Bethan Jenkins AC/AM Blog

YESTERDAY I met with Jane Farleigh from the UK Border Agency to discuss the investigation in to the allegations made by whistleblower Louise Perrett who worked as an agency staff member at the UKBA in Cardiff. You can see the article that I wrote about these allegations on the Waleshome blog site at the time they were made.

The professional standards unit of the UK Border Agency has ruled that no disciplinary action would be taken against staff members. I was informed by the UKBA that it was difficult to identify staff because Louise had made her views known six months after she had left the UKBA, that there was little clear evidence, and due to the fact that, as the report by the professional standards unit highlights, their investigation may have been hindered by the actions of the PCS Union. This is what the report says-

‘The UK Border Agency should consider engagement with the PCS concerning advice they gave to their members not to come forward with evidence for the investigation to encourage full cooperation from Union representatives.

I am going to contact the PCS Union following this report to seek its views on this particular matter. Of course the identity and security of staff should be protected, but I am concerned if any potential lack of communication on its behalf meant that this investigation was not as robust as it could have ultimately been.

Another comment by the professional standards unit seems to imply that a staff member who does not raise any concerns in the future which may mirror those that Louise Perrett raised should be disciplined. One must question whether this is an attempt to stop whistle blowing from the UKBA:

‘Consideration should be given to it becoming a disciplinary offence for staff to fail to challenge inappropriate behaviour.’

I was assured that the investigation was thorough, but I find it difficult to understand that if there aren’t problems at the UKBA, why are they putting many changes in place that appear to relate to the culture and staff conduct at the office?  Here is what the UKBA will be doing in light of the report-

- to overhaul the Agency’s approach to credibility issue, starting with a new Asylum

Instruction and new training interventions associated with it;

- an increase from 20% to 50% of decisions being made in Cardiff being assessed against

the UNHCR quality assurance matrix. There is no evidence to date of the quality of

decisions in Cardiff being affected by the issues highlighted. But we need to make doubly

sure that remains the case;

- to invite the Wales Refugee Council, with other key local partners, to help us design

some awareness sessions for staff to deal with some of the concerns the report raises.

- To institute a new arrangement in Wales to ensure staff really can raise concerns outside

their line management line.

Of course I welcome the above and will seek to monitor improvement, especially the work with the Welsh Refugee Council. However, I am  somewhat surprised that staff do not have an opportunity currently to speak to or to meet former refugees who have successfully sought asylum in Wales. This new scheme will give staff the opportunity to speak to people who have gone through the system, and allow for staff making such important decisions to identify with them. At the moment they are given country profiles, and are told where the dangerous parts are, but they do not have a personal view of what it is like to come from such a country, or to suffer persecution.

I am convinced that the UKBA made an effort in to looking in to this issue, yet I do think that there should be a role for the Equality and Human Rights Commission in such instances. The EHRC should, as a body, be able to look at human rights practices in such governmental organisations, and should be the port of call should a future member of staff wish to raise serious concerns about the UKBA if they have exhausted all other internal avenues without success.

I will be writing to the Home Affairs Select Committee, who have also had a copy of the report to ask them how they will be responding, and I will seek Louise Perrett’s views, who has told me via email that she had not heard from the UKBA for some time. I trust that she has had the final report and will be able to assess its outcomes.

What’s important is that the UKBA works effectively and professionally and that any problems brought to light by staff should be dealt with, to ensure that staff feel comfortable enough to raise any concerns they have. After all, they are making life changing decisions on behalf of asylum seekers in Wales, so it is in all our best interests to ensure that nobody has a reason to question their work.

Here are the links to the report  and to the UKBA’s response. I would welcome any feedback as the cross party group on human rights will be discussing this at the next meeting.

I’VE been meaning to blog about this issue since a fascinating meeting of the cross party group on human rights, which I chair. Our guest speaker that night, Tracey Sagar from Swansea University, talked to us about sex workers and the violence inflicted upon them, and gave us an insight into the lives of women who have fallen below the radar of society.

Tracey’s team have been given support by the Big Lottery Fund to map a four-year project into empowering sex workers, and to reduce community disaffection towards them. There is little known in Wales about this subject, according to Tracey, and so the work they are doing may shape a pan Wales strategy for the future.

