Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:30 pm on 21 June 2023.
Peredur Owen Griffiths
Plaid Cymru
5:30,
21 June 2023
Wales's anomalous position as a devolved nation without a legal system of its own is not simply a constitutional irregularity; it has profound and damaging consequences for the quality of justice and policing. The cost of being tied to the England and Wales judicial system, which inherently concentrates decision making in Westminster, has been emphatically illustrated over the last 13 years of Tory austerity.
Let’s start with the access to justice, which was one of the key issues highlighted in the Thomas commission. Cuts to the justice department’s budget in Whitehall have precipitated a disastrous decline in the provision of legal aid across Wales and England. Indeed, the Law Society has recently taken the Government to court for failing to uphold the recommendation of the Independent Review of Criminal Legal Aid to increase legal aid fees by a minimum of 15 per cent. For example, between 2012 and 2022, the number of provider officers for litigators in Wales had decreased from 175 to 106; from 180 to 122 for advocates; from 248 to 160 for solicitor firms; and from 54 to 29 for not-for-profit organisations. The situation is compounded by the fact that the legal workforce in Wales is also an ageing one. As such, it is inevitable that we will witness further shrinkages in the provision of legal services over the coming years. In north Wales, 48 per cent of criminal duty solicitors are over the age of 50; 49 per cent in south Wales, 62 per cent in west Wales and 64 per cent in mid Wales.
Another consequence of cutbacks to the justice budget in Westminster has been the emergence of the so-called advice deserts—areas of very low coverage in terms of legal advice centres on issues such as community care, welfare, education and immigration. In this respect, the landscape of legal services in Wales is particularly barren. Latest figures from the Law Society show that 18 out of the 22 Welsh local authorities do not possess a single community care legal aid centre; 20 out of the 22 do not possess an educational legal aid centre, and 21 out of the 22 do not possess a welfare legal aid centre. Given the fact that such centres are often a lifeline to the poorer households, which would otherwise be priced out from legal council, the veritable desertification of Wales in this respect risks baking in existing inequalities within the justice system.
The impact of austerity on policing has also been severe. The number of full-time equivalent police officers in Wales has only just recovered to the level it was at in 2010, after years of underfunding. Meanwhile, the number of police community support officers in Wales and England is at its lowest level since 2006. We should also consider the extent to which decisions in Westminster are inflicting enormous pressures on the budgets of police forces. All four police forces in Wales are having to make efficiency savings over the next few years, with the South Wales Police force—
The political party system in the English-speaking world evolved in the 17th century, during the fight over the ascension of James the Second to the Throne. James was a Catholic and a Stuart. Those who argued for Parliamentary supremacy were called Whigs, after a Scottish word whiggamore, meaning "horse-driver," applied to Protestant rebels. It was meant as an insult.
They were opposed by Tories, from the Irish word toraidhe (literally, "pursuer," but commonly applied to highwaymen and cow thieves). It was used — obviously derisively — to refer to those who supported the Crown.
By the mid 1700s, the words Tory and Whig were commonly used to describe two political groupings. Tories supported the Church of England, the Crown, and the country gentry, while Whigs supported the rights of religious dissent and the rising industrial bourgeoisie. In the 19th century, Whigs became Liberals; Tories became Conservatives.
Whitehall is a wide road that runs through the heart of Westminster, starting at Trafalgar square and ending at Parliament. It is most often found in Hansard as a way of referring to the combined mass of central government departments, although many of them no longer have buildings on Whitehall itself.
