We now move to the next debate on our agenda this afternoon, which is on the police settlement of 2021-22. Again, I call on the Minister for Housing and Local Government to move to the motion—Julie James.

Motion NDM7612 Rebecca Evans

To propose that the Senedd, under Section 84H of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, approves the Local Government Finance Report (No. 2) 2021-22 (Final Settlement - Police and Crime Commissioners), which was laid in the Table Office on 4 February 2021.

Motion moved.

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Today, I am presenting to the Senedd, for its approval, details of the Welsh Government's contribution to the core revenue funding for the four police and crime commissioners, or PCCs, in Wales for 2021-22. Before I do so, Deputy Presiding Officer, I'd like to pay tribute to all of those who serve in our police forces. Over the past year, our police forces have had to deal with unprecedented challenges as a result of the pandemic. They have put themselves on the front line in enforcing national restrictions, risking their own and their families' health and well-being. The pandemic has, of course, not been the only emergency incident that police have helped to deal with over the last year. Those who serve in our police forces across Wales not only keep our communities safe, they maintain the highest standards of duty, dedication and, at times, bravery. Particularly given the recent events, I'd like to record my gratitude to all of the Welsh emergency services for their resilience, and I'm sure these comments will be echoed in this Chamber. 

I recognise the importance of the Welsh police forces and their vital role in protecting and serving our communities here in Wales. The police service in Wales is a positive example of how devolved and non-devolved services can work effectively together. Members will be aware that the core funding for the police in Wales is delivered through a three-way arrangement involving the Home Office, the Welsh Government and council tax. As policing policy and operational matters are non-devolved, the overall funding picture is determined and driven by the Home Office. The established approach to setting and distributing the Welsh Government component has therefore been based on a principle of ensuring consistency and fairness across England and Wales.

I would like to thank PCCs again for their patience this year. Due to the delay in the UK Government's spending review, the Welsh Government's final budget was not published until 2 March. This has once again resulted in PCCs having to set their precepts before the police settlement passed through the Senedd. As outlined in the final police settlement announcement on 4 February, the total unhypothecated revenue support for the police service in Wales for 2021-22 amounts to £408 million. The Welsh Government's contribution to this amount through revenue support grant and redistributed non-domestic rates is £143.4 million, and it is this funding you are being asked to approve today. 

As in previous years, the Home Office has decided to overlay its needs-based formula with a floor mechanism. This means that, for 2021-22, PCCs across England and Wales will all receive an increase in funding of 6.3 per cent compared to 2020-21. The Home Office will provide a top-up grant totalling £23.1 million to ensure Dyfed-Powys Police, North Wales Police and Gwent Police forces meet the floor level. In terms of core funding, this is a cash flat settlement.

The Home Office advises that the 6.3 per cent increase is to provide funding to recruit an additional 6,000 police officers, shared amongst the 43 forces in England and Wales. The Welsh Government is determined to strengthen the economy and create employment opportunities across the country. I welcome the opportunity for people across Wales to consider a career in the police forces. The Prime Minister has committed to a target of 20,000 new officers by the end of 2022-23. However, this target must not be met at the expense of core police services. As in 2020-21, the Home Office will continue to provide a specific grant to PCCs in 2021-22 to fund the additional pressure as a result of the UK Government's changes to the pension contribution rates. The Home Office have kept the grant value at £143 million in 2021-22, with £7.3 million of this allocated to PCCs in Wales. 

PCCs also have the ability to raise additional funding through their council tax precept. The UK Government has set the upper precept limit for PCCs in England to £15 in 2021-22, estimating this will raise an additional £288 million. Unlike the limits that apply in England, Welsh police and crime commissioners have the freedom to make their own decisions about council tax increases. Setting the precept is a key part of the police and crime commissioner's role, which demonstrates accountability to the local electorate.

