Defeats are not a crisis, but a cause for concern
Do a series of defeats in votes at the Senedd suggest the Welsh Government is falling apart? Chief reporter Martin Shipton explains why he’s not convinced that’s the case – but why there’s another cause for concern
IF Theresa May lost three votes in the House of Commons, the talk would be of a major crisis at the heart of her Government.
This week the Welsh Government was in such a position, yet outside the rarefied world of the Senedd the defeats raised barely a murmur. Why ever not? There’s a hint in the way opposition parties portrayed their victories.
Plaid Cymru’s Adam Price tweeted: “The Welsh Labour Government lost a vote – not just one either but three – for the first time in the 5th Assembly last night. @fmwales failed to vote, as did @wgcs_economy for a debate that he’d spoken in. Two Labour AMs broke the whip.”
Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies said: “Yesterday’s votes can usher in a new era of collective opposition to Labour’s insipid stewardship of the Welsh economy.
“For the first time in the 5th Assembly, the Welsh Labour Government has been defeated in significant votes. They look in disarray.
“It’s proof that there is an alternative to Labour when opposition parties work together to highlight their failings.
“After 19 years of Labour rule, we need a new deal for Wales.”
For both of the opposition parties in the Senedd, the substance of the defeats was of secondary interest.
One of the votes passed a Tory motion criticising the state of Wales’ road network. It read: “The National Assembly notes the inability of the Welsh road network to cope with the current level of demand from motorists; regrets that Wales’ substandard road infrastructure is costing the Welsh economy hundreds of millions of pounds a year; acknowledges the vital importance of a fit-forpurpose and proper functioning road network for the long-term development of the Welsh economy; believes that in order to better connect Wales’ communities, improve the quality of journeys for commuters and develop the Welsh economy, appropriate investment in all modes of transport, not just roads, is required , including railways, coaches and buses, air and water; and calls on the Welsh Government to work with the UK Government to look at innovative ways of funding future road projects.”
An initial government attempt to get the motion effectively struck out failed by 26 votes to 27, with the final vote on the matter going in the Tories’ favour by 29 to 24.
Labour lost a third vote on a Plaid Cymru motion about homelessness by 27 to 26, although Plaid’s form of words did not survive a later vote.
There were several reasons for the lost votes. Labour AM Dawn Bowden was ill, First Minister Carwyn Jones and Economy Secretary Ken Skates were absent on Government business, and in one vote Labour AMs Mick Antoniw and Vikki Howells pressed the wrong button by mistake.
Did these unfortunate set of circumstances, from the Government’s point of view, merit the opposition assertion that the Government is in crisis?
It may face challenges for other reasons, but not because of the lost votes.
Labour sources said with some justification that the direction of the Government will not be changed because of them. The votes were not on the Budget or on legislation that the Government is committed to seeing pass.
And Plaid was certainly premature in claiming that the votes proved Dafydd Elis-Thomas’ departure from Plaid to sit as an Independent allied to the Government hadn’t provided it with the safe majority it was hoping for.
Is Labour, however, manifesting an unpalatable disdain for the Senedd by suggesting that the losses don’t matter?
I think Adam Price had a point when he tweeted: “Saying Opposition debates & votes are meaningless and have no bearing is tantamount to saying the Senedd is irrelevant. I hope and trust that Llywydd will take same dim view of this attitude as Speaker did at Westminster, and intervene to remind Govt of need to respect democracy.”
A Labour source may have been simultaneously both cruelly accurate and egregious when they put it to me in a rather different way: “Nobody outside the Assembly either understands or cares.”
Wednesday plenary sessions at the Senedd are largely given over to opposition debates. It would be good to think they were on topics that somebody, somewhere thought worthwhile.