ddim yn cael eu rhannu’n esmwyth yn brawf nad yw e’n gweithio’n ddigon effeithiol ar hyn o bryd. (Translation) The fact that systems fall under different arrangements means that there are difficulties. Also, that simple issues such as collecting data on the language of prisoners are not shared easily is proof that it does not work effectively enough at the moment.

For children, it is different. We have a partnership approach in relation to that. Obviously, you have the reserved part of the statutory provision and then the devolved parts. They are working together pretty well in Wales.

What we have observed in our recent inspection is that there is some good join-up of local services in Wales. We would like to see more of it and we would like to see more provision. One area that you cannot resolve on a Wales-only basis is having enough probation officers to do the job properly; I think that needs a national solution.

I think that the Welsh and English set-ups work pretty well together.

Diolch yn fawr.

Thank you very much, and I thank all four witnesses who appeared before us. Thank you for your time. It is much appreciated. I also thank our interpreter, Aled Jones. That brings our first panel to a close. We will briefly suspend proceedings before we bring in our second panel. Witnesses: Bryn Hall and Lucy Russell.

I am pleased to welcome our second panel. We are joined by third sector organisations that represent voluntary sector organisations working in the criminal justice system and supporting women in and leaving prison. Welcome, Mr Hall and Ms Russell. Thank you both for appearing before us today. Would you please briefly introduce yourselves and say which organisations you represent?

Hello. I am Lucy Russell, head of policy and public affairs at the charity Women in Prison.

I am Bryn Hall, the engagement and partnership manager at Clinks. We are the infrastructure organisation that looks after criminal justice organisations across England and Wales.

Thank you. What are the most significant challenges facing Welsh women within the criminal justice system at the moment, and what support would you like to see from the UK Government to address those challenges?

Some of the challenges that Welsh women are facing are very much the challenges that all women are facing across the board, whether they are English or Welsh. Some of those are about the conditions and experiences in the prison environment. For example, the latest data tells us that almost 70% of women in prison have experienced some kind of domestic abuse. There is some really good data coming through from the charity Brainkind, which found that 80% of Welsh women in the criminal justice system have been screened for head injury, and 78% of those women were found to have had some kind of injury where they could not breathe. That is a very clear correlation with domestic abuse. You also have these incredibly high self-harm rates. Data fluctuates quarter by quarter, but it is roughly eight times higher for women than in the male estate. When we are talking about self-harm, I want to emphasise quite how severe, life-threatening and appalling it is. All pregnancies in prison are now classified as high risk. There have been the deaths of two babies in the last few years in prison. Despite the commitments to reduce the number of women in prison, the numbers of Welsh women in prison are actually increasing. A very high number of Welsh women are in prison for short sentences, and remand for Welsh women has been going up and up. It seems to be that something is really not working, because that is increasing when the policies are saying that it should be going in the opposite direction. When we talk to Welsh women, distance from home is a really important message. That has been mentioned before. One woman said, “My family have a five and a half hour round trip to come and see me.” Somebody else said, “I have a one-year-old and a five-year-old and the travel is just too much.” Another person mentioned that the visiting hours are at 9 am, so the family, including small children, has to leave the house at least 6.30 am to get there. That distance from home is also impacting a lot of their other services. Somebody was saying that their social worker, who is negotiating about contact with children, is having to travel all that way, and they are finding that really hard. Another person is on remand, and she was being transported from Styal down to very south Wales. It was hours and hours in prison vans, sometimes leaving at 7.15 am, not getting back until gone 8 pm. She said, “I started to feel really ill. I couldn’t concentrate. I was really struggling.” It was about a four-week trial, so it took a long time. That is really difficult. Welsh language has already been mentioned, but certainly, some women said that there is not access to Welsh language for them. They would like more information in Welsh language. They would like more training courses in Welsh language. Several have said that they were not allowed to talk on the phones in Welsh language, or because of what they have heard in the news, they have started to become fearful about it. One woman said, “My little girl’s first language is Welsh, and I cannot even talk to my daughter or have video calls because I just do not want to get into trouble for speaking Welsh language.” Another Welsh woman said, “I can’t get Welsh news, so I didn’t know about the floods that have happened recently. That is directly where my family is. They are very affected by this, but I was completely out of touch with that.” On the matter of release, there are issues. Women who leave prison after a sentence tend to have a package in place, although the join-up between services can be a challenge. Women who are released after remand often do not have the package of support, and there is a real gap there. Researcher Leah Reed from Cardiff University found that when a group of women on a substance misuse course left prison, those who were English got immediately picked up by joined-up services, while the woman who went back to Wales did not get picked up at all. She sourced her own service support but then found the experience very retraumatising, because she had to start from scratch, retell all her stories and repeat everything.

