With the look at the current strength and administration of the police (Part Va) and some of the issues facing the police at present (Part Vb) out of the way, it’s time to focus on what general policing options an independent Wales might have.
It’s right to point out that independence isn’t strictly necessary here as policing could simply be devolved – though the chances of that appear to be slim. Independence would provide a completely blank canvas, or not if we decide to keep things as close to how they are now as is possible (it’s up to us).
What would happen to the likes of the British Transport Police, Civil Nuclear Constabulary, National Crime Agency etc. (Part Va)?
Some law enforcement-like agencies already operate separately from the police or have a presence in Wales, like HMRC, the DVLA and Natural Resources Wales. They’re not worth focusing on here.
Next, let’s discard the special police forces that aren’t relevant to this discussion.
The Civil Nuclear Constabulary has no presence in Wales as all nuclear power stations have been decommissioned; maybe they’ll be brought back if small modular reactors are built to Wylfa B restarts but that’s speculation for now. Similarly, the Ministry of Defence Police only has one posting at St Athan.
In both cases, responsibility for nuclear policing and policing of military estates could probably be handed over to a Welsh Defence Forces or small specialist police units (if you don’t like the idea of Wales having a military).
So the special police forces that are relevant to this discussion are British Transport Police (BTP), UK Border Force (UKBF) & the National Crime Agency (NCA). What happens to each of these depends on which force structure option Wales opts for.
British Transport Police & Independence
British Transport Police is the most awkward one as officers receive the necessary training to work on the railways (as in literally on the track). It’s also not funded by the government. However, the BTP’s presence in Wales is minuscule.
You could probably teach all new police officers personal track safety as standard (Part VII) and enable them to work on or near the railways as needed, but that may be a waste of resources and it’s training you need to constantly refresh.
- Retain the BTP as a specialist/separate national unit (Status Quo) – Carry on as things are, maybe with a name change but nothing more than that. Their remit could be extended to include ports, harbours and airports, effectively becoming a national transit police. Assuming it would be paid for by the rail/transport industry then there would be no impact on policing budgets (in principle).
- Each territorial police force (for force structure Options 1 & 2) has its own specialist rail/transport unit – This is what happens in most Australian states. You would assume the respective police force would take over funding and training for dedicated rail units, but they would be part of the regular police force and would be able to respond to incidents outside their jurisdiction like a normal police officer (at the moment there needs to be a request for BTP officers to act outside their jurisdiction).
- Municipal transit police (force structure Option 3) – Each manned transport hub (including major bus stations) in Wales with passenger use above a certain number would have a small unit of transit police paid for by airlines, bus, train and ferry operators. They would be part of their municipal police force depending on which local government area they’re in.
UK Border Force & Independence
Needless to say, I’ll come back to border control and immigration enforcement if/when I do a series on immigration.
The options here include:
- Maintain a dedicated Border Force.
- Extend the remit of the post-independence equivalent of the British Transport Police to include that of the UK Border Force, becoming a Welsh version of the French Police aux Frontières.
- Granting the territorial police forces (force structure Option 1) or a single national police force (force structure Option 2) jurisdiction over immigration and border control, presumably via a dedicated unit made up of specially trained police officers.
- Grant jurisdiction over immigration control and border controls to a National Police Force in a two or three-tier police system (force structure Option 3).
National Crime Agency & Independence
Under the single national police force (Option 2) and separate national and local forces (Option 3) a “National Crime Agency” is effectively created by default.
Under Option 2 the single police force would presumably have a specialist unit to fulfil the functions of the NCA, while Option 3 would have a dedicated National Police Force.
Under Option 1 (territorial police forces), the NCA would probably need to be retained as a specialist agency (it’s not a police force in its own right anyway), probably as a beefed-up version of the existing Regional Organised Crime Units (ROCOs).
