North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has today challenged the Counsel General over Welsh Government plans to have policing devolved to Wales.
In this afternoon’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood, who Shadows the Counsel General, spoke again of the concerns raised in North Wales regarding the plans and questioned why the Labour Welsh Government are so intent on pushing this through, particularly when they are cutting budgets elsewhere.
In Spokesperson’s Questions to the Counsel General, he said:
“I questioned you here last November over the research commissioned by the Welsh Government ‘to prepare for the devolution of policing in Wales’, when I noted:
“that the Thomas Commission on Justice in Wales Report, on which you rely, makes only one reference to the key issue of cross-border criminality, and the only solution proposed is ‘joint working across the four Welsh Forces in collaboration with other agencies’, without any reference to the established joint working with neighbouring partners across the invisible crime-and-justice border with England.
“And that when I visited the North-West Regional Organised Crime Unit, shared between North Wales and North-West England Police Forces, they told me that evidence given to the Thomas Commission was largely ignored in its report.
“So, what update can you therefore provide now regarding the review you commissioned, and made brief reference to earlier, led by a former North Wales Chief Constable, where you told me that ‘the key way forward is to wait until that evidence comes, to then consider it, evaluate it, and then we'll debate it in this Chamber?”
Mr Isherwood added:
“Policing in Scotland and Northern Ireland are devolved matters there, but for reasons of history, geography and population, and with crime patterns between England and Wales operating on a cross-border, east-west basis, the situation in Wales is entirely different. Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales has a heavily populated cross-border area with England, with an estimated 95 per cent or more of crime in North Wales alone operating on a cross-border east-west basis, and almost none on an all-Wales basis.
“Why, therefore, is the Welsh Government devoting so much time and resource to devolution of Policing and Adult Justice to Wales, when it's cutting key budgets elsewhere, especially when the most senior Welsh Labour MP in Westminster, Shadow Welsh Secretary, Jo Stevens, has again joined the Conservatives in rejecting fresh calls for the Welsh Government to be given control of Policing and adult criminal justice, and Labour’s manifesto for the UK general election does not include support for devolution of these?”
Speaking after the meeting, Mr Isherwood said:
“With the multitude of issues facing public services due to Labour’s 25 years of power in Wales, devolution of Policing and Justice is an unnecessary distraction for the Labour Government.
“Considering that Labour cannot adequately manage the devolved powers they already have and that the heavily populated cross-border area connecting Wales and England in itself makes devolution of policing difficult, Labour must readdress their priorities and abandon this futile endeavour.”