Part of 2. Questions to the Counsel General and Minister for European Transition (in respect of his 'law officer' responsibilities) – in the Senedd at 2:49 pm on 16 March 2021.
Thank you. From previous scrutiny that I've laid before you, you will be aware of my view that the Welsh Government certainly does have a role to play in tackling rural crime. I would like to highlight an article in a recent Farmers Guardian publication. The headline reads:
'Organised gangs target farm quad bikes'.
So, we're not talking about the odd quad bike being stolen, but we're talking now about organised gangs, and that is far more ramped up in terms of criminal behaviour. Data from NFU Mutual shows that thefts are continuing to rise year on year, up from 1.8 million in 2015 to 2.6 million in just three years. Detective Constable Chris Piggott, rural vehicle crime intelligence officer at the National Vehicle Crime Intelligence Service, has advised that several gangs now seem to be moving across force borders and that, at the moment, most of Wales is being targeted. Lesley Griffiths MS recently sent me a letter explaining that she is in correspondence with Lord Goldsmith, the north Wales rural crime team and DEFRA colleagues. I welcome that, but I'm just wondering whether you've had more discussions with the Minister about supporting the calls for the formation of a national rural crime taskforce for Wales. Will you support such a proposal, to bring Welsh stakeholders together to work on a suitable Welsh Government response so as to protect our rural communities and, of course, so as to create a platform from which key correspondence can be sent from Wales to the UK Government and that we can have better collaborative working on rural crime, going forward? Thank you.