We appreciate that difficult decisions are necessary in developing plans for the coming years with only a one-year budget. The Welsh Government is committed to working with PCCs and chief constables to ensure funding challenges are managed in ways that minimise the impact on community safety in Wales. As part of this, the Welsh Government, in its 2021-22 budget, has continued to fund the 500 community support officers recruited under the previous programme for Government commitment. The Welsh Government has maintained the same level of funding for the delivery of this commitment as in 2020-21, with the £18.6 million agreed in the budget for next year, subject to, of course, the vote this afternoon, Deputy Presiding Officer. One of the main drivers behind this project was to add visible police presence on our streets at a time when the UK Government is cutting back on police funding. The full complement of officers has been deployed since October 2013, and they are making a positive contribution to public safety across Wales. They will continue to work with local communities and partners to improve outcomes for those affected by crime and anti-social behaviour.

Returning to the purpose of today's debate, the motion is to agree the local government finance report for police and crime commissioners that has been laid before the Senedd. If approved, this will allow the commissioners to confirm their budgets for the next financial year. I therefore ask Senedd Members to support this motion today. Diolch.

I, of course, Minister, would like to join you in commending the work of the police forces in its entirety, and the emergency services also, particularly during the pandemic. I do, however, believe that they could have been better protected on the front line.

The total amount of central support for police forces in Wales in 2021-22 will be £408.2 million. This is an increase of around £24 million compared to the previous financial year. Thanks to the increase in the financial support from the UK Conservative Government, police forces in Wales will receive a 6.3 per cent increase in funding for the upcoming financial year. This comes on top of a 7.5 per cent increase in funding for the current financial year. This will help police forces to tackle crime and deliver safer streets, enabling Welsh communities to build back safer.

However, the Welsh Government's contribution to the police settlement has stagnated. The Welsh Government will provide a total of £143.4 million, which is the same level of funding as in 2019-20 and 2020-21. In fact, the Welsh Government support for the police settlement has increased by just £4.7 million between 2017-18 and 2021-22. By comparison, the UK Conservative Government support has increased by £53.6 million between 2017-18 and 2021-22, meaning that the total central support for Welsh police forces has increased by more than 16 per cent since 2017. This is a 5.7 per cent increase compared to 2020-21, significantly higher than the rate of inflation. This means that the Welsh police forces will share total resource funding of over £780 million, highlighting the benefits of being part of the union by ensuring that police forces have the resources they need to keep Wales safe.

Welsh Labour and Plaid police and crime commissioners have increased the police precept, as you outlined, by almost a third since the last PCC elections, taking even more money out of people's pockets. Despite complaining about a lack of funding, Wales's PCCs have spent more than £8 million on public relations and staffing costs between 2016 and 2020. Welsh Conservative PCCs would tackle this unforgivable waste of public money and instead focus on delivering on people's priorities—putting more police officers on our streets, tackling crime and creating safer streets. The most recent statistics show that an extra 309 police officers have been so far recruited in Wales under the UK Government's recruitment strategy. Meanwhile, the UK has announced an additional 283 police officers will be recruited in Wales under year 2 of the police uplift programme in 2021-22.

The Llywydd took the Chair.

Furthermore, Wales will benefit from additional specialised police officers, ensuring that Wales is at the forefront of the fight against terrorism and organised crime. Recent statistics show that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, crime in England and Wales has reduced by 6 per cent in the 12 months to September 2020, highlighting that the UK Government's investment in our police is delivering results.

While the Conservatives are supporting the police and delivering safer streets, Welsh Labour and Plaid are obsessing over the devolution of justice, legalising drugs and votes for convicted criminals. The Welsh Government's Commission on Justice in Wales report recommended the full devolution of justice to the Welsh Government, yet this fails to recognise the cross-border nature of criminal activity and the importance of working together to tackle crime. Any devolution of criminal justice may hinder collaborative working between police forces in Wales and elsewhere in the UK. Presiding Officer, the UK Conservative Government is delivering on the priorities of the people of Wales by ensuring that there are more police officers on our streets, as well as emphasising its commitment to deliver the resources our police forces need. Many thanks. 