To enter the sex work industry is often a conscious decision, but we learned that many women feel forced in to it for lack of any other alternatives. While many sex workers have professional qualifications, many of them are addicted to crack or heroin. Some have been victims of sexual abuse in the past, and the majority of the women Tracey works with have children, deciding to work on the streets as a way out of poverty.

However, getting out of poverty doesn’t seem to be achievable for many of these women at present, as they can’t access services that should be there to help them. That’s why the setting up of Cardiff Sex Forum with third sector organisations, the Police and statutory organisations is important in order for people to acknowledge there is a problem, for street workers to be fast tracked on to support programmes, and to be given sustainable alternatives to working on the street.

Street sex workers tend to work in more isolated ways now: outside normal hours and areas, using mobile phones to fix appointments. They are avoiding the police (as are the kerb crawlers), making them harder to track by outreach workers. All this puts them at even more risk. What was interesting about what Tracey said was that street sex workers are mainly local and therefore part of the community. They are entitled to the same protection afforded to everyone else. But quite often they are targeted and abused by the very community that should be there to support them, with neighbours shouting expletives at them, or physically attacking them.

The protection of sex workers had been mainly overlooked by public policy, including the Welsh Assembly Government’s latest strategy on violence against women, The Right to be Safe. Such strategies only tend to consider women who had been trafficked, or focus on ways out of prostitution. This reinforces the distinction between the deserving and undeserving. There is much more work to be done in this area, if only to ensure that women don’t fall in to the trap of thinking that working on the street will help them. We need to empower current street workers to seek support networks and help, and most importantly educate communities, and organisations lining our high streets that street workers need to same services as everyone else in Wales.

I’M JUST back from the latest Visteon Pension Action Group meeting at the Railwaymans Club in Swansea. If any of you don’t know the venue, it is typical of a working man’s club. Think the clubs in Our Friends from the North or Brassed Off, and you’re practically there.

Every time I go in there, I think I’m going back in a time capsule to the Miner’s Strike (I am imagining, of course, because I’m too young to remember it) and the room is always packed full of people – former Visteon and Ford workers, in this case. I am usually the only woman in the room at these meetings and, bless them, they always apologise to me on the very rare occasion that anyone uses foul language. I may sound corny, but they feel like my extended family now. I talk with people before and after the meeting, so I can get the latest information on their personal pension problems, or just to chat about how things are going. These are all genuine people from the area who are sincerely worried about their futures, all because Ford will not pay them the pensions they all spent years paying into.

Now, of course, we have the good news that Unite is taking legal action against Ford, alleging that it mis-sold workers their pensions. Everyone at the meeting wanted to know about the next steps, about whether there is still hope for a Parliamentary inquiry, about concerns regarding the Pension Protection Fund, the ongoing dialogue with the Pensions Regulator. All very detailed stuff. Nonetheless, tonight’s good news about the legal action was clouded by the fact that the Linamar factory on Fabian Way – where first Ford and then Visteon had been situated – will close, with 200 workers taking the redundancy package offered by Linamar. Ford again has not helped at all in this situation as it did not even send application forms to Linamar workers so they could apply for jobs at the Ford Bridgend plant. The redundancy pay-out, from what I understand. will go in to a trust fund. Staff don’t want anything like Visteon happening again.

The political campaigning will go on alongside the legal action, and I was enthused that those present were ready and willing to continue with the sterling work they have been doing up until now, raising awareness of the campaign among family, friends, and in communities in Swansea, Port Talbot, Neath and Swansea Valley areas where the workers live.

Of course I hope the legal action is successful so that these pensioners don’t have to keep on attending meetings on rainy mid-week evenings, so that they can stop worrying and enjoy their retirement like they deserve. Ford should pay the £350m pension shortfall. This is a drop in the ocean for a multinational company like Ford after all.

So, the battle continues, and I’ll do all I can to continue supporting them.

WELSH Government Business Minister Jane Hutt has this afternoon made a statement on in-year spending.

