OUR EVER THINNER BLUE LINE

Since September 2009 - which was the last set of figures before the Conservatives came into government in coalition with the Liberal Democrats - there's been a cut of 22,424 police officers at the same time the numbers of police community support officers (PCSOs), who patrol the streets, have been reduced by almost 40% since the Tories took office in 2010.  

The Scottish police force has been exempt from Tory cuts due to the fact that policing is devolved to Scotland. As a result Police officer numbers in Scotland has risen more or less continuously for the last 30 years while in Northern Ireland there has been a smaller decrease since 2010 than in England and Wales.

Back in 2016 the Westminster Government delayed the introduction of a new funding formula for forces in Wales and England after a “statistical error” was discovered. Once the new funding formula was introduced, Welsh police forces ended up some £32 million a year worse off. 

The danger is that those Con Dem and Conservative cuts could end up shaping and setting the policing agenda here in Wales for the next twenty years. We should also remember that when the choice of devolving Policing to Wales was tabled during the Wales Bill debate the Conservatives voted it down and the Labour Party abstained.

Fundamentally policing decisions in Wales need to reflect the needs and concerns of our communities, not the cost cutting agenda of the current Conservative Prime Minister (and previous Home Secretary) and the Ministry of Criminal Justice in London.

The devolution of policing would have meant that the Welsh police forces would have been exempt from the Tories’ planned £32 million cut to their budgets and could have benefitted by an additional £25 million through being funded through the Barnett formula - something that could have meant a total difference in Welsh police budgets of some £57 million.

At the end of the day, the Welsh people have a simple democratic right to have a greater say in something so fundamental to civilised community life as policing. This is already the case in Scotland, Northern Ireland, London and Manchester. Policing is only one side of the coin, to make devolved policing work, there is also a need to devolve control of criminal justice. 

Now is right time to devolve policing powers to the Welsh Government in Cardiff before our communities have to live with the consequences of any more cuts forced upon us post BREXIT . Devolving policing powers would increase the accountability of the Welsh Government; strengthen the democratic process by allowing decisions, which directly impact on the Welsh people to be made, reviewed, revised and changed here in Wales. 

MOVING NEWPORT’S POST OFFICE

The Post Office are planning to relocate its current branch from the Sovereign Arcade, Kingsway Centre, into a nearby vacant retail store in Upper Dock Street - thats not necessarily a problem, as its closer to the bus station and the parking.  However, a number of issues that should cause concern, the plan is for the relocated Post Office to be run by a retail partner, A S Stores Ltd, not the Post Office. 

The plan to extend opening hours to seven days a week is also a good idea. As is the suggestion that there should be seven serving positions, something that the Post Office planners have based on current and forecast future business levels; there will be four open plan positions and two more traditional screened positions which will also provide travel money services, as well as an open plan service point at the retail counter. Questions need to be asked about potential job loses amongst the highly professional well trained Post office staff who currently employed by Royal Mail. 

Additionally a respectable home needs to be found for the war memorial which is located in Newport Post Office and is dedicated to those of staff who worked for the organisation when it was the General Post Office (GPO), which is now Royal Mail. Any plans to relocate the memorial must ensure that members of the public may continue to pay their respects to those of post office staff who made the ultimate sacrifice. 

A public consultation is being held on the proposed move with a closing date of August 15, with the relocation taking place in October.

https://www.postofficeviews.co.uk/national-consultation-team/newport-np20-1eb-019632/user_uploads/newport-np20-1eb---proposal-letter.pdf

TAKING BACK CONTROL

Plaid Cymru has responded to a report from the IPPR, which shows that Wales and the north east of England will be hit hardest by Brexit, as a result of price rises exposure to EU export market. Responding to the report, Plaid Cymru’s Brexit spokesperson in Westminster, Hywel Williams MP said:

“The real impact of the  Westminster parties’ needlessly hard Brexit is beginning to reveal itself across the UK and as this report shows – more so in Wales than the other UK countries.

“Families are already £900 a year poorer than they would have been had the referendum result gone the other way, and if we follow the policies of both Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn and leave the Single Market and Customs Union, we will fall further significantly further behind as the cost of living soars.

“Just over a week ago one of Wales’s most important employers warned they would have to consider leaving Wales as a result of Tory and Labour Brexit policies, and since then the Tory Westminster Government has broken its promise to invest in the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon. They are refusing to create jobs and boost wages in Wales while at the same time threatening the jobs that already exist.

“The key lesson for Wales is that we cannot continue to allow Westminster to make all our decisions on our behalf. We have to take control over our own future or families will continue to get poorer, and more and more businesses will need to look elsewhere.

“It’s time we took control over our own country.”

The full report, ‘An equal exit? The distributional consequences of leaving the EU’ is online  at: https://www.ippr.org/research/publications/an-equal-exit