Part of 2. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 1:58 pm on 29 June 2021.
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?