The new Westminster Government recently gave the administration in Cardiff a Hobson’s choice of a decision - make cuts both this year and next, or make double cuts next year. Ms Hutt announced that the Welsh Government has decided to spread the cuts over two years.

No doubt the opposition will argue that during the election, Plaid said that cuts should not be made immediately and that this decision goes against that. However, the reality is that we argued against the Westminster Government imposing any immediate cuts on Wales, and asked instead any cuts should happen gradually over a number of years.

Plaid based its arguments against immediate cuts to the Welsh Government on the first Holtham report, which recommended that as Wales already loses out on £300m a year, the country should be spared any further cuts until a fair funding formula is in place.

However, the Westminster Government has imposed immediate cuts on Wales even though, prior to the election, Welsh Tory leader Nick Bourne said that his party would not. The only choice afforded to the Welsh Government was a stark one - betweenwhether those cuts should be spread over two years, or double cuts next year. Double cuts would mean a double blow for Wales next year.

Spreading the cuts over the two years is the most sustainable way forward possible under the circumstances. But what should have happened is that the Government in Westminster should have begun its cuts programme later on, once the economy was in a stronger position and more able to manage the savings. Instead, we now face the spectre of a double-dip recession in Wales.

Bethan with the Caravan Club’s new Director General, Nick Lomas, in the Senedd

NEARLY £3.7m of consumer spending has been pumped into the economy of the Gower area in the last five years, thanks to the ever-increasing popularity of Gowerton Caravan Club site- and the Club promise there is much more to come.

The Caravan Club’s new Director General, Nick Lomas, recently present a symbolic cheque for £114m to the Welsh Assembly Government’s Tourism Minister Alun Ffred Jones on Wednesday (July 7) at the Senedd to emphasise the economic contribution of sites such as Gowerton to the local communities.

Gowerton contributes more than 82,000 bed nights to the economy of Wales and visitors to the site chip in some £736,000 a year to tills in local shops, pubs, restaurants and tourist attractions.

The Caravan Club estimate that each year its members bring around £22m into Wales and, when this is added to the Club’s direct infrastructural investment of nearly £1m a year, the five-year tally for the economy of Wales bursts comfortably through the £100m mark.

To mark the occasion The Caravan Club staged a champagne reception for nearly 70 industry representatives and Assembly Members at the Senedd in association with Wales Tourism Alliance, the umbrella organisation for the tourism industry in Wales.

The Caravan Club has 20 major locations spanning the length and breath of Wales and a further near-300 Certificated Locations, offering over two million ‘bed nights’ per annum in Wales, and approximately 80,000 members here.

The Gowerton site is one of 20 large Caravan Club-owned sites across Wales which Nick Lomas, new Director General of The Caravan Club, revealed had brought nearly £3.1m to the economy of the Newport area and more than £114m into the Welsh economy over the last five years – and almost all through spending in local shops, pubs, restaurants and tourist attractions.

The area’s regional Assembly Member, Bethan Jenkins AM, who was present at the Senedd event, paid tribute to the impact of the site on the local economy in Gowerton: ”Bringing in nearly three quarters of a million pounds every year to the local economy is a staggering amount.

“Caravan sites are hidden economic generators.  These figures clearly show that not only do they offer a quality family holiday that is an good alternative option to expensive trips abroad they have knock on impacts helping local shops and businesses through off site spend.  We should be proud of the success of the Gowerton site.”

TODAY we found out that the Linamar car parts factory on Fabian Way in my region will close, perhaps at the end of 2010. From those I know who work there, they are in and out of meetings with management all day today, trying to come to some sort of agreement.

Whether this is too late at this stage, I do not know but I will certainly try and keep people updated. It is a tragedy for the area that up to 200 jobs will be lost – affecting those that live in and around Swansea and Neath Port Talbot. Staff are dismayed at this closure announcement for three reasons, which I have been helping  them campaign on for some time now:

1. Linamar has told them that it is closing the factory because workers refused to accept new terms and conditions- despite the fact that the company took over the plant agreeing to honour existing pay and conditions. These new conditions would have seen some staff lose up to £600 a month.

2. According to Linamar’s own rankings, its Swansea plant is one of the best performing factories in the whole company. But the work is being transferred to a plant in Mexico that is one of its least efficient.