Like all Welsh public services, the police service has been subject to austerity since the banking crash of 2008, and every police service in this country has seen its front-line contact with the public diminish as police stations have closed and police bases placed further away from the communities that they serve. Everyone that I have spoken to who works in the police service wants more resources. There are now specific COVID-related issues that the police have seen place extra demands, additional demands, on their time and resources. I'd like to take this opportunity to add my thanks to everybody who has worked on the front line in the police service and all other key workers, who've seen their working lives altered beyond all recognition as a result of this COVID crisis. It's important to put on record that their efforts are very well appreciated by us all. 

COVID means that there are more laws to enforce now, and while some account might have been taken of that in financial terms, the fact remains that years of successive budget cuts have left the police with challenges during COVID, just like all other public services have faced challenges as a result of COVID. And, of course, cuts to other public services impact upon the police, too. More homeless people, more work for the police. Cuts to mental health services sees more people with mental health problems having to be dealt with by the police, when many years ago they would have been able to have much easier access to the specialist support that they need. 

Now, I know that Plaid Cymru's police and crime commissioner candidates have some fantastic ideas as to what could be done in that role. And, of course, we have two police and crime commissioners who are already doing fantastic work in that role. But, of course, all of their ambitions will be limited, to some extent at least, by budgets. It's no secret that Plaid Cymru wants to see the police—in fact, the whole of the criminal justice system—devolved. It makes no sense for some of the public services to be devolved but not the police. We want to be able to treat substances as a health issue and not a criminal issue, where that's relevant, but we can't do that without responsibility over police and crime. How can we properly address adverse childhood experiences when health and education are devolved but policing and criminal justice aren't? Scotland is showing us how, with devolved police, you can take a whole-systems approach, focusing more on crime prevention, early intervention, multidisciplinary support to divert people away from the criminal justice system where that's the right thing to do—something we should be able to do, especially when the person's problem is more of a health problem than a criminal problem. 

Plaid Cymru will soon be outlining our plans ahead of the PCC elections to make police funding in Wales fairer. There is so much more that we could do to combat fear of crime, to be more visible in communities, to reduce crime and reoffending, to tackle ACEs, to support victims and tackle hate crime. But, to do this properly, the police need decent investment. The Government knows that this settlement is inadequate, and it knows that what is before us today is not enough. 

I very much agree with other speakers in this debate this afternoon. We all owe a great deal to police officers and to all those who have been working on the front line in the emergency services, particularly over the last year with the additional pressures of COVID and the additional pressures that they have had to face. And in paying tribute to them, we shouldn't try to pretend that they're not under the pressures they are under, and we shouldn't try to pretend that they have received the funding and the resources that they deserve and they need.

If I was a Conservative spokesperson in this debate, I would probably do what Laura Jones actually did do, which is to choose a year—I think she chose 2017—when funding was at its lowest, and then demonstrate that the Conservative UK Government had been generous by replacing some of the funding that they themselves had already cut from the budget. Had she been completely honest in her approach, she would have gone back to 2013, because that's the furthest back we can go under current comparisons, and she would have looked at the funding that was available to police forces from the Home Office in 2013 and 2014. I've done that; it was £240 million, which is a curious figure, because it's the same figure that's in today's budget from the Home Office. We've had eight years of funding that's been cut by the Home Office and replaced in the last two or three years, so the Home Office funding to Welsh police forces today is exactly the same in cash terms as it was back in 2013 and 2014, and trying to pretend that that is in some way generous or that the Home Office and the UK Government are in some ways increasing funding to the police is exceptionally disingenuous and, frankly, dishonest; it doesn't tell the truth about police funding over the last few years.

But there's another truism there as well, and that is that the Home Office has changed through its own cuts and through a wider strategy. In terms of the balance of funding for the police back in 2013 or 2014, the council tax precept as part of overall police funding formed around 37 per cent of the total budget available to police forces. Today, that figure is 47 per cent. Nearly half of police funding today in Wales is raised in Wales. It's not provided by the Home Office. And of course, the average precept has increased from £198 in 2013-14 to £274 today. And that is to replace the cuts that have been made by the Home Office in police funding. So, let's be honest about this debate, and let's be honest about what's happened in recent years. That's a tragedy for individual police officers, it's a tragedy for the police service, and it's a tragedy for the communities that need the police to keep us safe. We need to do something about that.

