2. Will the First Minister make a statement on the Welsh Government's target to fund additional police community support officers? OQ56683

Llywydd, I thank Jack Sargeant for that. The programme for government commits to providing a further 100 police community support officers in Wales. I chaired a meeting of the Policing Partnership Board for Wales on Thursday of last week, where this commitment was widely welcomed.

Thank you, First Minister, for that answer. I recently met with north Wales's newly elected police and crime commissioner, Andy Dunbobbin, and we both welcomed the Welsh Government's additional PCSOs, on top of those already funded by your Government, but we were both extremely concerned about the UK Government's failure to deliver the 62 police officers that the Prime Minister promised for Deeside. In fact, the Home Office just recently were only able to talk about recruitment rather than additional officers, and it was completely, completely unclear whether this was to replace officers who have already left the force. First Minister, will you join calls from myself and Andy Dunbobbin for the UK Government to honour their promise, and will you also update the Chamber on how your Government will work with North Wales Police to get additional community support officers on the street?

Llywydd, I thank Jack Sargeant for that question, and for his long-standing campaign to make sure that his constituency gets the level of policing that it needs. He will know that, in 2018, the number of police officers across England and Wales was the lowest since 1981, and that is a direct result of that decade of austerity when, year after year after year, the Conservative Party inflicted cuts on police forces across England and Wales, and certainly here in Wales, where nearly 500 police officers were lost over that period.

Despite the promises that have been made, I understand why the Member goes on campaigning, because Alyn and Deeside had fewer police officers in the year 2020 than it did in 2017, despite the promises that have been made. So, I'm certainly happy to commit to work alongside him and the new Police and Crime Commissioner for North Wales to make sure of the promises that have been made by the UK Government to undo some of the harm that they themselves have inflicted on the safety of communities, and to deliver on the promise they've made.

Let me give the Member one small spot of comfort, which is that we have received an assurance from the UK Government, from the Home Office, that, when they talk about additional police officers, they mean numbers over and above those needed to replace people who have retired or been promoted or for any other reason left the service. So, we must hold them to account on that as well. In the meantime, Jack Sargeant is obviously right, Llywydd, that our commitment not simply to sustain the 500 police community support officers that we've provided as a Government almost throughout the period of austerity, but to add another 100 to that, was popular the length and breadth of Wales. We have an operational group set up to work on how those new 100 officers are going to be recruited, allocated and financed. The group met on 15 June, and, when we get its advice, we will move forward, and I hope to see many of those new officers appointed and on the beat and in north Wales and in the Member's constituency before the end of this financial year.

With community safety being a devolved matter, the Welsh Conservative Party manifesto in May stated that we would increase funding for police community support officers each year, working alongside the UK Government to recruit an additional 20,000 officers in England and Wales by 2023. That's what's really happening. How do you therefore propose to ensure partnership working between the Welsh and UK Governments on this agenda, where the UK Government target to recruit 6,000 more police officers in England and Wales by March 2021 was dramatically exceeded, including 437 extra officers in Wales, 99 in north Wales, with further increases to follow in the next two years—remember, it's a three-year target—recognising that community safety in north Wales is entirely dependent upon North Wales Police's established, integrated working with their adjacent partner police forces in north-west England?

Llywydd, I'm glad to hear the Member's figures, which show that his party is finally making good some of the damage that they inflicted on policing in Wales over a decade—a decade in which, every time they cut the budget, he supported them in doing so. I agree with him, however, on the importance of working across boundaries to make sure that communities in Wales are kept as safe as possible. I said in my opening answer, Llywydd, that I chaired a meeting of the Policing Partnership Board for Wales on Thursday of last week, and I was glad to welcome the Secretary of State for Wales to that meeting and to hear his contribution to it. Where the UK Government is prepared to come to the table in that way, I welcome it, and it allows us to work together on areas where there are common concerns and clear interests of Welsh people in doing so. 

Brif Weinidog, the Welsh Government has funded CSOs, or PCSOs as they were then called, for nearly a decade. I can reiterate that Welsh chief officers are happy with that, they're glad for the additional funding, and it's raised their capability and their visibility, which their English counterparts don't have, but as policing is still a reserved matter and the funding therefore is discretionary in nature, how secure is this funding for the future? Diolch.

The funding is entirely secure, Llywydd, for the rest of this Senedd term. My party's manifesto committed us to that and it committed us to the extra 100 officers that will now be provided. Provision is already made in this year's budget to begin that process and, as I say, I look forward to seeing that appointment process under way so that we can begin to spend the money that we've set aside, and then to build that up so that we are funding the whole of the 600 officers to which we are committed as soon as that process is able to have them in place.