Powers and Electoral Arrangements of the National Assembly for Wales

Wales Green Party submission to the Commission on the Powers and Electoral Arrangements of the National Assembly for Wales
 
Summary
Wales Green Party wants:
  • the National Assembly to become a Parliament for Wales with, initially, powers analogous to those the Scottish Parliament has in relation to Scotland.
  • the members who make up this body should be selected using the system known as Alternative Vote Plus (AV+)
  • the introduction of increased powers to be accompanied by an increase to 75 in the total number of Assembly Members with a corresponding similar reduction in the number of Welsh Westminster MPs
  • the additional 15 Assembly Members should be regional Assembly Members as this will make the result of the election more representative
  • the threshold for retaining a deposit in the election of Assembly Members to be reduced to 1%
  • the reduction of the age at which people may vote and stand as candidates to 16.
Powers of the National Assembly for Wales
One of the Green Party’s core principles states that:

"We emphasise democratic participation and accountability by ensuring that decisions are taken at the closest practical level to those affected by them."
The work of the Scottish Parliament has demonstrated the successful devolution of many powers of primary legislation from Westminster. Similar powers should be exercised by the National Assembly in respect of Wales in the absence of compelling reasons to do otherwise. Significantly this would, overtime, entail the development a new Welsh legal and criminal justice system as a distinct body of Welsh law is created.
The Scotland Act 1998 is written in terms of reserved powers. It prescribes everything over which the Westminster Parliament retains control. All remaining areas were transferred to the Scottish Parliament i.e. they were devolved. This helped maximise the areas over which the Scottish Parliament has control. The Scottish Parliament is able to examine and debate both reserved and devolved powers. The legislation devolving powers to a Welsh Parliament should be similarly framed. This would include the following policy areas amongst those under the control of the Welsh Parliament:
  • Health
  • Education and training
  • Local government
  • Social work
  • Voluntary sector
  • Housing
  • Area regeneration and planning
  • Economic development
  • Trade and exports
  • Tourism
  • Passenger and road, air and sea transport
  • Welsh criminal, civil and electoral law
  • Judicial appointments
  • Criminal justice and prosecution
  • Civil and criminal courts, tribunals and legal aid
  • Prisons
  • Police and fire services
  • Civil defence and emergency planning
  • The environment
  • Agriculture and food standards
  • Forestry and fisheries
  • Sport and the arts
  • Statistics, public registers and records
Additionally, and like the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Parliament should have the power to vary the basic rate of income tax by up to 3p in the pound and determine public holidays.
There remain other powers reserved to the Westminster Parliament under the Scotland Act 1998 which it may also be appropriate to devolve. For example a strong case can be made that there would be of considerable benefit to the Welsh economy for Wales to be able to issue currency independently of the Bank of England.
However Wales needs the National Assembly to be an effective legislature as soon as possible, and with this in mind it is best in the short term to follow the Scottish model where ever possible as this will lend itself to the most rapid devolution of powers to Wales assuming this is agreed by the population of Wales in a referendum.
Again, as is the case in Scotland, there should be a clear distinction between the executive and legislative arms of government in Wales with the executive being served by a Welsh civil service.
The increase in the powers of the National Assembly set out above would give rise to a greater workload with a corresponding need for more Assembly Members. It is difficult to quantify how many additional Assembly Members would be appropriate however useful comparisons can be made with the Scottish Parliament. Currently Wales has one Assembly Member for approximately each 50,000 members of the population. In Scotland the ratio is one Scottish Member of Parliament for approximately each 40,000 members of the population. The latter gives rise to a Scottish Parliament with 129 members.
To bring these two ratios into line would involve the creation of an additional 15 Assembly Members giving a total of 75 Assembly Members. This would be an appropriate initial size for the Welsh Parliament. This level could then be reviewed once the Parliament was operational. Additional Assembly Members could be created at no increase cost for the taxpayer if the number of Welsh MPs in Westminster was reduced accordingly. This reduction could most readily be accomplished by halving the current number of Welsh MPs by having one MP represent what are currently two neighbouring Westminster constituencies. This would have the added benefit of retaining a link between the constituencies of Assembly Members and their Westminster counterparts.
Electoral Arrangements of the National Assembly for Wales
Currently the electoral arrangements for the selection of Assembly Members do not provide a truly representative National Assembly. The current system unduly benefits the Labour Party at the expense of the other parties, especially the smaller parties.
This situation could be remedied by making the 15 additional Assembly Members, noted above, regional Assembly Members. This would produce a situation like Scotland where there are 7 members elected from each region and political parties gaining over 5% of the second vote in one of the five National Assembly regions would have a reasonable expectation of being represented.
Further improvement would be gained by moving from the current additional member system to one of AV+. Currently a significant majority of the constituency votes do not count towards the election of the constituency Assembly Member. Adopting the majoritarian Alternative Vote system for the election of constituency Assembly Members would mean that more voters’ opinions are reflected by the result and voters would also be more likely to vote for smaller parties in the knowledge that there votes would still count if their first choice of constituency Assembly Member was not elected.
A considerable bar to the progress of many smaller parties is the £500 deposit charged for standing each constituency candidate and each regional list of candidates. Currently this deposit is lost where the candidate or party list fails to gain 5% of the vote. The cost to smaller parties of standing a full slate of candidates in the National Assembly elections is thus currently £22,500. For smaller parties this may easily represent a majority of their election costs. This situation is doubly unfair for the smaller parties as it is a cost which the larger parties, which poll over 5% of the vote, do not have to bear.
The £500 deposit undoubted deters the proliferation of candidates at elections. A similar deterrent effect however could be achieved by reducing the lost deposit threshold to 1% of the vote whilst allowing all serious candidates a very real prospect of retaining their deposit thus increasing their ability to participate fully in the electoral process.
Lastly, there is no good reason why the age at which people may vote and stand as a candidate in the National Assembly (or for that matter at any level of government) should not be reduced to 16.
Each of the changes to the current voting system outlined above would produce a more representative National Assembly. They also build upon, rather than replace, the current voting system whilst reflecting the significant role political parties play in the formation of the National Assembly. The most significant of these changes would be the adoption of AV to select the constituency Assembly Members. This is, however, straightforward to implement and is also a relatively simple change for voters to understand. Furthermore there would be no additional need to review National Assembly constituency boundaries which is of necessity a time consuming process and would be a distraction from the process of implementing devolution.
Conclusion
The National Assembly needs powers of primary legislation to give it real significance. Without these powers it will remain little more than an expensive talking shop in the minds of many voters.
No system of government is perfect and the opportunity for much needed reform should not be lost or delayed in search of an ideal solution. By modelling reform of the National Assembly along the lines of the Scottish Parliament we would be implementing a tried and tested solution which would have immediate appeal to any voter in favour of devolution. By adopting this pragmatic approach, including relatively minor adjustments to the number of Assembly Members and the electoral process, it is possible rapidly to bring about the necessary changes.
In 2007 Welsh voters could and should be electing a representative Parliament for Wales.