I agree with much of what Leanne Wood had to say in this debate, because the issue around the support and structure of policing isn't simply around the distribution of criminality; if that were the case, then the UK Government would never have taken the UK out of the EU justice system, which is probably the single most destructive thing that's been done in the last few decades in terms of addressing issues of criminality and catching crooks, quite frankly. There'll be more people evading justice today because of that single decision than we've had in any time in recent years.

But we need to go further and to do more than that. If we had a justice system that was fit for purpose in Wales, then we would have a justice system that addressed the issues of women in it. We do not. For centuries, we've had criminal justice controlled by Westminster without giving a damn about the interests of the people in Wales. There has not been a single centre for women established throughout all those decades and centuries of central control, and that is a tragedy. We also know that up until a few years ago, there was no secure facility in north Wales, and then a superprison was created in Wrexham that doesn't meet the needs of north Wales, but meets the needs of the justice system largely in England.

So, we don't have a criminal justice system that's fit for purpose. We don't have a criminal justice system that is funded properly. The debate we had in the budget debate demonstrated very clearly that we'll have a Ministry of Justice that will see further cuts in the next five or six years and that will lead to even more pressures on the police force and even more pressures on the criminal justice system. I think what the police force want from this Parliament isn't warm words and sympathy, and a level of, frankly, dishonesty; what they want is funding and resources and the ability to be structured, governed properly amongst other public services in Wales, accountable to the communities they police, and the ability to do the job.

I now call on the Minister for Housing and Local Government to reply to the debate—Julie James.

Diolch, Llywydd. I would like to thank Members for their interest and contributions today.

Once again, what to say to Laura Jones? I don't know whether she just didn't understand it or is being disingenuous, as Alun says. But just to reiterate once more, the funding provided through the Welsh Government accounts for 35 per cent of the core revenue grant funding for policing in Wales. When council tax is included, 65 per cent of the general funding for policing in Wales is administered here. Obviously any devolution of policing that happens would need to come with the appropriate funding. I absolutely agree with both Leanne Wood and Alun Davies about both the importance of us having control of that in order to do all of the things that they both set out, and with which I entirely agree, and our ability to fund those strategies, possibly.

Laura Anne Jones, I'm sure, knows that the Welsh Government passes on the amount agreed with and transferred to the Welsh Government from Her Majesty's Treasury and the Home Office. Policing is non-devolved, as I'm sure she knows, and it's obviously not appropriate to reduce funding for devolved responsibilities in order to increase them for non-devolved responsibilities. I think that's just self-evident. So, she was either, as I say, being disingenuous or fundamentally misunderstands the purpose. I suspect strongly, as Alun Davies said, she was merely trying to make a political point very poorly.

I'd just like to reiterate once more that community safety is obviously a top priority for this Government. As I said in my opening remarks, whilst this settlement appears on the face of it to be a good settlement, as Alun and Leanne both pointed out, it is in fact cash flat in terms of core funding, and therefore not in fact a good settlement at all. It merely restores the police to where they were before.

I know that some police and crime commissioners have expressed concern that while additional funding has been provided for new officers, there is still insufficient funding for the existing complements. However, this is a matter, unfortunately, for the Home Office, as it's not devolved to us, and there's nothing we can do to make that up. We are, however, committed to working with PCCs and chief constables to ensure that these challenges are managed in ways that limit the impact on community safety and front-line policing in Wales. Continuing to work in partnership, as always, to identify and take forward opportunities is very important, as is demonstrated by the successful deployment of our 500 community support officers, who have made such a difference to the visible police presence on our streets in this last year, as always.

On that basis, Llywydd, I commend this settlement to the Senedd. Diolch.

The proposal is to agree the motion. Does any Member object? [Objection.] Yes, there is an objection—[Interruption.]

Yes, I did see. Thank you.

Therefore, I defer voting under this item until voting time.

Voting deferred until voting time.