North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has raised serious concerns over renewed proposals for Police Force mergers and calls for the devolution of policing to Wales.
Speaking in the Senedd yesterday during a Topical Question on Police Reform, Mr Isherwood referred to the detailed scrutiny of the proposed Welsh Police merger twenty years ago which he was involved in and which led to the proposals being abandoned in 2007 across England and Wales by a Labour Home Secretary.
Mr Isherwood stressed that instead of looking at Police Force mergers, the focus should be on the worrying fall in police numbers.
He said:
“I was a member of the sub-Committee of the Assembly's Social Justice and Regeneration Committee which carried out the detailed scrutiny work considering the then proposed Welsh Police merger two decades ago, which led to Police mergers being aborted by a Labour Home Secretary across England and Wales.
“Our Report also noted that cross-border partnerships must reflect operational reality.
“Well, little in reality, has changed in the context of Police structure or operations since.
“And when I visited the North-West Regional Organised Crime Unit, a collaboration between North Wales Police and North-West England Forces, they told me that evidence given to the Thomas Commission was largely ignored in its Report, which failed to reference the established deep-rooted joint working with neighbouring Police Forces across the invisible east-west crime and justice border with England. This is also missing from the Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales Report.
“Noting that these facts are very different to the situation in Scotland and Northern Ireland, wasn't the UK Home Secretary's failure to agree with the devolution of policing to Wales (now) therefore evidentially correct, and should we not be more concerned that Police numbers have plummeted under Labour from the record high number at the end of March 2024?”
Speaking outside the meeting, he added:
“After inheriting the Police Budget cuts to 2014 announced in Labour’s March 2010 UK Budget Statement, which stated that the scale of the deficit meant that the UK didn't have enough money, Conservative UK Governments then invested to grow Police numbers.”
