South Wales West Conservative MS

THE Welsh Labour Government and Plaid Cymru are pressing ahead with their plans to add more politicians to the Senedd in Cardiff Bay over the next few weeks.

They say their plans are necessary because of an increased workload for Senedd Members and a need for more scrutiny of the Welsh Government.

The Welsh Conservatives are the only major party that opposes the plans, because these claims don’t stack up.

Let’s start with the point about scrutiny of the government.

Any democratic institution runs on governments being held to account robustly, but in Wales, the Labour Welsh Government doesn’t seem very interested in that.

If it was so bothered about it, we’d have seen an independent Welsh Covid inquiry in Wales, like we’re seeing take place in England and Scotland.

We also wouldn’t have seen the First Minister recently refuse to attend a Senedd committee meeting to answer questions on a budget he was responsible for.

And if accountability is important, why is the Welsh Government so intent on ignoring the nearly half a million people who signed a petition against its 20mph policy?

Or the thousands of farmers who turned up on the steps on the Senedd to protest against the Labour Welsh Government’s agricultural schemes?

Meanwhile, on the point about being too busy, did you know that the Senedd only sits on two afternoons a week, starting at 1.30pm on a Tuesday and Wednesday, and often finishes before the News at Six begins?

But sadly, there are no plans to address this either.

For me, there are far too many reasons why these plans don’t stack up to go into in this column, but maybe Labour and Plaid politicians can explain them.

If so, why don’t they ask the people for the final sign-off and put the case to the people of Wales in a referendum?

What are they so scared of?