Wales: National Assembly Elections

Baroness Randerson Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Randerson]

My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as I am in receipt of an Assembly pension. I am also on the board of the Wales Governance Centre, which is part of Cardiff University and is partly funded by the Assembly Commission.

The point I start from is diametrically opposed to that expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. As a Liberal Democrat, I continue to support the recommendations of the Richard commission for the single transferable vote in Wales. However, at the start of the Assembly, we as Liberal Democrats accepted the compromise of the list system as being the furthest we could get towards an element of proportionality, and I certainly accept that we are not going to get STV in the near future. Therefore, in general I welcome the proposals in this Green Paper.

I particularly welcome the acceptance of what will become the 30:30 split under the new boundaries, which is the preferred option of the Secretary of State. That is an acceptable compromise. It produces more proportionality, which is very welcome, but I accept that it maintains the dual system that Liberal Democrats do not believe is ideal.

I was an Assembly Member for 12 years. I am pleased to see three former colleagues here today—in fact, we are in danger of this becoming the old group discussing things again. I was a constituency Assembly Member and it is true to say that the role of a regional Assembly Member is very different. Those differences can cause friction, but there is no proposed change in the system here; we are simply looking at the split between constituency and regional lists.

As well as being more proportional and therefore fairer, I believe that 30:30 would be very much easier administratively. Differing boundaries are very complex, particularly for electors but also for political parties and people who run elections. Incidentally, a longer list in each region would also help gender balance. It would increase the number of women and ethnic minority candidates coming forward. STV lists tend to do that and in this case the list for the Assembly would operate in a similar way. It is obviously easier for political parties but it is important to remember that having coterminous constituencies for Parliament and the Assembly particularly would help civic society and electors by removing an element of confusion. In this I agree wholeheartedly with Peter Hain who was entirely right when he said:

“Having different boundaries creates a great deal of confusion for voters, for parties and for the wider public”.

It would also reduce the cost—more than £2.5 million over 10 years—of having to review different sets of boundaries, first for Parliament and then for the Assembly, making it almost an endless treadmill of boundary reviews.

I totally reject the idea that the 30:30 split could possibly be two-Member wards. That is a Labour Party idea which is designed to remove the element of proportionality. Proportionality was inherent in the offer made to the people of Wales in the vote that they took in the referendum at the end of the last century—a vote that was won very narrowly and that I am pretty certain would not have been won if proportionality had not been there. I believe that 30:30 would be fairer in proportional terms as it would reduce the chances of a party winning a majority of seats on a minority of votes in the ballot box. It is worth noting that in 2011, under the current 40:20 split, the Labour Party won 50% of the seats on just short of 40% of the vote. So when the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, asks us which party would benefit from a 30:30 split I would answer that no particular party would benefit but one party certainly benefits from the current system and that benefit would be lost under the new one.

I want to talk now about process. The voting system is a reserved matter—that was decided by the previous Labour Government when the Government of Wales Act was drafted. The power to decide the electoral system could have been devolved to the Welsh Assembly but it was not. The Assembly had no say in the previous changes, such as the ban on dual candidacy which came in in the 2006 Act. I know that the Assembly feels it should express an opinion. It is absolutely right that it should do so, but it is important to remember that there are no legally binding results to that opinion. As a strong devolutionist, I would have preferred the system to be written differently but that is the system that the Labour Government gave us.

[Lord Elis-Thomas]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for giving way. Would the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, agree that, despite the fact that there are no legal powers within the Government of Wales Acts for the Assembly to have organised consent, the devolution principle and its constitutional basis must surely point to consent being obtained in one way or another from the National Assembly for changes to its own structure?

[Baroness Randerson]

That sets an interesting train of thought. As the legislation currently stands, we would move to 30:30 under the current Government of Wales Act. Would consent be needed to adhere to the current legislation? I do not think that would necessarily be the case. The concept of Assembly consent—which has never come up before in this context, so far as I can recall—is desirable and I would hope it would happen, but it does not necessarily follow that it has to be because of the status of the current legislation.

