LAURA McALLISTER
Laura McAllister is a sports mad academic from Bridgend. She is Professor at Cardiff University’s Wales Governance Centre and former captain of the Wales women’s international football team.
OCCASIONALLY, in darker moments, I wonder if it’ll ever be possible to have a mature debate on the governance of Wales. Ideally, it would be a debate based on values and framed by what’s right for Wales, by an expectation of fair treatment. It might even provide an opportunity for Wales to function like a normal nation with the requisite political tools to deliver for its people.
The launch of a National Conversation, Dweud Eich Dweud, by our new Independent Commission on the Constitutional Future of Wales is now live and contributions are coming in thick and fast which is cheering as regards the public appetite for having a say on Wales’ political future.
When Dr Rowan Williams and I (as Commission co-chairs) did a trail of media interviews, we were somewhat predictably asked why another inquiry was necessary. I have a very simple answer to that – because we’ve yet to achieve a sustainable model for governing Wales that is fair, functional and which can deliver for citizens. It isn’t much to ask after all. It’s been deeply frustrating that a much-needed debate on political reform often resembles a Stockholm syndrome-style national self-flagellation.
What – yet another commission?
– which is effectively saying why should little old Wales openly and inclusively discuss its own political future. I’ve got a reply to that too.
We can stop establishing commissions when our politicians have the guts to address the consistently similar recommendations and calls for action that have come from those said commissions. There we are, sorted!
A similar confidence deficit has coloured debate on the size of the Senedd, that is the number of members that there should be in our national parliament.
In many ways this is a mechanical issue, one that can be assessed against comparative constitutional norms and good practice elsewhere.
But there’ve been two essential problems with how this issue has been discussed. First, the issue has been heavily and unnecessarily overpoliticised. Second, a false binary has been forced upon the debate: matters constitutional and practical public policy delivery are presented as unconnected, even alien concepts. In fact, I’d argue the exact opposite, that there is an important synergy between them.
Making the Senedd fit for purpose is motivated by improving delivery. It’s very easy to demean the debate by implying that showing concern for strengthening our democratic structures is essentially an elite pastime and a distraction at that. Sure, constitutional matters are not high on everyone’s agenda, but there is a simple fact that the anti-change resisters have abjectly failed to counter – the Senedd is, and always has been, too small to do its job properly.
Facts are notoriously hard to come by from those supporting the status quo, effectively the defence of an under-powered national parliament that has to compromise on many of its core duties. Indeed, little evidence for the case against enlarging the Senedd was forthcoming in any of the calls for public evidence on this matter.
So here are a few facts to throw into the mix: there are nine Welsh local councils with more members than the Senedd. The Scottish parliament has 129 MSPs, a population of 5.4 million and with now not massively dissimilar powers and responsibilities to the Senedd’s. Northern Ireland has 90 members with a population of 1.8 million.
The UK’s Changing Union and Electoral Reform Society Cymru’s analysis of sub-national legislatures suggested that 80 MSs would be relatively small for a legislature like the Senedd that represents a population of over three million and that 100 MSs would be closer to international norms.
This debate on Senedd size and electoral reform has moved on in recent weeks. With a unanimous show of hands in a quieter than usual Welsh Labour conference in Llandudno, a small but important step was taken towards a fit for purpose parliament.
The modesty of the moment, without fanfare, was perhaps appropriate for a reform that is really more common sense than controversy. Not a murmur of dissent as Labour activists gave the nod not only to a bigger parliament, but to no reduction in proportionality of the system for electing our MSs.
Plaid Cymru unsurprisingly followed suit at its own spring conference, with a demand for more members and a more proportional electoral system. The two parties now have strong mandates from their memberships to negotiate and decide upon a system that is at least as proportional as the current one, which delivers 80-100 members, and which includes mechanisms to ensure gender balance.
So maybe we can now start to look forward to having a Senedd that looks more like the Wales it’s meant to represent; a decisive step in the transformation from a ‘parish council on stilts’ without its own money or proper ministers, to a real European-style people’s parliament.
Welsh Labour’s movement on this has been slow but significant. It’s included freedom for Senedd Members like Mick Antoniw, Dawn Bowden, Hefin David, Alun Davies and Huw Irranca-Davies – amongst others – to make the running within their party.
I remember being told by several Labour big-hitters that there was absolutely no chance of our Expert Panel recommendations for change seeing the light of day – phrases were repeated like turkeys voting for Christmas, impossible to sell to the public on the doorstep, not a priority etc, etc.
Fair enough – if you turn the clock back a few years, Labour MPs and others were vehemently against reform and many argued for First Past the Post across the board.
There is clearly still a long way to go, and we should be under no illusions about the ambivalence and outright opposition in some Welsh Labour circles, but nevertheless this marks an important step change.
