Devolving policing to Cardiff 'not on agenda'

HOME OFFICE MINISTER INDICATES REFORMS WON'T SEE NEW POWERS

- By WILL MEAKIN-DURRANT, PA

POLICE reforms will not see Cardiff Bay get new powers over Welsh policing, a Home Office minister has indicated.

Lord Hanson of Flint told peers “devolution is not on the agenda” as part of his department's plans for a “new model for policing”.

Policing is devolved in Northern Ireland and Scotland but not in Wales, where the policy area is reserved to Westminster.

The Commission on Devolution in Wales, chaired by Sir Paul Silk, recommended more than a decade ago that policing and crime prevention “should be devolved”.

It also recommended, in its 2014 report, that police pay should be devolved, but not pensions or the National Crime Agency.