I want to deal with the other issues of significance in this paper. A really important issue is the end of the ban on dual candidacy. In 1999 and 2003, I was a candidate for the list and for constituency seats, along with members of all other parties—including the Labour Party. Dual candidacy ensured vibrant energetic campaigns in individual constituencies. Candidates who knew that they were not likely to win a constituency would nevertheless fight hard in an individual constituency because it contributed to the list campaign. The loss of dual candidacy reduced the level of campaigning, particularly as regards the list vote. As a result, we had a loss of democracy in Wales.

The ban came out of the ether, as far as I could see. It seemed to be a purely political measure introduced in 2006 by the Labour Party, and it clearly penalised smaller parties. Think about the mathematics. A party has to have 40 constituency candidates; and now, under the current system, with a ban on dual candidacy, it probably has to have another 25, with five candidates for each of the five regions. Under the old system, if you stood as a candidate in both a constituency and for the list, you could, as a party probably get away with a slate of 40 candidates. Now you have to have effectively 65. That makes the situation difficult for small parties, and the system was designed to do that.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Surely, if a party cannot manage to get even 65 candidates to stand, it does not deserve to get elected Members? Small parties surely deserve small representation.

[Baroness Randerson]

I do not agree with the noble Lord at all. In a vigorous democracy, parties have to start to develop and form.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

And recruit.

[Baroness Randerson]

You should not put hurdles in their way. I believe in a developing democracy. I should like there to be a world where the Liberal Democrats were in a majority Government and ran everything. Would it not be wonderful? However, I accept that that is not going to happen on a regular basis in a democracy; and a vigorous democracy should not put hurdles in the way of the development of smaller political parties. One of the joys of devolution has been that new forms of politics have been developing. They may be transitory, but the important thing is that we have more variety in our politics.

It is worth noting—and that intervention was useful—that there has been no such ban on dual candidacy in, for example, Scotland or the London Assembly.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

I am sorry to intervene. Does the noble Baroness not know that I have tried twice to get such a ban, whereby Scotland comes into line with Wales? I tried it under a Labour Government, and the noble Lord, Lord Evans—astonishingly—argued for it in Wales and against it in Scotland. I then raised the issue under the coalition Government. I cannot remember but I think it was the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, who argued a different case for different countries. I understand the case for consistency, and the noble Baroness is arguing for it, but the inconsistency that we have experienced has been very strange and has been supported by successive Governments.

[Baroness Randerson]

I think that good sense clearly held sway in Scotland. I am pleased that the noble Lord is consistent, but it was a matter of great good sense that the ban on dual candidacy was not adopted in Scotland.

The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, referred to the anomalous results that came as a result of the ban on dual candidacy. Like the noble Baroness, I am not always sympathetic to the Conservative Party and its electoral fortunes. In that situation, the party in Wales went from having a 15% share of the vote to having a 23% share—from nine to 14 Assembly Members. That is a record of success. From one constituency seat to six is also clearly a record of success. As a result, the leader of the Conservative Party, which was so successful, lost his seat. Clearly that will not improve the reputation for fairness of the electoral system in Wales.

The reason given by the Labour Government for the ban on dual candidacy was public dissatisfaction. However, the consultation did not reveal public dissatisfaction on any scale. The Arbuthnott commission in Scotland found that there was no such problem and the Electoral Commission in Wales also endorsed the view that dual candidacy was not a problem.

Finally, I will deal with the remaining issues. We support a move to a five-year term, to avoid a clash with general elections. Inevitably, if we held both elections at once, the Welsh political dialogue would be drowned out by the general election. Welsh politics would be overwhelmed by UK politics. That would not be fair and reasonable. I ask the Minister whether there are plans to move local elections in Wales in a similar way. Is there a move towards a five-year term in local government there?

On ending the dual mandate, it is certainly true that being an MP and an Assembly Member are both full-time jobs. Over the years, I have observed many people in the Assembly who held the two jobs. Some of them chose to spend all their time in the Assembly. I note that the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, who did that in the first term of the Assembly, is here today. However, some decided to abandon the Assembly and spend all their time in Westminster. Westminster coped with five MPs spending their time in the Assembly, but the Assembly, which is a slim body of 60 people, could not cope easily with the dual mandate for an MP and an Assembly Member—it could not cope with being abandoned. One person disappearing from the Assembly sometimes makes a difference to whether the Government win a vote. I recall cases when that was true. Therefore, it is important that there should be an end to that. In relation to the House of Lords, it is not an issue at the moment while we have the luxury of the pick-and-mix approach to when we attend the House. However, once we have an elected House, such a ban should extend to its Members.

