Who will argue for 20-30 more AMs?

BACK in 2004 the Richard Commission laid out a vision for an Assembly with lawmaking powers whose 80 members would be elected by the Single Transferable Vote.

The Assembly’s powers have been turbo-charged in the years since then. People who have paid little attention to devolution so far will sit up if AMs start varying the rate of income tax.

But the institution still has the same number of AMs as when the Assembly met for the first time in the red-brick office block next to today’s Senedd. There is the same electoral system under which 40 people are chosen by first past the post and 20 through a top-up regional list arrangement.

MPs decided to hand responsibility for the size of the Assembly and its elections to AMs. Last month’s long-awaited report recommended that between 20 and 30 members are added and that these are chosen by STV; it also backed a gender quota and a reduction in the voting age to 16.

The 2004 Richard Commission report commanded respect but gathered dust. The expert panel behind the latest set of recommendations will hope that their proposals do not suffer the same fate.

The changes would have to be backed by two-thirds of AMs, and politicians in Cardiff Bay are in no doubt about how controversial it would be to argue that what Wales needs now are more people in the Senedd.

Opponents would argue that when public services are creaking after years of austerity and workers have been squeezed by pay caps this is not the time to use precious resources to pay the salaries of more party apparatchiks.

But Professor Roger Scully, of Cardiff University, yesterday made the case that, politically, this could be the “easiest” time to increase the number of AMs.

Wales will lose its four MEPs when the UK leaves the European Union. There is still the possibility that 11 MPs will be out of a job if the UK government pushes ahead with the proposed constituency reorganisation; and there are regular suggestions that Wales could get by with fewer councillors.

There is the potential for increasing the number of AMs without adding a penny to the cost of Welsh democracy. Nevertheless, voters will want assurances that this would result in a better legislature.

Supporters of change will argue the Assembly would be enriched by an influx of AMs who are not on the Welsh Government payroll or in senior shadow positions but are independently minded troublemakers who will keep ministers and their own party leaders on their toes. Wales needs AMs who will ask hard questions about the consequences of legislation or tax and borrowing decisions; we need people who will not be cowed by the whips and who do not worry about becoming unpopular.

Not every new AM would be a maverick genius but the hope would be that an expansion of numbers would enhance the quality of the talent pool. For that to happen, today’s AMs need to find the courage to make the case for change. The Western Mail newspaper is published by Media Wales a subsidiary company of Trinity Mirror PLC, which is a member of IPSO, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. The entire contents of The Western Mail are the copyright of Media Wales Ltd. It is an offence to copy any of its contents in any way without the company’s permission. If you require a licence to copy parts of it in any way or form, write to the Head of Finance at Six Park Street. The recycled paper content of UK newspapers in 2016 was 62.8%