Thank you. That was a comprehensive answer. Mr Hall, is there anything you want to add?

Lucy has covered most of the points, but to reiterate some of them—

You don’t have to reiterate them. We have heard them very clearly and the evidence is before us, so don’t worry. What are the specific challenges affecting voluntary organisations, such as yours, working within the criminal justice system at the moment? What would you like to see from, say, the Government to assist you?

For women, or just in general?

For women—we are talking about women now.

The data is there. Even though we have the women’s justice blueprint and really good working arrangements between Welsh Government and UK Government on that blueprint, the number of women in custody is going up and that is a challenge, as is the fact that women are serving more short-term sentences and further away from home. The continuity of care that Lucy was talking about is a challenge for the voluntary sector—making sure that there is continuity of care so that Welsh women are getting an equitable service when they come back to Wales. Making sure that there is enough Welsh language provision within prisons is also really important. There are lots of challenges. However, the biggest challenge for the voluntary sector working in criminal justice is around commissioning and funding, making sure that we have those services and making sure that those services are supported so that they can give support to women from Wales who need it.

This question is for both of you. Do you have any specific examples of good news or good projects that are working well at the moment regarding prisoners in Wales or Welsh women in prisons elsewhere?

We have the One Wales women’s service in Wales, which is co-commissioned between the PCCs in south Wales and Gwent and the HMPPS in Wales. There is an element of Welsh Government funding to that service as well. It is the commissioned rehabilitative service that women in England get, but we have an addition in Wales in that there is early intervention and prevention as part of that service. That is a really good example of co-commissioning and where different agencies such as police and crime commissioners, the Welsh Government and HMPPS in Wales can work together to add more value to those services. We also have small organisations such as North Wales Women’s Centre up in Rhyl in north Wales, which does fantastic work with women from north Wales. There are lots of examples.

In terms of practical things, we have family sessions specifically for Welsh women, particularly ones that are in the afternoon so that the journey is significantly easier. They have Welsh mothers’ support groups. Women said that they really appreciated that and felt that being identified and hearing that somebody recognises who they are really helps. In terms of good practice, the big question now is what happens. We will hopefully have a violence against women strategy, a sentencing Bill and a mental health Bill very soon. Hopefully, we will also see a strategy from the Women’s Justice Board. The question of good practice is: how will the Welsh Government and the English Government work together to join those up and be effective for women?

I want to turn to intergovernmental relations. In all these inquiries, we try to identify something good and then try to identify things where we can nudge for a bit of improvement. Could you both give one example of where the UK and Welsh Governments work particularly well together and identify one thing that is okay but could be improved?

We have the Criminal Justice Board for Wales, which brings together all the senior leaders from criminal justice agencies as well as the Welsh Government. That strategic overview of how justice operates in Wales works well.

And one thing that could be improved?

The fact that that board has no statutory requirement or memorandum of understanding and is driven by passion and individuals. That could potentially be lost.

So it is people-dependent rather than remit-set?

Yes, and there is a lack of accountability because there is no statutory requirement for that board to meet.

Ms Russell?

Recently, we have finally had more data on Welsh women. That is a good thing. However, there are still gaps in data and that could be improved. I also refer to my previous answer about the enormous change for Welsh women in policy, and that is where things have to come together now.

Thank you. Mr Hall, in your evidence, you described the youth and women’s justice blueprints as being improvements. How have they improved things, and how can their success be replicated for other aspects of the criminal justice system in Wales?

They have improved intergovernmental working—there’s no doubt about that. There is now that policy behind how the Welsh Government and HMPPS in Wales work together to deliver better outcomes for women. Having those formal blueprints and work plans in place for that co-delivery should and could be replicated across the whole of criminal justice. However, there is a question about how effectively those blueprints are currently working, given the data that we have on the numbers of Welsh women currently in custody.

So again, we come back to the issue of inadequacy of data that can help to shape policy output.

Yes, we definitely need more data. We are working, and we are getting there, but we definitely need more data.

My final question is for you, Ms Russell; I think a number of earlier answers have touched on or alluded to it. Can you say a word or two on the effectiveness of the women’s justice blueprint for Wales? How successful or effective has it been in diverting women from the criminal justice system and in reducing reoffending?

