All change - MSS who won’t be standing for re-election
WHATEVER happens in the Senedd election on May 6, there will be new Members of the Senedd elected.
Key figures, including former First Minister Carwyn Jones and MSS who have been in the Senedd since it was formed in 1999 have decided not to stand again.
The election held on May 6. is being
Angela Burns – Conservative, Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire First elected to the Senedd in 2007 with a majority of under 100, she served as Shadow Environment Minister, Shadow Transport Minister and Shadow Finance Minister in the third Assembly as well as chairing the Assembly’s Finance Committee.
In the fourth Assembly she was Shadow Education Minister, sat on the Children, Young People and Education Committee, and was appointed as
one of the Assembly Commissioners which occasionally led to her deputising for the Presiding Officer in the Chamber.
After the 2016 election she was appointed as a member of the Assembly’s Health and Social Care Committee and given the role of the Welsh Conservatives’ spokesperson on health and social services.
She spoke out about her own health battles after suffering sepsis.
Suzy Davies – Conservative, South Wales West
After a career in arts marketing and management, she qualified as a solicitor, working in a number of fields from vulnerable families to tax planning.
She was first elected to the Senedd in 2007.
Mrs Davies was widely expected to stand again in both Bridgend and on the regional list. However, she is not standing again for election.
She used her final speech in the Senedd to tell her own party it needed to do more for equal representation.
“All parties, especially
mine, need to get their act together on equal representation, and I’ve no hesitation either in saying that even though it really has been often a joy and always a privilege working with you all, it has been working with a greater number of women than in any parliament I can call to mind that makes the non-stop demands and personal sacrifices worth it, because it is a parliament where an ordinary woman like me can believe she belongs and where every citizen can see she belongs, so my heartfelt thanks for the privilege”.
Her son Calum is the Conservative candidate in Cardiff Central.
Ann Jones – Labour, Vale of Clwyd
Ann Jones was first elected in 1999 and has been elected in every Senedd since.
She worked for nearly 30 years in fire control rooms in North Wales and Merseyside until her election to the National Assembly in 1999.
She was the first backbench
member to pass legislation – to have mandatory sprinklers fitted in all new-build homes.
She also served as Deputy Presiding Officer of the National Assembly.
In her last speech she reminisced about the early days of the Senedd debating the “Beef Bones (Amendment) (Wales) Regulations, the Plant Health (Amendment) (Wales) Order, and everyone’s favourite at that time, the Potatoes Originating in Egypt (Amendment) (Wales) Regulations”.
Carwyn Jones – Labour, Bridgend
First elected in 1999, Carywn Jones went on to become Wales’s First Minister.
He had already been Minister for Open Government, Minister for the Environment and Education as well as Counsel General and Leader of the House.
He became First Minister in 2009 and stood down in 2018, remaining as a backbencher.
His tenure as First Minister
was overshadowed by the death of former cabinet member Carl Sargeant.
David Melding – Conservative, South Wales Central
Another representative who was first elected in 1999, David Melding has been Shadow Minister for Health and Social Care and for Economy and Transport. Between 2000 and 2011 he was the Welsh Conservatives’ director of policy.
He previously chaired the Assembly’s Audit, Health and Social Services, Standards of Conduct, and Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committees.
Between 2011 and 2016, he was Deputy Presiding Officer.
Bethan Sayed – Plaid Cymru, South Wales West
When she was elected she was Bethan Jenkins, the youngest female Member of the Senedd, but Bethan Sayed said she leaves it a “more mature person, who has made mistakes but has them”.
Mrs Sayed was first elected in 2007 and went on to be a member of the Petitions Committee, the Public Accounts Committee (formerly the Audit Committee), and the Communities and Culture Committee. She was also Plaid Cymru spokesperson on child poverty and cultural issues. learned from
Dafydd Elis Thomas – Independent, Dwyfor Meirionydd
Elected for Plaid Cymru, Dafydd Elis Thomas left the party but joined government as Deputy Minister for Culture, Sport and Tourism in 2016.
He served as Llywydd in 1999, 2003 and 2007.
In the fourth Assembly he was a member of the Assembly’s Business and Enterprise Committee, and a member of the Constitutional and Legislative Affairs Committee, and had served as chair of the Environment and Sustainability Committee and the Future Landscapes Wales Working Group.
He used his final
Senedd speech to warn of the threat to devolved politics: “I am seeing signs that there are people, not here, but further east, who are eager to weaken devolution within the UK once again. And the challenge for us is to work with our brothers and sisters in Scotland and particularly in Northern Ireland, as well as in England, in order to safeguard the diversity of this strange United Kingdom.”
Kirsty Williams – Liberal Democrat, Brecon and Radnorshire
Kirsty Williams was first elected to the Senedd in 1999 and went on to be the party’s first female leader in Wales and Education Minister for a Labour Government.
As Education Minister she introduced a new curriculum for Wales but said she would not stand again so she can spend more time with her family. She received a CBE in 2013.
If William Powell fails to secure the seat, her name could be in the history books as the last Lib Dem to sit in the Senedd.