North Wales MS Mark Isherwood has emphasised that the UK Public Order Act seeks to protect both the public and businesses from disruption caused by a minority of protestors and hit back at the Counsel General’s “different vision for justice”.
In his Statement on ‘The Public Order Act 2023 - Implications for Wales’ yesterday, the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution said: 'In Wales, we have a different vision for justice. We seek a trauma-informed and anti-racist criminal justice system, which addresses the drivers of crime and helps vulnerable people in Wales live healthy, crime-free lives’.
Responding in the Chamber, Mr Isherwood said:
“How can he justify this, when Wales has higher violent crime rates than London, and south-east, east and south-west England; when Wales has the highest proportion of children in the UK in care, and one of the highest proportions of children looked after by any State in the World; when figures in 2019 - 20 years after the start of Labour Welsh Government - found that Wales had the highest imprisonment rate in Western Europe because of sentencing and custodial patterns occurring in Wales; and when, during their visit to HMP Eastwood Park Women's Prison, where 148 of the 340 prisoners are from Wales, Members of the Senedd's Equality and Social Justice Committee were told that, when released from the prison, ‘nine out of 10 Welsh inmates go on to reoffend, compared to one in 10 of those from England’?
“How does the Counsel General account for this, when the UK Government has responsibility for criminal justice functions, but the Welsh Government was responsible for housing, health, social care, economic development, education and skills when these women returned to Wales, when these violent crimes occurred in Wales, when these children were taken into care in Wales, and when these people were sentenced in Wales?”
He added:
“The Counsel General has repeatedly called for devolution of Justice and Policing, and he's used his Statement today as another platform to repeat this. Will he therefore recognise the factual reality that most people in Wales live a short travelling distance from the invisible border with the part of Britain called England; that the most populated regions crossing a national border within the UK lie along this border; that Public Order, just like Policing and Justice, operates on an East/West axis across this border; that cross-border solutions are therefore required; and that these could not be delivered if these matters were devolved to Wales?
“Further, and finally, does the Counsel General recognise that to devolve or not to devolve is not about the transient policies and personalities of different Governments at a particular point in time; that both the policies of Parties, and the policies, personalities and Parties of Government in any geographical area, change over time?”
With regards the UK Public Order Act, which received Royal Assent on 2 May this year, Mr Isherwood said:
“The ordinary person in the street agrees with the right to protest and protecting free speech However, most people would also agree that a balance needs to be struck between the freedom to protest and the freedom of individuals to go about their daily lives. Do the Counsel General and the Labour Welsh Government therefore not agree that people rightly expect the Police to step in to maintain public order?
“Do the Counsel General and the Labour Welsh Government not agree that intervention is required when criminal damage and extreme behaviour disrupts the lives of others, especially when this includes, for example, commuters or ambulances on public roads being blocked, and people not being able to take children to school or to get to work? Do the Counsel General and the Labour Welsh Government not agree that there is a need to clearly define ‘serious disruption’, as requested by Police Chiefs, empowering police to intervene against highly disruptive tactics used to block roads and cause chaos? This, of course, is regardless of the merits or otherwise of the issues being protested about, even when some of these propose actions that could lead to harm or death for large numbers of people.”