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[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, I am sure that noble Lords will be relieved to know that I will do my best not to repeat the excellent arguments that have already been put to the Committee, but I am caused to ask this question: what are we doing? This is only the second specifically Welsh debate we have had in your Lordships’ House during this Parliament, and what are we debating? Are we debating the impact of the double-dip recession on the people of Wales, a recession made in Downing Street? No, we are not. Are we debating the lack of economic growth or high unemployment? No, we are not. Are we debating the mean and spiteful cuts in benefit support for disabled people and the poorest people in Wales? No, we are not. Are we debating the Remploy factory closures, which will see hundreds of disabled people thrown out of work, and who will probably never get another job in their lives? No, we are not debating any of these things. Instead, we are debating constitutional reform again. I feel sure that I can report to noble Lords that in the pubs and clubs of my former constituency of Islwyn, they will be talking about nothing else. While hard-pressed and hard-working families struggle to make ends meet and keep their heads above water, this Government seem to be obsessed with constitutional change.

It was only on 11 October last year that the Welsh Secretary, Mrs Cheryl Gillan, set up the Silk commission and gave it two tasks. First, it was charged with reviewing the case for the devolution of fiscal powers to the National Assembly, on which it was asked to report by the autumn of this year. Secondly, it was given the task of reviewing the powers of the National Assembly, on which it is to report by 2013. Barely six months later, finding that she cannot wait for the commission’s report, the Welsh Secretary has surfaced once again, this time with a Green Paper on the future electoral arrangements for the National Assembly for Wales. How I wish the Welsh Secretary were here to answer the debate this afternoon. Although it is not possible, it would be far better than meeting Peers behind closed doors. However, we are fortunate that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace of Tankerness, will respond. I know that I am not alone in admiring and respecting the Minister, who is held in high regard and with a deal of affection on all sides of the House. I feel sorry for him now that he has been asked to front-up the Green Paper for the Secretary of State for Wales.

I begin by asking the Minister what discussions the Secretary of State had with Paul Silk and his commission before embarking on the exercise of producing the Green Paper. Did she ask commission members what they thought of the idea of producing a Green Paper while they were in the middle of their deliberations? Did the commission consider that the Green Paper would undermine its task? What opinions and advice did the commission give to the Secretary of State? Will the Minister give us a full report of the discussions that took place between the Secretary of State and the commission, and perhaps also publish all correspondence on the matter? I suspect that while the Silk commission was busy carrying out Mrs Gillan’s task, she bypassed it and published the Green Paper.

The Government are obsessed with tinkering with the British constitution while bread and butter issues that affect most people I know are marginalised. For the past two years since they have been in government, this has been their main thrust.

[Baroness Randerson]

I was very interested in what the noble Lord said. Does he agree therefore that the Labour Party was obsessed with tinkering with the British constitution when it introduced devolution and other significant changes, including to this House?

[Lord Touhig]

There is a huge difference between what the Labour Party did in government and what this Government are doing. I shall develop the argument and thank the noble Baroness for allowing me to do so. For the past two years, the main thrust of the Government’s legislative programme has been about constitutional change. For a start, we had the biggest act of electoral gerrymandering—the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, was more generous than me about this—with the Bill to reduce the number of parliamentary seats. It was all done for party advantage. The legislation was put forward by the Conservatives and warmly embraced by the Liberal Democrats. Government MPs and Peers trooped through the Division Lobbies time and again to reduce the number of representatives from Wales by a massive 25%. While the Labour Party and others valiantly tried to defend Wales, we witnessed the enthusiasm with which the Conservatives and Lib Dems forced through the reduction in the number of Welsh MPs.

How quickly that enthusiasm has evaporated. It evaporated when the Boundary Commission completed its review and produced the first draft of its report on 30 new parliamentary seats in Wales. If the report is accepted, Conservative and Liberal Democrat representation from Wales in Westminster will be all but wiped out. I judge that the governing parties are not as enthusiastic as they were about reducing the number of Members of Parliament for Wales.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Bill was designed to keep this failing Government in office no matter what happened. As a result, it is no longer enough for a Government to lose the confidence of the House of Commons before they lose office. It is now necessary for two-thirds of the Members of Parliament to vote to throw them out of office. The Bill is a blemish and a stain on Great Britain’s long and cherished democratic system of parliamentary democracy.

