Wales: National Assembly Elections

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Monday 18th June 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I suppose that I, too, should declare an interest—although it is substantially smaller than that declared by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. I am a little worried that I agreed with most of what she said; it may give me cause for some concern later.

I welcome this debate as it focuses on an issue that needs attention in relation to the National Assembly’s electoral arrangements. However, I believe that these arrangements should be matters for our own National Assembly to decide, not for the two Chambers in Westminster. In this regard, I concur with the sentiments of Wales’s First Minister, Mr Carwyn Jones—something that I do not always do—in today’s Daily Post when he said:

“The electoral system for the assembly is a matter for the people of Wales and no one else”.

As noble Lords will understand, I wholeheartedly agree with him on this occasion.

I am glad that my colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Elis-Thomas, is here—for the first time we have been able to spend some time in Grand Committee together. He speaks with the authority of a long-serving, three-term Presiding Officer of the Assembly, who is widely recognised across party divisions as having done an excellent job. No doubt he will be speaking from the context of his experience as Presiding Officer.

I want to outline the position of my party, Plaid Cymru, on these matters. The power to determine the electoral arrangements should indeed be transferred to the National Assembly. I will address the four subjects broached in this Green Paper; first, the voting system. Plaid Cymru supports the STV system mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, a moment ago. It is used in the Northern Ireland Assembly and I believe I am right—the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, can correct me—that it is used in Scottish local government as well.

[Lord Foulkes of Cumnock]

Yes.

[Lord Wigley]

Yes, indeed. I do not see any reason why it could not be introduced for the National Assembly for Wales. It avoids having two classes of Member, as is inherent in the present system, which was recognised by the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson. The panel chaired by Sir Roger Jones that looked at certain aspects of the Assembly’s work also noted that there were two different jobs being undertaken. The STV system ensures a direct link between the AM and the voters. Incidentally, alongside increasing the Assembly numbers from 60 to 80, STV was a recommendation of the commission led by the noble Lord, Lord Richard, which reported on these matters in 2004. In fact, the amount of legislative work that has come to the Assembly is greater than that anticipated when he made that recommendation.

This Green Paper is very narrow and restrictive. It neither offers STV nor the status quo as options, and I wonder why not. Both options in the Green Paper involve redrawing constituency boundaries. The STV option does not add to the administrative workload at all. Maintaining the 40:20 split between the constituency and regional list AMs implies regular boundary reviews—costing about £1.7 million a time—to equalise constituency sizes. Adopting the 30:30 split involves no greater expenditure as it uses the Westminster constituencies. However, I emphasise that Plaid Cymru has consistently criticised dogmatic equalisation of voter numbers because of the importance of geographic and historic community links, and because it would be very much harder for an AM or an MP to serve some scattered rural constituencies than it would be in an inner-city area because of the scale and mileage involved.

Some people have suggested having 30 constituencies coterminous with Westminster but possibly electing two AMs each. Other colleagues may address this later, but unless the Assembly size is increased to 90 Members, the proportionality explicit in the 1997 referendum and implicit in last year’s referendum would be broken. However, such a change could deal with the gender balance issue as it would provide adequate capacity to deal with the Assembly’s legislative scrutiny role, which is increasingly becoming evident.

An Assembly of 90 Members would still be smaller than the Northern Ireland Assembly of 108 Members or the Scottish Parliament of 129 Members. I repeat that this is not Plaid’s preferred option as we regard the STV system based on 80 AMs as the best way forward. Plaid Cymru will not agree to any change that reduces the proportionality of the Assembly. For change to happen, there should be consensus, and I do not believe that there is consensus in Wales for either eliminating or reducing the proportionality of the Assembly.

On the five-year term, which seems to be the accepted norm at Westminster, we would likewise accept it for the Assembly but ensure that elections for the House of Commons and the Assembly did not coincide. It is not a matter just of the administrative arrangements, which could be complex enough with different constituency boundaries, but a matter of which candidates are speaking on which manifesto. It would become infinitely more complex.

If the present electoral system remains, the ban on candidates standing both for constituencies and for the list should be lifted. A ban is not imposed on Scotland. I heard the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, talk about this previously in another context in the Chamber. There is no consensus in Wales for the current system. A similar system is operated, I understand, only in the Ukraine—which is not a particularly good precedent. The ban was introduced for glaring party-political advantage by the Labour Government at Westminster and, frankly, it should be scrapped. However, if the STV were to be adopted, there would be no need to get into those problems.

