What of the day-to-day policing carried out by the four Welsh police forces? Effectively, the role of the police and crime commissioners, who currently report to the Home Secretary, they should be reporting to whichever Secretary or whichever Cabinet Member we have here. And I assume that, under the current set-up, because I know that Jane Hutt is replying to this debate, it would actually be Jane Hutt. But whoever holds whatever role it is that covers that, they should be reporting to them, not reporting to the Home Secretary. 

The police don't work in isolation. When you dial 999, you don't say, 'Which service do you want? Do you want a devolved one or a non-devolved one?' You dial 999 and you ask for an emergency service. Why are three of them devolved and one isn't? 

Another argument in favour of devolving policing is the ability to better connect policing with other devolved services, such as support for victims of domestic abuse and the health service. Now, this is not a criticism of the police and crime commissioners in Wales, all four of whom I think very highly of. Two of them are personal friends, and people, I think, are doing a very good job under the circumstances in which they work. But, really, they're working to the Home Secretary, they're not working to the Minister here, and I think it's important that they are responsible to the Minister here.

The Welsh Government's expansion of community support officers, increasing their visibility, has had a positive effect on both crime and anti-social behaviour. You're more likely to see a community support officer when you're walking around the constituency or region you live in than you are to see a police officer walking around the streets. Now, that's, again, not a criticism of the police, it's just that they are the visible face of policing. Five hundred plus of those have been provided by the Welsh Government and, as a Member of this place said many years ago when we were discussing this the last time, and that was Steffan Lewis, 'Of course, the other advantage of devolving police, because of the way the Barnett formula works, we get 5 per cent more for policing in Wales than is spent at the moment.' That 5 per cent can make a big different to policing in Wales. We know that's how the Barnett formula works. And I pay tribute to Steffan Lewis who did a huge amount of work on supporting devolution of items such as policing.

I know how popular police community support officers are in Swansea East, and I know people who their first point of call when they've got a problem is to go to the local PCSO, many of whom they see walking up and down the street. Many of the older generation will remember when we had watch committees responsible for policing in Wales. During most of the twentieth century, policing was a local government function controlled by the watch committee of the relevant country or, in the case in Swansea, Cardiff, Merthyr and Newport, county borough council. We then moved from local watch committees to the police committees, with South Wales Police covering, for example, the whole of Glamorgan, but with very little control over the local police force. The replacement of police sergeants by police commissioners is the only major structural change that's taken place in policing since 1960. South Wales, Dyfed-Powys, North Wales and Gwent have been in their current form, with minor amendments in local government reorganisation in 1996, since the 1960s.

With policing devolved to Scotland and Northern Ireland, it is anomalous it's not been devolved to Wales. The Northern Ireland Assembly voted in favour of it. Now, Northern Ireland you would think would be the last place you'd devolve policing, with all the problems that have existed there and with political parties in existence there and with representatives who are associated with people who had been involved in armed struggle. The vote underpinned the Hillsborough agreement, brokered between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Fein, and stabilised the region's power-sharing Government. The Assembly then created a Department of Justice for Northern Ireland after the powers were devolved. 

If the Welsh Assembly voted in favour of devolving policing today, who thinks we'll have it devolved within a few months? But it will show what we want to happen; I think that's the important thing. We tell the Westminster Government this is the direction of travel we want to go to.

Looking at continental Europe and North America, it is Wales, again, that appears out of step. Across most of the democratic world, other than control of national security and serious crime, policing is carried out by the regional or local police forces. Law enforcement in Germany lies with the 16 federal states; each lays out the organisation and the duties of its police. Germany also has a central police force responsible for border security, protection of federal buildings, and a mobile response force that is able to help out or reinforce state police if required. Policing in the USA consists of federal agencies like the Federal Bureau of Investigation, state agencies, such as highway patrol, and local policing by county police and sheriff's departments. What these have in common is that local policing is local, and major crime and national security is dealt with at the national level.

What do the Welsh public think? A survey carried out by Beaufort Research and the Silk Commission on Devolution in Wales found that 63 per cent of the 2,000 responders polled were in favour of policing powers for Wales being devolved from central Government in England. I believe that the way forward is to devolve most policing to the National Assembly. I will say this now: I hope that we're not going to have the Conservatives saying, 'We don't want to devolve the national crime agency and national security.' I don't either; it's the normal, everyday policing that I want devolved. Just remember that, up until 1960, the large cities of Britain policed themselves without anyone outside the Home Office having any concerns. We should get back the right to police ourselves and hand local policing to the Welsh Government.