Here in the United Kingdom, we are proud of our past. We are proud of the fact that we moved from empire to Commonwealth. We see ourselves as the fountainhead of democratic government, which we tell ourselves is the envy of the world. We were encouraged and flattered when many newly independent Commonwealth countries followed our example of a representative parliamentary democracy. However, I contend that if the Government of one of our Commonwealth partners were to use such a blatant act of gerrymandering to stay in office, Great Britain would be the first to challenge and charge them. I have no doubt that the Liberal Democrats would be at the forefront of such a condemnation and would probably want that country thrown out of the Commonwealth. What high ideals and great principles a once great party of liberty has traded for a handful of ministerial red boxes.

In the middle of all this, we have the referendum in Wales on more powers for the National Assembly. I had some reservations about this, not so much about passing over more powers to the Assembly but about the fact that it represented a further piecemeal tinkering with our constitution, chipping away here and there rather than looking at the big picture. Capping this constitutional onslaught, we have the Clegg Bill to abolish your Lordships’ House and give our country 400 more paid politicians, who will have guaranteed highly paid jobs for 15 years, doubtless with a pension. I know people who would like a job—any job—let alone one guaranteed for 15 years. The Remploy workers would certainly like a job guaranteed for the next 15 years.

Finally, as my noble friend Lady Morgan of Ely said, we have the elephant in the room: a referendum in Scotland that could see our union split apart. Will all this constitutional tinkering never end? The Minister could do no better than go away from this debate today, reread this little blue book—I am sure he has already read it—and take up its sound advice. It recommends that we have a constitutional convention looking at the whole of the constitution of the United Kingdom, and stop this piecemeal tinkering with our constitution.

This Green Paper is a bit thin. It poses four questions, but why so few? If we must go through this process, there are many more questions that ought to be asked and answered. As the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, said, now that the National Assembly has primary lawmaking powers, is it able to scrutinise the Executive and hold it to account? I am certainly not suggesting more Assembly Members—although I know that some people think we should have at least 80—I am simply asking whether, in view of the major lawmaking powers now held by the National Assembly, its Members can adequately scrutinise legislation. Can the Opposition hold the Welsh Government to account in a way that we would want them to do?

Moving on, should we not be asking about the system for electing Members of National Assembly? Frankly, the present system is barmy. I know it was introduced by my party; then again, madness and being a member of the Labour Party are not necessarily mutually disqualifying. It is a barmy system. In Wales we have 40 first past the post elected Assembly Members. On top of that, we have an electoral top-up system of 20 Members, which gives the party with the most votes no seats and the party with the least votes seats.

Take the last election: setting aside the election of 40 first past the post seats—I know some of your Lordships believe we should have a different system, as has been well articulated today—in the election for the 20 top-up Members of the National Assembly, the Labour Party polled 37% of the vote and got two seats. The Liberal Democrats, with 8% of the vote, got four seats, and the Conservatives, with 23% of the vote, got eight seats. In the North Wales region, Labour got 32% of the vote and no seats. The Liberal Democrats got 6% of the vote and one seat. In South Wales Central, Labour won 41% of the vote and gained no seats. The Conservatives won 22% and gained two seats and the Liberal Democrats, with 8%, got one seat. South Wales West was even more bizarre. Labour won a massive 46% of the vote and did not gain a single seat. The Liberal Democrats, with 7% of the vote, got a seat.

Is it not funny how the Liberal Democrats always gain the lowest vote but always end up as winners? I am sure their Conservative colleagues in government have come to understand that that is their working relationship. Certainly, it is a puzzle to me. I suppose it is what happens when you have coalitions. I just hope that the leader of my party will recognise that those who get the lowest votes often end up on top in these kinds of situations.

The electorate of Wales do not understand the present system, so why does the Green Paper not consult them? Further, if we are to have a PR element— I favour first past the post rather than PR—why do we not split the first past the post election from the election for top-up Members? The public would then vote for the party candidate of their choice in the first past the post election, and the party of their choice in the constituency part of the election, and their choices would be elected. Giving the electorate what they want might seem novel, but at least they would understand what they were being given.

