Welsh Tories pledge not to increase number of politicians
THE Welsh Conservatives say they will not increase the number of elected politicians in the Senedd if they win May’s election.
The debate on whether to increase the size of the institution has been rumbling on for years.
In 2017 a report found that the number of AMS should go up from 60 to between 80 and 90. A poll the following year showed people were sceptical.
It is estimated the cost of the institution would go up by £6.6m per year for 20 additional members.
In 2019, plans to enlarge the Senedd were put on hold until after this year’s election. In January 2020 an Assembly committee said more members were needed.
Professor Laura Mcallister, from the Wales Governance Centre, said: “I think AMS have a really quite remarkable workload. You can mitigate for as long as you like but unless there’s a change in the number of AMS then they will be doing things which are just avoiding being underpowered. There’s nowhere else in the world as underpowered as an institution vis a vis its powers than this institution”.
Welsh Conservative Senedd leader Andrew RT Davies has said that the money would pay for nearly 500 extra nurses or more than 450 teachers.
Mr Davies said: “What Wales needs now is more nurses, doctors and teachers – not more politicians. The priority for any party should be getting Wales on the road to recovery with a stronger economy and rebuilding our public services, not increasing the size of the Senedd.
“The Welsh Conservatives have one focus: fixing Wales’ broken economy so that we can create more jobs and help fund our vital public services. We would use that money to fund more nurses so that we can bring down the waiting times in our NHS, and recruit more teachers so we can improve our education system and give children the best start in life.
“The Welsh Conservatives have been clear that there’ll be no more powers, no more politicians, no more taxes, and no more constitutional chaos. Just a sole focus on building a better Wales and delivering a stronger economy.”