New Plaid Cymru Leader, same old chestnuts being recycled yet again.
I will therefore recycle my arguments showing that this call defies reality.
Of course, Wales remains the only devolved nation without its own legal system and powers over its police forces, reflecting the rational basis for this.
Specialist policing matters such as counter-terrorism are best co-ordinated at a UK level.
Further, Policing in Scotland and Northern Ireland is a devolved matter, but for reasons of geography and history, the situation in Wales is entirely different.
Prior to the introduction of Direct Rule in 1972, the old Stormont Parliament had responsibility for policing and justice in Northern Ireland – and successive UK Governments retained a commitment to re- devolve policing and justice when circumstances were right to do so.
Further, Great Britain and Northern Ireland are separated by a big chunk of sea.
In contrast, 48% of people in Wales live within 25 miles of the border with England, and 90% within 50 miles.
In further contrast, only 5% of the combined population of Scotland and England lives within 50 miles of the border between those countries.
Despite this, the Thomas report makes only one reference to the key issue of Cross Border Criminality, “in the context of ‘County Lines’? - And the only solution it proposes is ‘joint working across the four Welsh forces in collaboration with other agencies’, without any reference to established joint working with neighbouring partners across the invisible crime and justice border with England.
Although I have repeatedly asked Welsh Government Ministers whether they will commission work to remedy this deficit, they have always dodged, dived and diverted in the name of policy-led evidence.
As I learned when I visited TITAN’, the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit, a collaboration of North Wales Police and 5 North West England Forces:
- all North Wales emergency planning is done with North West England
- 95% or more of crime in North Wales is local or operates on a cross-border East/West basis
- North Wales Police have no significant operations working on an all-Wales basis
- AND that evidence given to the Thomas Commission was largely ignored in the Commission’s Report.
Commenting on its “Delivering Justice for Wales” Report last year, the Welsh Government described a “distinct Welsh justice policy based on prevention through tackling social challenges and rehabilitation”, and contrasted this with “a more punitive approach” by the UK Government.
In so doing, it conveniently ignored all evidence to the contrary, when the UK Government has stated repeatedly that it favours “a policy based on prevention through tackling social challenges and rehabilitation”?
It ignored the UK Ministry of Justice’s Prisons Strategy White Paper to rehabilitate offenders and cut crime; its ‘Victims Strategy’, to align support for victims with the changing nature of crime; and its £300 Million “Turn Around Scheme”, over 3 years, to support every Council across Wales and England in catching and preventing youth offending earlier than ever, helping to stop these children and teenagers from moving on to further, more serious offending.
Further, it was the UK Government which published a Female Offender Strategy, to divert vulnerable female offenders away from short prison sentences wherever possible, invest in community services and establish five pilot Residential Women’s Centres, including one in Wales.
However, it was the Minister for Social Justice here who subsequently wrote to Members stating that she had been working closely with the UK Ministry of Justice, and announcing that one of these Centres would be near Swansea in South Wales.
She could not answer how this would help vulnerable women offenders in North, Mid and West Wales to access the services they need closer to home.
Further, Swansea’s Planning Committee then refused this.
Of course, the UK Government recognises that devolution has altered the legislative and policy context to policing and criminal justice in Wales, and has already established a form of administrative devolution through ‘Welsh offices’, units or directorates based upon co-operation, including HM Prison and Probation Service in Wales, Youth Justice Board Cymru and HM Court and Tribunal Service Wales.
To devolve or not to devolve is not about the transient policies and personalities of different Governments at a particular point in time.
Both the policies of Parties, and the policies, personalities and Parties of Government in any geographical area, change over time - and neither Plaid Cymru’s desire to divide and destabilise, nor the Labour Welsh Government’s desire to grab ever more power, should be allowed to distract us from the real needs of Britons on both sides of the East-West England/Wales border.