On the whole there has been a negative reaction to aspects of this Green Paper—to what it does not ask rather than what it does. It is a friendless Green Paper. Not even the Conservative leadership in the National Assembly will support it—and if the largest party in government will not support it, why should we?

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[Baroness Randerson]

Does the noble Lord accept that under the current legislation, you cannot have the status quo without depleting the number of Assembly Members. I cannot recall without a close reading of the Government of Wales Act 2006, but I am absolutely sure that it must provide for an Assembly of 60. You could not have an Assembly of 60 under the current rules. Something has to be done and therefore a consultation is required.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

The noble Baroness may be right because she knows a great deal more about the detail of the position in Wales than I. If that is the case, perhaps I can make a plea to do the minimum necessary. Do nothing that will create problems in terms of the other things we are looking at. If it can be done, let us hold back until further consideration has taken place. I say that because the unintended consequences of constitutional reform can be very damaging indeed, as we have found in Scotland. We were told that we had a system of elections in which no party would ever have an overall majority, but of course that is manifestly not the case. As I say, sometimes the unintended consequences can be pretty dramatic, as they have been in Scotland. That is why we should think very carefully before embarking on something that could create many more problems than it is meant to resolve.

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[Baroness Gale]

I can agree with that. I thank my noble friend for her great speech in which she mentioned that the Green Paper expressed hope that there would be no advantage to any party. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned the voting figures and how things were working out, and raised the issue of party-political advantage. I welcome the Secretary of State saying that there should be no advantage to any political party. However, when one looks at the voting figures and the regional list results that my noble friend Lord Touhig mentioned, one sees that on an all-Wales basis Labour got 36.9% of the vote—the highest percentage—and two seats. The Liberal Democrats got 8% of the vote and four seats.

[Baroness Randerson]

The noble Baroness overlooks the point of the list system, which is to put right the disproportionality of the first past the post system. In the three recent elections in Wales, the overall proportionality of both list and constituency seats resulted in the three main parties getting roughly the same number of seats as they got percentages of the vote, although the Labour Party always got a higher percentage of seats than of the vote.

[Baroness Gale]

I thank the noble Baroness for that intervention. Perhaps I may remind noble Lords that it was the Labour Party that brought in devolution and agreed that there would be an element of proportionality. We wanted a brand-new institution in 1999. I and many others in the Labour Party did not want it to look like the old Glamorgan County Council that many of us could remember, which was totally dominated by the Labour Party and had very few representatives from other parties. With the new institution we wanted to involve all parties so that everybody who voted for the smaller parties would have a chance to be represented in the Welsh Assembly. I am very proud that the Labour Party was able to do that.

Gender balance has been mentioned a few times this afternoon. The gender balance in the Welsh Assembly has been pretty good. Again, much of this was brought about by the Labour Party. We guessed that we would win most of our seats in the constituencies, so our policy was to have an equal number of male and female candidates. As a result, a good number of women were elected in the first election, and by 2003 there were an equal number of men and women. It was the first democratically elected institution in the world to have an equal number of men and women. Proportionality does not necessarily mean that you will get more women unless every party puts them at the top of the list.

As my noble friend Lord Touhig said, this consultation paper has been brought out at a time when the people of Wales have much to concern them. Many are concerned about their jobs, or lack of them—young people are worrying about whether they will get a job—and about the lack of economic growth. I refer, for example, to young couples wanting to buy a house. These are the issues worrying Welsh people today. I assure the Minister, as other noble Lords did, that they are not particularly concerned about electoral arrangements for the Welsh Assembly, which must surely come at the bottom of their list of their concerns. Unfortunately, Welsh people have much more important things to worry about.

Since the referendum of 1997 when the Welsh people voted in favour of devolution, all major changes have been made after either a manifesto commitment or a referendum that allowed them to decide how they wanted devolution to evolve. We are not advocating a referendum before any changes are made, but there should be at least a manifesto commitment in the spirit of devolution to allow Welsh people to make their views known.