It is always helpful to have something that brings services together and looks at a more holistic multi-agency approach. Actually, the data is telling us that more women are going to prison, and that has increased year on year in the last four years, and remand is increasing. In particular, remand in short sentences is increasing, and those are the ones that really disrupt your home life, take you away from work and separate you from your children, yet they relate to only very minor offences. The blueprint very much wanted to encourage the use of alternatives to prison and I think there is a real question about where that has worked. Given the amount of change, and that the blueprint was written before covid, it is very much time for a new blueprint, and one that looks at all these new strategies, including the integration of the violence against women strategy, as well as the number of survivors being criminalised. Also, it must look at how we can have more effective multi-agency working. There is a very good point to be made about the success of things like the Manchester multi-agency working. I think it would be great if the blueprint asked: what does that look like when you are not a big city like Manchester? We can duplicate it in Cardiff, but I would love to see a regional blueprint that said, “What does it look like in north Wales, mid-Wales and south Wales?”, and that really encouraged the services to emphasise how different those circumstances are.

Could I briefly tease something out, Chair? Ms Russell, you have just asserted the factual situation of more women being in the prison system. I think we would value your views on why that might be. Is it that more women are committing crimes that have a custodial sentence attached to them? Should we be trying to disaggregate the covid backlog in the criminal justice system, and is that artificially but temporarily distorting the data? Is it a trend? If so, is it a trend we see elsewhere in the UK? You may need to write to us, but I think it would be helpful if you could put a bit of flesh on that particular skeleton.

Really and truly, we do not fully know why remand in particular is increasing. There are conversations about whether people are feeling more cautious, or whether there is just a bit of uncertainty. There is a definitely an issue with not using the alternatives to custody, and not being able to access what is available. To give an example, I was speaking with the National Women’s Justice Coalition, which has a map of services across England and Wales, but the map of Wales is very limited; it does not really show all the services there. There is a gap in those services’ capacity to fill that in, and a gap in funding to create it. It is just a simple thing about the fact that, if I am a magistrate and I want to quickly look at my alternative options, that information is not readily there. There is a huge gap in how we support those giving sentences to actually find alternatives, and to find something that is meaningful and works for what they are looking at in front of them.

That is a really important observation. In layman’s terms, you are saying that it is a lack of knowledge or discretion of how to apply among the magistracy that is leading to that.

That is one of the elements.

So do you point us in the direction of recommending some sort of enhanced training, or a refresh, for magistrates to understand precisely what they have got in the arsenal?

Yes, and the courts. That allows those local sentencers to really understand what is available.

Is there a differential between England and Wales on this matter?

There is a problem in England as well. There is also the gap in those services, because, as you well know, all women’s services are massively underfunded, and there needs to be support to do that joined-up working and to create what I would call an effective whole-system approach—with health, housing, social care, debt and benefits all together. It is about support to build foundations to work together, as well.

Mr Hall, on the subject of UK Government and Welsh Government systems working together, your organisation has previously stated that some of your members feel that the UK Government “does not necessarily recognise specific Welsh legislation,” as it relates to people being held in Welsh prisons and their families. Could you elaborate on that for us?

We sometimes see a bit of a disconnect from central Government with understanding what the law and legislation in Wales is. We can see that with how services are commissioned. When looking at the geography around how services are commissioned, huge areas make it very difficult to deliver those services. With somewhere like Dyfed-Powys, you would have to deliver a service in Newtown and in Llanelli—that is a huge area. They do not understand that, and they potentially do not understand how policies made in the centre will have an effect in Wales. They might go against our housing legislation, or the work that we are doing around substance use in Wales, and also the violence against women legislation that we have in Wales. There is not always a full understanding of Welsh legislation when decisions are made in the centre. It is not understood how legislation made in the centre will then affect and work alongside Welsh legislation.

I want to touch on access to healthcare. To begin with, could I have the views of both of you on whether you think there is adequate provision for prisoners, prison leavers and Welsh women who are serving in England?

The biggest issue around healthcare is the continuity of care, so having what there is in prisons back in the community, or vice versa, and having care in the community that translates across to prison. There is a lack of communication and a lack of continuity of care, which is the biggest issue for not just Welsh women, but all Welsh people in the criminal justice system.

Is there a particular issue with cross-border healthcare? Is it more acute?

I think there can be. There is a further lack of communication and continuity when it comes to cross-border healthcare. We are talking about two different health systems in two different countries. That does not always translate across, which can cause issues. It causes issues for service providers as well, not getting timely information, and prescriptions and scripts not being given. There are issues around that continuity of care.

I absolutely agree. In my understanding, there is a difference between prescription information sharing for Welsh women going into Welsh prisons and Welsh women going into English prisons. All women in prison experience much more of a delay with getting prescription medication. That can be particularly bad if you are on something like HRT or very strong mental health medication, which creates horrendous side effects very quickly. We have recently submitted evidence to various organisations about our concerns around women’s healthcare for all women in prison, and that included: mental health and self-harm, which is a huge issue and very concerning; menopause treatment and access to HRT; cancer treatments and regular screenings; and diabetes care. I would also reference the chief medical officer’s recent report about healthcare in prisons, which pulled out some concerning issues about women’s health.

