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.