WRITTEN RESPONSES TO RICHARD COMMISSION CONSULTATION |
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Letter received from The Rt Hon Alan Williams MP
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| Dear Ivor |
| May I put the following points to your Committee ? |
| In Scotland, the constitutional costs of having Primary Legislative powers has been that their number of Westminster MPs is proposed to be cut from 72 to 59. If the same proportion applied in Wales, the number of MPs would be cut by 6 or 7, cutting "our representation in Parliament from 40 to 33. |
| Perhaps you would calculate how many extra Assembly Members would be needed to carry out a full legislative programme. I suggest it would be many more than 7. |
| It would also mean that the pattern of A.M. representations would need to be changed. |
| With only 33 constituencies, only 33 AMs would be elected by First Past The Post -reducing not increasing, the number of AMs. But the Assembly already complains about the stress suffered by its existing members. One possibility might be to move to two member constituencies - but from your own recollections of being an MP, you know the tensions that would create. |
| Alternatively there might be an increase in the number elected through the List of Regional AMs. But that already is a perversion of democracy -16,000 votes elected one Conservative AM, 36,000 elected one Liberal Democrat AM, 24,000 elected one Plaid AM, but 310,000 votes did not earn a single extra Labour AM. |
| To elect an even higher proportion by this route would be to create a democratic disparity that would lead to even more voters not bothering to vote. |
| I would suggest: |
| 1: There should be no power of Primary Legislation for the Assembly; |
| 2: The voting system is such an abuse that it has to be revised. |
| Yours sincerely |
Alan Williams |
The Rt Hon the Lord Richard Chairman, The Richard Commission Caradog House 1-6 St Andrews Place Cardiff CF10 3BE |
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