Speaking in yesterday’s meeting of the Welsh Parliament, Shadow Minister for Social Justice and Shadow Counsel General, Mark Isherwood MS, highlighted the extortionate costs of creating separate jurisdictions for Wales and for England and outlined an array of other reasons why calls for devolution of the justice system should not be answered.
Responding to the Statement by the Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution on ‘Justice in Wales’, Mr Isherwood also asked why “The Thomas Commission on Justice Report only includes one reference to any cross-border criminality, in the context of County Lines - and the solution it proposes is joint working across the four Welsh forces in collaboration with other agencies, but no reference to partners across the border”, given “that Senior Police Officers told me during my visit to the North West Regional Organised Crime Unit that 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 by the Chief Constables and Police and Crime Commissioners in Wales was largely ignored in the Commission’s Report”.
Speaking in the meeting, he said:
“Commenting yesterday (Monday), the Welsh Government stated ‘that by joining up the justice system with the rest of Welsh policy making we can find truly effective ways of reducing crime’.
“However, what confidence can we have that alignment of policies and decisions about Justice with this Welsh Government’s devolved policy agenda will improve matters, when: Wales has the highest proportion of children in the UK in care and one of the highest proportions of children looked after by the state in the World; Public order crime in Wales is 132% of the England and Wales figure, the highest rate out of eight regions; Violent crime in Wales is 106% of the England and Wales figure, also the highest rate out of eight regions; ONS figures to last June showed that North Wales had one of the highest rates of violence against the person and sexual offences per 1,000 people in the UK; a poll of 2,000 adults across 15 major UK cities found last September that Cardiff ‘is the UK’s most dangerous City’ where locals feel least safe; And the Wales Governance Centre reported in 2019 that Wales has the highest rate of imprisonment in Western Europe - and although the total number of prison sentences rose in Wales between 2010 and 2017, they fell by 16% in England.
“The report’s author stated that ‘wider research is needed to try to explain Wales’ high rate of imprisonment’. Is it therefore not the case that such a difference in delivery within what is a shared criminal justice system shows why the calls for devolution of criminal justice should not be answered?
“Commenting yesterday, the Welsh Government stated ‘devolution must happen so all this money can be reinvested in meeting Wales’s urgent needs’. In reality, creating separate jurisdictions for Wales and for England would be unjustifiably costly and lead to significant duplication of functions. Why have you therefore conveniently ignored the Silk Commission estimate that the devolution of policing and justice would cost a whopping £100 million a year?”
Referring to the UK Government’s Female Offender Strategy, which includes the establishment of five pilot Residential Women’s Centres, including one in Wales, Mr Isherwood questioned the Counsel General over how the Welsh Government announcement that the Centre in Wales will be situated near Swansea in South Wales will ‘help vulnerable women offenders in North, Mid and West Wales to access the services they need closer to home’.
He also asked how the Welsh Government is engaging positively with the ‘Turnaround Scheme’ announced by the UK Ministry of Justice last week, ‘with £300 million over the next 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’.
Speaking afterwards, Mr Isherwood added:
“Rather than acknowledge or answer my evidence-based but clearly inconvenient questions, the Counsel General recycled his own selective and outdated arguments in support of these damaging proposals. Further, his comparison of the position in Wales with the situation in Northern Ireland and Scotland is irresponsible foolishness, when Northern Ireland and the UK are separated by the Irish Sea, only 2% of the population of Scotland lives in the Scottish Borders between Scotland and England, but 48% of people in Wales live within 25 miles of the border with England, and 90% within 50 miles.”