A cautious welcome on Transport Police decision
The creation of Police Scotland as a single force in this country has not been without problems. From the initial dysfunctional relationship between the force and the Scottish Police Authority to significant controversies over armed officers and the use of stop-and-search powers, the merger could have gone better.
But we stand by the logic of our support for the concept and believe that, at a time of public spending restraint, it is more important then ever to create the kind of efficiency gains that can come from the creation of a single force. Yes, that force could do with being less centralised and monolithic, and more accountable to local communities on the ground, but we have come too far to turn back.
That is why, with some caveats, we support the absorption of the British Transport Police north of the Border into Police Scotland. It was already known that this was the preferred course of former Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill and that course has been confirmed by his successor, Michael Matheson. When you have created a national force with more than 17,000 officers, why would you want to retain as a separate entity a railway police with just 231 officers?
We cannot see the logic in retaining a separate entity, provided the specialist expertise under the merger is maintained, perhaps as the Scottish Transport Police division of Police Scotland. It will be towards the end of next year before this merger takes place, so there is plenty of time to sort out the detail. There is a natural resistance to change and reorganisation, but once it was made clear under the Smith Commission proposals that the force in Scotland was to become accountable to Holyrood rather than Whitehall this was the logical direction of travel. AS BTP said: “Our number one priority remains the continued safety and security of the railways in Scotland, and across the rest of the network.
“Since the announcement that rail policing was to be devolved, we have been in dialogue with the Scottish and UK governments, the rail industry and other key stakeholders. These discussions continue.”
But there is already political opposition to the move. The Liberal Democrats have been in the forefront of the debates around armed officers and stop and search, and Scottish leader Willie Rennie said of the possibility of keeping the BTP as a UK entity: “I think that is worthy of consideration. We need to have that debate.”
Labour’s Hugh Henry insisted: “This is not what we agreed to in the Smith Agreement. We agreed that the functions of the British Transport Police should be devolved with accountability to the Scottish Government and Scottish Parliament. We did not agree to the BTP being scrapped and services being delivered by Police Scotland.” He called on the UKCoalition to block the move until there are agreements on funding, structures and accountability, a surprising stance given the direction of travel favoured by Scottish Labour leader Jim Murphy.