The Green Paper offers four matters to be consulted on: the size of the constituencies, the ratio of list Members to the constituencies, and the retention of 60 seats, although a number of noble Lords today have mentioned 80 seats. Indeed, I thought I heard for the first time the figure of 90 mentioned. Eighty seats have been talked about in the past, but everyone recognises that this is not the time to increase the number of seats in the Assembly. The Green Paper also asks whether there should be a fixed term of five years, whether candidates should stand for both constituency and regional lists, and whether AMs can also be MPs or Peers.

We already have four-year fixed terms, but it has been agreed that this Assembly will serve a five-year term until 2016 to avoid clashing with the planned general election in 2015. Should we now move to a permanent five-year fixed term? If we revert back to a four-year term, we will get the same problems in 2020 when the general election and the Assembly elections would be held on the same day. I think that the general feeling is to hold the elections at separate times. We all know why that would probably be for the best, but it is right that we should consult on the matter. However, there is a widely held view that the two elections should not clash.

In the Government of Wales Act 2006, the Labour Government did away with what we believed was the anomaly of allowing a candidate to stand both for a constituency seat and in the regional list. That was a manifesto commitment made for the 2005 election. It was something that confused the Welsh electorate. A candidate who was defeated in the constituency could then become a Member of the Welsh Assembly by virtue of being on the regional list. It is now clear that defeated candidates in the constituency cannot gain a list seat; they must make a choice on whether to stand for the constituency or in the regional list.

Should people be able to serve in the Assembly and in the House of Commons or the House of Lords? It will be interesting to see what comes out of this consultation. There is a view that there should be some degree of overlap for a period of time because if someone who is a Member of the House of Commons is then elected to the Assembly, there should be a period of overlap to allow exchanges to take place. That happened in 1999 when a number of MPs were elected to the Welsh Assembly and stood down at the next general election. It also happens the other way around, with AMs being elected to the House of Commons.

The present arrangement of 40 constituency seats and 20 list seats, a ratio of two-thirds to one-third, is how the Assembly has been elected since 1999. If the boundaries change and the number of constituency and list seats changes from the present ratio of 40:20 to 30:30, this will be regarded as a major change, not just a minor adjustment in how Members of the Assembly are elected. The Secretary of State says in the Green Paper that the Government prefer option 2, to make the parliamentary boundaries and the Assembly boundaries the same. She states that there is,

“greater complexity in having different boundaries for Parliamentary and Assembly elections than the present arrangement”.

However, Scotland has different boundaries, which means that an analysis could be made to see if there are difficulties for Scottish electors when they cast their votes. However, to my knowledge, no analysis has been made. There is no evidence to suggest that there are problems in Scotland and therefore no evidence to justify the case the Secretary of State is making for the 30:30 ratio. We note that the Government are not proposing such a measure for Scotland.

The fundamental point of principle here is that it is for the people of Wales to decide on major changes to their electoral arrangements, either through a referendum or by a manifesto commitment. In a debate on the Green Paper in the Welsh Assembly on 12 June, First Minister Carwyn Jones said:

“I received an assurance on two occasions from the Prime Minister that there would be no change without the consent of the Assembly, and I am on record as saying that. I took that assurance in good faith and I expect it to be adhered to. However, the reality is that Scotland will continue to have different boundaries for Scottish Parliament and UK Parliament constituencies. If it works in Scotland, what evidence is there that it could not work in Wales? None is offered”.

I am very pleased to see the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, in his place today, taking part in our debate. He has confirmed that when he was Presiding Officer he too received assurances from the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State that there would be no changes to the boundaries to coincide with the Westminster boundaries. What are we to believe regarding commitments given by the Prime Minister as far as Wales is concerned? Last year we had a UK referendum on the voting system to the House of Commons but at least we knew this was a commitment of the coalition Government. Where was the commitment for this Green Paper? As the First Minister said last week, it has come “out of the blue”.

The Green Paper is before us and my party will play a constructive role by making a submission to the consultation. I understand that the Government will publish their response in November. When could we think of having a further debate on the Government’s proposals, and when can we expect legislation? Finally, I ask the Minister: why are the coalition Government reluctant to allow the Welsh people to decide on these matters for themselves? Why instead are they taking this top-down approach? It is our belief that it is for the people of Wales to decide what kind of electoral system they want. Let them decide what they believe is the best system to serve democracy in Wales. I look forward to the Minister’s response.