flexible list | The Constitution Unit Blog

The Senedd in Wales recently voted to support plans to increase its membership, following the report of a special committee, which endorsed proposals put forward by Labour and Plaid Cymru. Laura McAllister argues that the need to enlarge the Senedd is clear, but that proposed changes to the voting system are flawed and could undermine public support for reform.

That the Senedd marked its twenty-first ‘coming of age’ birthday by seeking to recast itself with a fundamentally altered institutional shape should surprise few familiar with devolved politics. Wales is often referred to as the land of commissions and inquiries. Each of these inquiries into the most ‘unsettled’ devolution settlement has recommended that the Senedd should increase from its current 60 Members (MSs) to a figure between 80 and 100. The story of these inquiries can be found on the Senedd website.

I chaired the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform in 2017, which was charged with looking at the size of the Senedd, its electoral system and extending the franchise to younger voters. Our Panel’s recommendations were that:

The number of members should be increased from 60 to at least 80, and preferably closer to 90. We concluded that this was needed because the Assembly (its name was changed to ‘Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament’ in 2020) had acquired a much greater role than the one it had in 1999, and also that its powers were expected to expand further. We concluded that the Senedd could not be expected to continue functioning optimally and delivering for the people of Wales if it remained at its current size.

That a new electoral system should be introduced to accommodate this increased size and to make the relationship between votes cast and seats won more proportional. Our favoured system was Single Transferable Vote (STV) accompanied by prescriptive, legislative gender quotas, though the Panel also regarded a Flexible List system of proportional representation (PR) as a viable alternative.

That the minimum voting age in Senedd elections should be reduced to 16 as a means of boosting democratic participation. We regarded it as essential that the lowering of the voting age should be accompanied by high-quality education about politics in schools and other places of learning. This last recommendation was enacted through the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020 and came into force for the 2021 Senedd elections.

There was deemed insufficient political consensus to advance our first two recommendations around size and electoral system change in time for the 2021 election, despite a report from the Senedd Committee on Electoral Reform chaired by Labour MS Dawn Bowden, which almost exactly replicated our report’s recommendations. This committee did acknowledge that time had effectively run out and instead called for legislation early in the Sixth Senedd to increase its size to between 80 and 90 Members from the 2026 election, with all MSs elected by STV.

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A nine-month inquiry by a specially convened expert panel has culminated today in the publication of a report that sets out the case for a substantial increase in the size of the Welsh Assembly. In this post, Constitution Unit Deputy Director and panel member Alan Renwick offers a personal reflection on the inquiry and its findings. He focuses particularly on the aspect of the Panel’s remit that is closest to his own research: the appropriate electoral system for an enlarged chamber.

The Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform has today published its report. Set up last February by the Presiding Officer of the Welsh Assembly, the Panel was charged with investigating and making recommendations on three issues: the number of members that the Assembly needs to perform its role effectively; the electoral system through which it is elected; and the minimum voting age for Assembly elections. The Panel’s work fits into a wider agenda of Assembly reform – including a proposal to rename it the Welsh Parliament – to ensure it can exercise effectively its increasing powers and responsibilities.

Core recommendations

The Panel’s main recommendation is that the number of Assembly members should rise from the present 60 at least to 80, and preferably closer to 90. We examined compelling evidence that this change is essential – however difficult it may be politically – if the Assembly is to remain able to perform its functions properly.

Increasing the size of the Assembly in this way inevitably requires some change in the electoral system. We concluded that the simplest possible change – retaining the existing Mixed-Member Proportional (MMP) electoral system (also somewhat misleadingly known as the Additional Member System, or AMS) and increasing the number of list seats – would be defensible, but not optimal. Most crucially, it would make any increase in the size of the Assembly beyond 80 members – the very bottom of the range that we think necessary – unfeasible in 2021. Rather, the Panel recommends that, if the Assembly adopts gender quotas, the optimal system would be the Single Transferable Vote (STV). If the Assembly does not accept gender quotas (or concludes that it lacks the power to enact them – there is some legal uncertainty in this area), the best option would be a Flexible List system of proportional representation.

Regarding the voting age, meanwhile, the Panel comes down firmly in favour of a reduction to 16, accompanied by measures to ensure that young people are properly taught in schools and other places of learning about politics, including about the choices available at elections and beyond.

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