Shadow Minister for Social Justice and Shadow Counsel General, Mark Isherwood MS, has raised concerns over the research commissioned by the Welsh Government ‘to prepare for the devolution of policing in Wales’ and questioned why serious points previously raised with the Welsh Government have been ignored.
On Tuesday, the Counsel General and Social Justice Minister issued a joint Statement on ‘Research to Prepare for the Devolution of Policing in Wales’.
Yesterday in the Welsh Parliament, Mr Isherwood raised a number of concerns regarding the content of their Statement.
He said:
“This stated that this ‘commitment follows the unanimous recommendation of the Thomas Commission on Justice in Wales in 2019’, adding that ‘this includes understanding the impacts on cross-border working’. However, despite my repeated questions to you regarding omissions about this from the Thomas Commission Report, you have still failed to address the serious points raised.
“The Report makes only one reference to the key issue of cross-border criminality, in the context of ‘County Lines’, 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.
“As I've also repeatedly stated, when I visited ‘TITAN’, the North-West Regional Organised Crime Unit, with the then Senedd Cross-Party Group on Policing -TITAN being a collaboration between North Wales Police and North-West England forces - for a presentation on the Impact of Serious and Organised Crime, including the link with ‘County Lines’ and the supply of controlled drugs, they told me that evidence given to the Thomas Commission was largely ignored in the Commission's Report. How, therefore, will you ensure that the team you've now commissioned will address this?”
He later added:
“Failure to address their statement that evidence given to the Thomas Commission was largely ignored would, I am sure you accept, reinforce the impression that you would be pursuing policy-led evidence. Of course, the four Police and Crime Commissioners are also Party politicians and the powers of the Mayors in London and Manchester, for example, are equivalent to a Police and Crime Commissioner. I trust you're not proposing that those powers should be centred in a single person in Cardiff.
“Although your Statement yesterday included that ‘the four police forces in Wales have already chosen to work together and with the Welsh Government and other bodies’, Police Officers, from Constables to Chief Constables, repeatedly emphasise that they cannot become involved in policy matters and their involvement is purely operational.
“When I visited the North-West Regional Organised Crime Unit, they also told me, as I've said before, that ‘all North Wales emergency planning is done with North-West England, that 95 per cent or more of crime in North Wales is local or operates on a cross-border east-west basis, and that North Wales Police have no significant operations working on an all-Wales basis.
“Although you have previously avoided responding to these facts when I've raised them with you, the Officers who told me this included senior members of the then North Wales Chief Constable's Command Team, and I note that the Review you announced yesterday will be led by that former Chief Constable. Given that Justice and Policing operate on an east-west basis across Wales, and that most people in Wales live in or near regions straddling the border with England, what assurance can you now provide that objective evidence from Police Forces and other relevant bodies across the border, but operating with Forces and relevant bodies within Wales, will be included in the review?”
The Counsel General responded:
“I think, having commissioned now this expert evidence, the key way forward is to wait until that evidence comes, to then considerate it, evaluate it and then we'll debate it in this Chamber. The points you raise very generally I think are ones that will be addressed within that report and we'll be able to discuss within this Chamber.”
Mr Isherwood has previously warned that the devolution of policing in Wales would deliver the opposite of real devolution and would threaten “to take more powers from the Welsh regions and to centralise these in Cardiff, giving the Welsh Government power to hire and fire Chief Constables”.