Gwent Police and Crime Commissioner candidates confirmed

Twm Owen, local democracy reporter

Four political parties will fight for their candidate to be elected as the next Police and Crime Commissioner for Gwent.

The commissioner, who has the power to hire and fire the chief constable, is responsible for overseeing the Gwent force and, with the chief constable, setting the policing priorities for the area.

The new commissioner will have to appoint a new chief constable as Pam Kelly announced in March her intention to retire this year and to work with the new commissioner to appoint her replacement.

Current commissioner Jeff Cuthbert was first elected, as the Labour candidate, at the 2016 elections. He retained the seat, again as a Labour candidate, at the last elections in 2021 but had already announced he wouldn’t be seeking re-election this year.

He had stood back from the role for a temporary period earlier this year due to ill health but has since resumed his duties.

Council leader

Labour is standing its current Newport City Council leader, Jane Mudd, as its candidate to succeed Mr Cuthbert.

The other challengers are all also standing for political parties and they are Donna Cushing, for Plaid Cymru, Mike Hamilton for the Welsh Liberal Democrats and Conservative Hannah Jarvis who in her official description is described as “Conservative Candidate – More Police, Safer Streets”.

The elections take place on May 2 and due a change in the law identification, such as a passport or driving licence, will be required to vote in person.

In the final round of counting, at the 2021 elections, Mr Cuthbert had 92,616 votes while Conservative Ms Jarvis got 60,536.