3. Staff are extremely angry that Ford, yet again, has refused to honour promises to source work from Linamar. The First Minister will know this, because I raised the issue with him a couple of months ago.

There was concern then that a multi- billion pound grant was being provided by the last UK Labour Government for the building of the new eco- boost engine at Bridgend, but none of the parts for this new engine were to be sourced in South Wales. I mentioned this to him and received a very non-committed answer.

What can the Welsh Government do now to ensure that companies in Wales that are given grants are compelled to bring benefit to the wider Welsh economy? I will be raising this matter again with Welsh Government ministers, hoping that they are initiating talks with both Linamar management and Ford to look at any possibility for contracts to Linamar from Ford Bridgend, so that the factory can stay open to benefit the local area, and that jobs can be saved.

THE time for internal party reselection for the Assembly election in 2011 is upon us, and constituency lists are open, and closed. Contrary to what Vaughan Roderick has said on his blog about me, I never intended to stand in Neath, and will be supporting Alun Llewelyn as the candidate all the way.

I think Alun has shown from the last Westminster election and the previous Assembly election campaign that he is a strong candidate. He is putting significant pressure on Labour in the Neath area by running effective local campaigns, and has a strong team of councillors in the area who work so hard alongside him and Del Morgan, Plaid’s leader on a NPT council level. Some people may ask – why didn’t you stand in Neath? Well, because my intention is to support Alun and other candidates in the South Wales West region, and to put my name forward for reselection on the regional list at this juncture.

Being an Assembly Member has been without a doubt the best thing that has happened to me, giving me an opportunity to campaign on the issues that are important to me, and to the people of the area. It’s allowed me to extend the campaigning that I was doing before being elected, albeit in a different way. Working with those suffering from eating disorders in Wales has been such a privilege – hearing their stories of pain, and then of hope as a new framework was introduced in Wales along with funding, after so much inaction.

Working with pensioners in Swansea has been inspiring. Hundreds of former Visteon workers – the salt of the earth – campaigning for their pensions at a time when they should be enjoying the fruits of their labour. Helping constituents with problems in their street or local area, enjoying the moment when asylum seekers I have helped, like George William from Swansea, who this week was granted asylum in Wales after years of campaigning; trying to push forward with a campaign for World Heritage status for the copper works in Swansea East; helping young people get in to politics.

And we can’t forget the imminent referendum on more powers for Wales. Creating a truly powerful Parliament for Wales is at the centre of everything I do.

This is all rewarding stuff that I can’t really put in to words that will describe how much satisfaction I get from empowering people to stand up for themselves and find their voices, just like I did.

Of course, I still have much more that I want to do, and that’s why I want to stand again to be elected as an AM. I don’t do it for personal satisfaction, or to have a position of status, but I can certainly use the title of being an AM to generate interest in various campaigns, and to influence those who make key decisions. I can’t say that everything always works out how I would like it to, but what’s important is that I always try, and I hope that people who ask me to help them understand that I’ll put every effort in to helping them reach their end goal.

Of course, we all know that the rules within Plaid Cymru’s  regional selection process have changed, and that we now have a zipping process whereby if a man is elected at the top of the list, then a woman must be second. I will work within this system, just as I worked within the last system, and encourage people to support me based on the work that I have done since being elected to the region back in 2007. It feels so long ago now!

It’s true that I did have a bit of a difficult time first of all when I was elected, but I’m sure most first time AMs all had their own individual challenges. I think I had a lot to prove – to the party, to the people of South Wales West, and to myself, and I hope that I’ve gone some way to showing that I have been an effective Assembly Member.

I’m sure there are people out there that don’t agree with me, don’t appreciate my viewpoint, but that’s the way politics works. As long as we can have constructive discussions that don’t swing to the personal, then I embrace those discussions with open arms.

I hope I will be nominated to stand in the next Assembly election by the party, that I will be successful in becoming a candidate in the region for the 2011 elections. Its down to me now to prove to people that I will continue to work hard for the area.