Yet, one party remains solidly opposed to creating a fit-for-purpose Parliament – a change that would clearly disadvantage the executive and strengthen the legislature where its base is. I’m talking about the Welsh Conservatives who have a real opportunity to come to the negotiating table and take part in what could be an important new consensus around a proper parliament.
Instead we’ve seen a withdrawal into the comfort zone of anti-politics populism, a zone which has clear limitations for the Welsh Conservatives as demonstrated by the courting of the rag bag Abolish the Assembly (sic) party alongside former Ukip voters during last year’s Senedd elections.
Senedd group leader Andrew RT Davies’ comments have been on loop; firstly that this issue is not a priority for voters (well yes, but rarely is any technical constitutional reform a high salience
matter but that shouldn’t undermine its intrinsic importance) and secondly cost – even though the estimated £12m per annum bill for more members represents just 0.08% of the block grant.
Neither is any wider context offered to this debate, so no mention of the UK Conservative government’s proposed reduction in the number of MPs from Wales, the loss of our four MEPs (saving some £9m per annum), or even whether a potential £20bn plus refurbishment of the UK Parliament is a priority or popular with voters?
I may have missed them but I don’t hear many calls from the Welsh party for ‘concentrating on the issues that really matter’ in these debates.
The Welsh Conservatives seem keen to stonewall any suggestion of democratic reform, but it’s worth reminding ourselves that it is the party that made reform possible in the first place.
The Wales Act 2017 was a piece of legislation that, for all its faults, demonstrated a Conservative pragmatism by gradually expanding devolution in an ad-hoc but important direction. Even the Wales Act 2014, which also came about under the Tories, ended the ban on ‘dual candidacy’ where candidates could not stand on both constituency and regional list ballots.
That ridiculous ban, put in place by a Labour UK Government, had effectively declared as undemocratic the dual candidacy used by the likes of Angela Merkel and Rhodri Morgan.
Indeed, Labour’s reaction to the scrapping of the ban was to threaten to bring it back in immediately! How things change! We’ve now a Welsh Labour party that has shifted from petty tribalism to principled pragmatism on devolution, reading both the room and the hard evidence.
This context makes the present stance of the Welsh Conservatives even stranger – from legislators for reform to defenders of the status quo, championing the maintenance of an institution patently not fit for purpose.
Ironically, this opposition appears to be implicitly advocating an under powered institution and an outdated electoral system, one invented by a hegemonic Labour party in the 1990s. And all at a time when more people in Wales support an increase in the number of Senedd Members than oppose it, according to recent Beaufort research.
Of course, some Conservative MSs have been constructive and properly engaged, such as Darren Millar who has made a valuable contribution to the Special Purposes Committee. Some of the new Conservative MSs have adopted a different stance too. Samuel Kurtz, MS for Carmarthen West and South Pembrokeshire, has publicly endorsed a larger Senedd, sensibly framing this by personal experience, evidence and logic.
Deeper, more considered and better evidenced debate on this matter within Conservative ranks can only be a good thing. At the very least, if the Welsh Conservatives are serious about repositioning their party for greater electoral success, it needs to do some serious thinking on devolution and develop a less outdated narrative on its future configuration.
Complaining about a one- or two-party state becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy if parties then shut themselves out of opportunities to influence the political agenda. It’s easy to sneer at Plaid Cymru’s co-operation with Labour, but the reality is that the Welsh Conservatives’ current devo stance might bring some quick wins but, at the end of the day, leads the party no further than Senedd opposition.
Meanwhile, a larger Senedd would mean more opportunities for promoting Tory talent through the ranks, generating more women MSs even, plus an ability to properly focus on committee work – the real engine room of devolution – which would in turn deliver enhanced scrutiny of Welsh Government.
It’s not like we haven’t had a few major landmarks in two bumpy decades of devolution here in Wales. But this does feel like a milestone moment in establishing a fit-forpurpose Senedd.
With those party conference mandates now in place, the real hard bargaining and serious trading can begin. Everyone recognises that this’ll mean compromise and concession. Whether we like it or not, the political parties will have one eye on what best suits their own electoral prospects, and (perhaps a little charitably) the other on the democratic health of Wales. But for now, it’s all about a place around the table.
Yes, change doesn’t mathematically require the Conservatives to support it. But there’s no doubt that it’s far preferable for the Welsh Conservatives to be part of any consensus on future Senedd reform. It’s not too late for the Welsh Conservatives to add their important voice to this critical stage of the debate.
If the party decides to retreat to the political bunker, it’ll have chucked away a huge opportunity to shape a proper, fit-for-purpose democratic institution that can deliver for the people of Wales.
@LauraMcAllister