The Scottish Conservatives are calling on the SNP Government to use the 5th anniversary of Police Scotland this week to ditch their “disastrous” plan to merge the British Transport Police with the national force once and for all.
The proposals to merge BTP with Police Scotland are now being described by academics as a “threat to policing” on both sides of the border.
The Scottish Conservatives are therefore urging Ministers to adopt a compromise proposal, set out by the British Transport Police Federation.
Such a plan would respect the cross-party agreement to devolve BTP, but would avoid the costs and complexity of a merger.
In a blog last week, academic Dr Kath Murray said that “the BTP merger isn’t what it said on the tin and, if anything, now looks like a threat to both the future of Scottish policing and railway policing on either side of the border.”
Despite this, SNP Ministers have made clear they intend to press ahead with their own plans. The BTP Federation wrote to the SNP last week urging them to think again and instead support a new ‘commissioned service’ model.
Scottish Conservative shadow justice secretary Liam Kerr MSP said:
“Every political party agrees that BTP should be devolved - and the consensus is still there to do just that. The problem is that the plan adopted by the SNP - to sink BTP into Police Scotland - is turning out to be a disaster.
“Five years on from the creation of Police Scotland, it's time to fix the problems that have bedevilled the single force, not add to them.
“Now that they've been forced to put their plans on ice, we would urge the SNP this week to go one step further and seek common cause with other parties with a fresh plan - where we respect the decision to devolve BTP, but do so in a way that protects our service.
“The Commissioned Service model being put forward by the BTP Federation does just that. And if the SNP wants to talk to us about implementing it with cross party support, my door is open.
“On the fifth anniversary of Police Scotland, let's all commit to building a police service that works for Scotland.”