If I’m not chosen internally, or if I’m not elected next year as an AM, I am sure there will be other opportunities and challenges out there for me. Having four years experience as an AM has been phenomenal. I’ve met some great people, with fire in their bellies and a drive to change things for the better, and if, given the opportunity, I can work with them in different way, then I will certainly jump at the opportunity to do that.

THIS is my speech from yesterday in the Senedd, on the report that the communities and culture committee that I sit on carried out regarding the young people in the secure estate/ discussion on the youth justice system.

Bethan Jenkins: Like the other speakers, I thank Sandy Mewies and the team that worked with us on the committee to ensure that this inquiry was a success. I had my eyes opened as did my fellow Members, I am sure, when we visited the prisons and young offender institutions; we visited Hillside Secure Centre and Parc prison in Bridgend to see how these young people are treated.

I echo what Sandy said at the beginning, that the most important point arising out of the report is that we sincerely need to look at devolving the youth criminal justice system to Wales. It is not just an ideological point; it is because the priorities of the UK Government are clearly different from those that we are trying to follow in Wales. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is enshrined here; we want to put children at the heart of all that we do, and previous UK Governments have been intent on incarcerating young people—I am not sure whether Ken Clarke will change that; time will tell—before fully considering their rights as children. We should all be thinking about that here. We have to acknowledge children’s rights.

I feel passionately about devolving youth criminal justice, because we can then look at alternative ways of dealing with offenders, such as restorative justice, which have been trialled in some places in Wales but which are not implemented fully across the length and breadth of the country.

I say that also because, in evidence to the committee, a representative of the Howard League for Penal Reform said that he was astounded that Assembly Members had to go to English prisons to talk to Welsh children; it is ironic that we have to go to England to see Welsh children and to talk to them about their experiences. That, in itself, was eye opening for me, and made me think much more about how we treat our young children in Wales. These children do not have proper access to mental health services or to educational facilities, when that is their right.

I note that the Deputy Minister said that the age of criminal responsibility is a reserved matter, but we have to look at that in Wales, because that age, at 10 years, is very low. Scotland recently raised the age of criminal responsibility to 12 years, bringing it in line with that in the rest of Europe, but the minimum age at which a child can be charged and brought before a court in the rest of the UK is 10 years.

The committee considered it appropriate that the Government should consider the potential for raising the age of criminal responsibility as part of the review, but we would need systems in place to be able to deal with the fact that there would be much greater pressure on services if we were to raise the age. I know that the Liberal Democrats were not so clear about their stance on the age of criminal responsibility, but they have now made a statement that they support raising the age; it is important for all parties to come together to raise the age of criminal responsibility.

With regards to short sentencing, covered in recommendation 10, the former director of the National Offender Management Service has said that offenders who serve sentences of six months or fewer are not being rehabilitated, and that they usually go on to commit further offences; they are also usually released earlier under the current legislation.

Statistics show that prisoners released after fewer than 12 months go on to commit an average of three crimes each in their first year of freedom, while criminals who are subject to restorative justice penalties, such as community service, have lower re-offending rates than those who are given short-term jail sentences. Witnesses in the inquiry commented that the use of custodial sentences for children and young people in Wales is high.

Wales has one of the highest rates of children and young people in custody in Europe. However, research also shows that only 31% of children in prison are charged with, or convicted of, violent or sexual offences. There was also a broad consensus among witnesses that when children and young people enter the youth justice system, custodial sentences should remain a measure of last resort and reserved for the most serious offences. That view was backed by the children’s commissioner.

I will finish on another comment from the Howard League for Penal Reform. Its spokesman, Andrew Neilson, said that:

“he problem with prisons is that they often make us prisoners in our thinking.”

That, again, clarifies what we found as a committee in that just incarcerating young people—putting them in a box and throwing away the key—is not the way to address our social problems in Wales. Why do people offend? Why do young people go out on to the streets?

I am worried about the changes that the current UK Government is making to benefits and so on. Will more young people offend? Will more people be pushed into poverty thereby increasing the offending rates? If so, we must have policies here in Wales to protect us from those UK Government policies and to ensure that young people do not end up in prison. We need to protect them and show them that they can be useful and respected members of our society. They should be respected, just as we all should.