Support quality, independent, local journalism…that matters

From just £1 a month you can help fund our work – and use our website without adverts. Become a member today

How safe do you feel in your home or your community?  

Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, where they have full powers over justice and policing, Wales is in a strait jacket when it comes to community safety.  

Because Wales is in an abnormal situation: we have a parliament that makes laws, but decisions about how they are policed are made in another country.  

Commissions and experts have argued that policing decisions should be made in Wales, to cut confusion and complexity – and to make our streets safer.

But despite the First Minister Eluned Morgan and the Welsh Government making the case for Wales to have these powers, they have been rebuked by their Westminster colleagues in UK Labour.

When the UK Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, was asked by Liz Saville Roberts MP whether she supports devolving policing to Wales, she said simply, “No, I do not”.

This damning dismissiveness of Westminster to Wales in four wicked words shows why we need a new Welsh Government that really stands up for Wales.

It is also an example why Wales’s best interests will never be served by any Westminster government. The evidence to back this up is clear: be it through a refusal to grant us policing powers or rail funding, UK Labour seem to have abandoned Wales, just as the Tories did before them. Their derision is an insult to us as a nation.

In the Senedd this week, I challenged the First Minister on this issue. She agreed with me that we should have these powers, to make our communities safer. Sadly, it seems this First Minister is being ignored completely by her Westminster colleagues. Time and again, Wales and our best interests are being sent to the back of the queue by Westminster. Something has to give.