On the dual mandate, I express my personal view. The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, referred to my experience in the early years of the National Assembly. My noble friend Lord Elis-Thomas may have a different view on this matter—I am not sure. I served for two years, from 1999 to 2001, as both an AM and an MP. Frankly, it was a total nonsense to try to do so, and it was impossible to do both jobs effectively. In the early months, I found myself bouncing back and forth like a yo-yo between Cardiff, Westminster and my Caernarvon constituency—a formidable triangle. That undoubtedly contributed, along with other factors, to the emergency heart operation that I underwent at that time. Furthermore, a real complication arises if the constituency boundaries differ for the two seats—if one is representing a Westminster seat, with one set of boundaries, and a National Assembly seat, with another set.

Candidates may stand on different manifestos for the two legislatures, again causing confusion. The Assembly seat should be made vacant at the point at which an AM takes the Oath as an MP. Taking the Oath should be the determinant, not the rules that are currently applied for other purposes in the National Assembly and of which the Liberal Democrats fell foul in the last election.

I conclude as I began, by reasserting that the Assembly’s electoral system should be a matter for the people of Wales to determine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Roberts of Conwy]

My Lords, first, I will compliment the Secretary of State, my noble and learned friend, and those who drafted the Green Paper. It is a model of clarity in its presentation of the choices before us and the arguments for and against them. As noble Lords said, the choices were consequential on earlier parliamentary legislation.

The choices that I make are governed by the principle that the best choices are those that bring the National Assembly and this Parliament closer together, rather than those that tend to drive apart these institutions. Therefore, it will come as no surprise that I favour the proposal that Assembly constituencies should be aligned with their parliamentary equivalents, and that we should follow the 30:30 model of 30 directly elected Assembly Members to complement the 30 Members of Parliament, and 30 Assembly Members elected by STV from five regional combinations of six parliamentary and matching Assembly constituencies. The pattern will lead to less confusion and more clarity among electors, and will appeal to local party organisers; I think that we all know that that is true. It will make life simpler for them—and for Members of Parliament and of the Assembly, who will be able to sort out between them the constituency cases that will belong appropriately to each of them.

I also favour the five-year term for the National Assembly, which will match the parliamentary term. Same-day elections should assist turnout. Its decline over the years has concerned us all. It should not be beyond the wit of most electors to handle three ballot papers simultaneously, especially if they have been warned in advance about what to expect.

[Lord Wigley]

Does the noble Lord not accept that if the elections for the National Assembly and the House of Commons were on the same day, inevitably the overwhelming attention of the press and media would be on the Westminster election? The paucity of our independent press in Wales underlines that. It would lead to a situation where there was no proper scrutiny of the programme being put forward for government in Wales—something that should be basic to democracy.

[Lord Roberts of Conwy]

Yes, of course there is a case to be made along those lines. At the same time, I urge the noble Lord to consider the low turnout at Assembly elections. The fact that there is a higher turnout for parliamentary elections could be combined and taken advantage of in order to secure more consideration by the individual elector when he gets to the ballot box of what else there is for him to choose. In practical terms, it may well be that United Kingdom politics would get more attention than local Assembly politics. However, I am not so sure that electors might not have a different view in each case. The fact is that they would be attracted to vote, which is what concerns me, and would make their decisions in the privacy of the voting booth.

I will return to my first principle: that we should endeavour to bring the National Assembly and Parliament closer together. Both institutions are, after all, part of the same democratic state, and one derives its power from the other. I said in the debate on the Queen’s Speech that there had been a strong tendency for the institutions to drift apart. Some would say that that divide has been deliberately promoted and a wedge driven, largely from the National Assembly side, but I would say that wouldn’t I? If so, it has not been particularly beneficial to Parliament, the Assembly or Welsh electors—quite the opposite.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Tankerness]

My Lords, I have heard of that before today. I can confirm that the Prime Minister and the First Minister have met on a number of occasions and it is my belief that, among other matters, this issue has been discussed, but I am not aware of any firm commitment on the part of the Prime Minister. I know that the issue has been raised, but I am not aware of the nature of any firm commitment. I cannot go beyond that because it is not a matter within my knowledge. I am aware that the matter has been raised, but I am not aware of any commitment having been made.

[Lord Wigley]

I am very grateful. The Minister will be aware of the tenor of the representations that have been made not just from this side, but also from certain colleagues on the other side. It should be the wishes of the people of Wales as expressed in the National Assembly that determine the outcome. Will he therefore give an undertaking to those noble Lords who have taken part in the debate today that he will take the message back that this is the expectation of Wales, and that we would like a response to that representation?