Can I follow up on that point about self-harm? The statistics show that Eastwood Park and Styal accounted for more than 10,000 of what was nearly 17,000 self-harm incidents on the women’s estate between January 2024 and September 2024. This year, HMP Styal was also found to have the highest number of positive drug tests in the women’s estate. Do you feel that these women are safe in these prisons?

Women in Prison, as a charity, absolutely does not think women should be in prison. Women say that it is like going into an old Victorian asylum. There are women screaming; there is blood on the floor. I was in a prison on Friday and they said, “D’you know what? Cutting up? It’s every day.” “Cutting up” means self-harm. They said, “You get an ambulance. We’ve had the helicopter in several times a day.” Women described to me having to apply their own first aid skills. One woman said, “I had to wrap a woman up with sanitary pads, because she was bleeding so fast she’d gone grey.” That is daily life. Imagine the trauma that is causing, even if it is not you self-harming, if you are in with someone going through that. No, it’s not the right place; women should not be in those circumstances. The Mental Health Act—sorry, Bill—should look at stopping prison being a place of safety for people with severe mental ill health. As for women in Wales, I think there is a huge question about how services then shift, so that very mentally ill women, who are normally being sent to prison as a place of safety, which is not appropriate, but it happens—There needs to be a real transition, which must start ahead of the Bill coming into law, so that we do not have gaps around those services, because at the moment prisons have some very unwell women and I would not say that they were safe in those prisons.

In the previous session, we touched on family ties and other close networks. Do you think there is a correlation between the increases in self-harm and substance misuse, and the sheer distance between Welsh women and their own communities?

There is a dearth of really good research that shows an absolute correlation. However, His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons produced a report about women in prison and their coping mechanisms, and talked a lot about the frustrations, the separation from family and the way the system works. There was a mention of how expensive phone calls are. All those types of factors lead to frustration, desperation to get out, and to thinking, “Just how on earth do I cope?”, and that leads to self-harm. If we then add in the calculation that it is expensive to call family, and that it takes however many hours for family to visit prisoners in Wales, it would be fair to say that it must be a contributing factor. I cannot evidence that, but I would say that it is reasonable to say it is a concern.

Thank you. Mr Hall, I think you held a roundtable on this issue. And you referenced continuity. Could you comment more on the national, joined-up strategy, in respect of access to healthcare provision?

Absolutely; that was something that came across quite strongly from our members at a roundtable we had recently, back in September. Given that lack of continuity and lack of communication, you can then consider how healthcare is provided within the Welsh prison estate. There are different levels of provision. Some prisons, such as Parc and Berwyn, contract directly with the health board. Then there are the other public sector prisons in Wales. Their healthcare is governed through the national healthcare service—through Public Health Wales—and there is no national oversight in Wales around how healthcare in the Welsh prison estate is strategically considered. It is too fragmented and that then creates a lot of challenges for people in prisons who need to access healthcare, as well as for the service providers who are trying to help them.

So your recommendation would be to move away from that health board model to more of a national co-ordinator?

Yes. Given that health is devolved, there should be—our members have certainly told us this—some Welsh national oversight of how healthcare is provided in the Welsh prison estate. Absolutely.

I would like to hear from both panellists, if possible. The previous Government committed to opening a residential women’s centre in Swansea. What would you want to see in any such centre? Can we start with Mr Hall, please?

The potential for that is really positive. One of our concerns, and certainly the concerns of our members, is what side the lock is on. Would the residential women’s centre in Swansea be a prison in all but name, or would it be a holistic, trauma-informed women’s centre that actually supports women to remain in their communities? For us, that is the biggest point. We would love to see investment in all women’s centres across Wales, because they really do act in a trauma-informed and gender-appropriate way to help women remain in their communities. Whether the residential women’s centre that has been proposed in Swansea will achieve that or not, we will wait to see. It has not been built yet. But it very much depends on what side of the door the lock is on.

I very much echo that. That is absolutely where we would be coming from. Prison does not work for women. If we are building another prison, that is not a good idea. If we are building an alternative that actually thinks about women’s needs, that could be really positive. There is a real danger. I have seen it branded quite often as a Welsh option, and of course the proposal at the moment is in south Wales.

Would you support additional residential women’s centres opening across the rest of Wales?

I think we have to see how the first one rolls out—we are about four years waiting to see how it rolls out. We have to see how the first one works, and we have to get it right before any money goes into any other models. If it is about keeping women close to their communities, that is a good idea, but we have to get them modelled right first. We have to see results from what has been promised, but what really is not working at the moment, because it is just not happening.

Thank you to both of you, Mr Hall and Ms Russell, for coming along today to give us your insights into what are tricky problems facing prisoners and women in residential settings. Thank you so much for coming. I now close this session.