Can Gareth Davies's microphone be unmuted, please?

Diolch, Llywydd.

1. How does the youth justice blueprint for Wales address the increasing frequency of offences committed by each youth re-offender? OQ60956

Thank you for your question. The youth justice blueprint sets out our vision for youth justice in Wales. This includes reducing the number of children in the youth justice system through effective diversion activity, preventing reoffending and supporting children to live rewarding, crime-free lives.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (David Rees) took the Chair.

Thank you very much, Counsel General. I would like to congratulate you on your reappointment to your position last week, as I believe that this is your first questions session since your reappointment. So, congratulations on our behalf. I would appreciate it if you could make an assessment regarding the success of the Youth Justice Blueprint for Wales, and whether the blueprint adequately addresses the frequency rate of offences committed per reoffender.

The blueprint addresses youth recidivism, which has been coming down across England and Wales for the past decade, but the frequency rate of offences is still very high. The most recent data for south Wales demonstrate an increase in the number of offences committed by each offender. Youth criminality is a concern in Wales, given its disproportionate nature. The 18-25 age group in Wales accounts for approximately 12 per cent of the total population, but we know that 18 to 25-year-olds are committing 33 per cent of all recorded crime in south Wales, as one example.

Although some statistics are looking good, other things are moving in the wrong direction. Although good work is being undertaken to prevent young people from engaging in criminality to begin with, the frequency rate would imply that not enough is being done to address young people already in that cycle of crime. So, given that the Counsel General is responsible for youth justice and probation policy development, and given that the Welsh Government wishes to see youth crime and justice devolved, how is the Welsh Government looking to tackle the issue of offence frequency among youth reoffenders in Wales?  

Could I thank you for what I thought was an incisive question, and a very pertinent question, in terms of the work that's going on at the moment, with regard to looking at the issues of youth justice and probation. As you know, at the moment, responsibility for criminal justice, including youth justice, is a reserved matter, but many aspects of it, quite rightly, are devolved Welsh services, and they are integral to the youth justice system. In fact, they are the major part, I think, of the youth justice system: issues around housing, education, healthcare and so on.

I think that it is also important to recognise, of course, that the youth justice blueprint, which we operate, is something that has been agreed jointly, in co-operation between the Welsh Government, the UK Government, policing in Wales and, indeed the Youth Justice Board. One of the areas that we are concerned with, obviously, is the availability of adequate and full disaggregation of data, so you can fully understand what is happening in various parts of Wales. We do have a number of interventions as well. So, the children and communities grant includes the promoting positive engagement fund.

What has happened with youth justice over the decade,and I understand the point you're making in terms of indications that there is a rise in reoffending and in certain areas in terms of crime, is, nevertheless that—. The objective being to keep young people out of the criminal justice system, to look for diversionary measures as soon as possible, is something that, looking over the decade, has been extremely successful. So, for example, whereas there has been some increases in reoffences in some areas, I think it's worth noting that offending by children has significantly reduced over the past 10 years. The youth justice data analysts provided the data—. Data is not always available, but the data we do have certainly shows us that, according to the Youth Justice Board, published statistics in 2021 showed that there were 613 young people in Wales who'd received a caution or conviction—now, that is 76 per cent fewer than in 2013-14. So, the progress that's been made, and the success in the youth justice area, is, I think, important, but I don't think there is any grounds for complacency.

I think the approach that we've adopted is the correct approach, recognising the impact of early years experiences on children, but also looking at the most important way of actually keeping young people out of the future criminal justice system, which is by that early Intervention. So, the figures we have are much lower than they've been in the past. The increase in first-time entrance into the justice system is lower than it has been in the past, but there is considerable attention being given to how we actually not only maintain that, but how do we actually improve it.

I recently attended the counterparts in terms of youth justice in Scotland, and was very impressed with the work that is going on in terms of very early intervention in terms of identification of people who are on that criminal pathway. And by criminality, it's not just young people who might commit an offence, it is also the exploitation of young people that brings them into the criminal system as well. So, the prevention framework, I think, is something that brings all the evidence and work together into one place. That's the direction we want to go in. I think it is also the case—. That is why it is so important, I think, that youth justice is something that is devolved, because we need to actually have that consistent setting of youth justice policy and its engagement with 90 per cent of its functions, which are already devolved functions.

Counsel General, I believe it's very important, when we look at youth justice, that we take a child-centred approach, and see a child as a child first and an offender second, and I'm very pleased to say that this is the approach of the Newport youth justice service's team. They've actually been lauded by the University of Warwick for taking a unique and groundbreaking approach in relation to their Levelling the Playing Field project, which uses the power of sport for these purposes. So, I wonder, Counsel General, would you congratulate the Newport youth justice service's team for this approach and this work, and might you be willing to meet with them?

Firstly, I would be happy to meet and, indeed, I've met with a number of the youth service teams around Wales and, indeed, I met with some of their equivalents in Scotland. And what I can say is that the work that they are doing is impressive and often very, very difficult, and requires an enormous amount of commitment. What is, I think, clear is that there are two aspects. Of course, up to 18, young people then become adults, but, of course, all the evidence is that the 18 to 25 element is just as important, as people are still forming, moving into adulthood, and understanding that interconnectivity between those two is absolutely vital. But I do commend—. I would be happy to meet with any youth justice service to actually talk about this. And, in fact, there's been an enormous amount of work going work, and engagement, really looking towards the preparation for the devolution of youth justice in the future.

Obviously, this sits absolutely on the jagged edge of criminal justice, with criminal justice not being devolved, but I'm very glad to hear that you're working so closely, and you continue to do so, on this really important issue. I'd like to applaud this blueprint for reducing massively the numbers of children who are actually sent into offender institutions, because this normally actually exacerbates the problem, partly because of their young age and their impressionability, and there’s a recruitment into much deeper levels of criminality.

It’s 12 months since the Equality and Social Justice Committee published our report, '60 per cent—Giving them a voice' on speech, language and communications difficulties experienced by the youth justice system, and after the youth justice summit convened on 24 January by the former Minister for Social Justice, where Neath Port Talbot was lauded for the excellence of its service, it isn’t 60 per cent, it’s more like 80 per cent, if Neath Port Talbot is to be believed, because they are the blueprint for the services we want across Wales. What our report was asking for was an increase in the number of speech, language and communications therapists in our youth justice services because 80 per cent, four in five, of these young people simply don’t understand what the court is telling them and probably never understood what their teacher was telling them, either. So, it has to be a really important service to ensure that young people are listened to and that we are putting in place the right service for that individual.

I think you make a very important point. I sat in the youth court in Cardiff recently and listened to a number of the cases there, and what was very clear to me was that, I think with every individual that appeared there, you could look at a background of either poverty or disadvantage. But you also saw that, in terms of the issues around the understanding, the engagement, the communication, quite often there were a lot of people who'd been failed by the education system, basically, who had dropped out of the education system. Hence the sort of approach we have of Intervention and support is exactly the right direction to go. It's got to be treating young people as young people, and also putting them first in their interest, and looking at how they can be kept out of the criminal justice system by the right sort of interventions, and recognition of that. That's also what I saw when I was in Scotland, and I'm sure exactly the same thing is happening in parts of England as well. There has been a very massive shift, I think, in our thinking about young people, certainly from when I was a teenager, to how the system is now operating, and in particularly to how it has changed, certainly in Wales, over the past decade or so with the move in that particular direction.