Westminster plans could see a Welsh council tax rise to fund police

In what may be an interesting  Welsh Devolution quandary Ministers  in Westminster have been accused of a financial sleight of hand over plans to allow a council tax increase to pay for extra police funding, in a move Labour said would hit the poorest hardest without providing enough extra funding.

The Guardian reports that....

".....Forces across England and Wales were set to benefit to the tune of £450m, it emerged on Friday, and there have been suggestions the government could hand over a further £170m when it decides on police funding for next year. Police have been dealing with years of shrinking budgets and a pension shortfall of about £420m.“This is nowhere near what our police need to deal with increase in demand,” said Stephen Doughty, a Labour member  and MP for Cardiff South and Penarth of the influential parliamentary home affairs committee.

He was joined by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who said the money would “represent a tiny fraction of the huge cuts to the police service made by this government since 2010”.Tory police cuts behind wave of knife crime, says ex-Met chief His spokesman said that the Metropolitan police alone had been forced to make £1bn of savings in that time. “Ministers will have to go much higher than this if they are to prove they are serious about tackling violent crime. It’s time for the home secretary to match his words with real money.”Sky News reported on Friday that the home secretary, Sajid Javid, has convinced the chancellor, Philip Hammond, and the local government secretary, James Brokenshire, to allow local police and crime commissioners in England and Wales to double the policing precept on the council tax billfrom £12 a year to £24 to pay for the funding increase."

So it seems that despite devolution, because policing is not devolved we could see a rise in council taxes, as it seems it will be one man or woman (police and crime commissioners ) who can raise our taxes and even if its for our good. Surely such decisions   should be under some form of democratic scrutiny oh I don't the Welsh Assembly.

If this was the case then we would need to see devolution of Policing and abolition of the  police and crime commissioners , even if it meant the loss of  Plaid Cymru's Arfon Jones ,  the North Wales  commissioners , who is too my mind excellent.

We can however see how Wales could be affected from the response of London Mayor, Sadiq Khan .

The Guardian reported that ..

...."According to the report, Javid had been pushing for a significantly greater increase, but was forced to settle. He had previously hinted that he believed the police needed more resources, saying he was deeply worried about the need to deal with violent crime.Khan’s spokesman, after news of the plan emerged, accused the government of placing the burden for finding the extra money disproportionately on poorer households, rather than central government putting up the cash.Doughty said: “This Sajid Javid police funding announcement is obviously yet another sleight of hand.” He added that the Treasury had “found £455m extra in direct funding for Brexit in the last two years”, saying this would have paid for thousands of extra police officers.The plan was confirmed to the Guardian by a Whitehall source after an announcement in December last year that the government intended to take such a step at some point in 2018-19.The detail of the police financial settlement when it is officially announced will reveal how generous it really is.Police forces needed at least £165m after the Treasury decided they needed to pay more for pensions this year, rising to £417m next year.Police chiefs have decided to sue the government over the pension change unless they back down, a wholly unprecedented decision.In the budget, a Treasury claim to have provided £160m extra for counter-terror policing, turned out to be a much less year-on-year increase of £59m.Most police funding for forces in England and Wales has been provided directly by Westminster and about 30% comes from council tax precepts. Police funding is a fully devolved issue in Scotland and separate arrangements affect Northern Ireland.The Home Office said: “We do not comment on leaked documents. We will be setting out the police funding settlement for 2019-20 to parliament in due course.”

Like many  reading this it may become as a  a bit of surprise , that devolved powers like the Welsh Assembly and London Mayor together with the London Assembly  could be bypassed  this way.

The major point is that cash starved councils, who are stilling making cuts despite Tory claims that "Austerity is Over", but it will be they blamed for a rise in council tax despite  to pay for policing as most council tax payers will not even realise that the council may not be wholly responsible for any rise.
may be .

"Welsh" Labour MP's like Stephen Doughty, who rightly criticise such sleight of hand by the Westminster government would do well to consider the devolution of power and tax raising powers to Wales.

It may see us paying more, but at least it will be open and when we vote we can decide , what we want and how we we pay for it.