Political stitch-ups never look good. We’ve had a fair few in Wales, not least the infamous way in which Rhodri Morgan was initially blocked from becoming First Minister.
Sometimes there are pragmatic - and even perhaps justifiable - reasons for stitching things up. But we’re currently in danger of seeing Welsh democracy undermined by a stitch-up that can’t be justified and seems to be based, at least partly, on a fundamental misunderstanding.
I’m referring to the proposal to change the method of electing Senedd Members to one where political parties have all the power and individual voters are deprived of choice. I have no problem with increasing the number of MSs from 60 to 96. We should have had more from the outset and are grossly under-represented in comparison with Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Read more: Senedd set to increase to 96 members as politicians back reform
I go along with the need to have more MSs so we can have better scrutiny and have no sympathy for the argument that increasing the number of Members will be a waste of money. The cost is minuscule in the context of the overall devolved budget.
Like many others I do, however, have a very strong objection to the electoral system it is proposed that we should be saddled with. Labour and Plaid Cymru have more than enough votes between them to push through a Senedd reform package, which requires a two-thirds majority.
In May, the two parties revealed that they had agreed a reform package that involved increasing the number of MSs, all of whom would be elected by a “closed list” system under which people would vote simply for a party.
They would have no ability in multi-member super-constituencies to choose which candidates they want to support - or to mix and match between different parties. This undermines the rights of voters and treats them like bit players in democracy.
It’s not a good system for other reasons too, including the fact that tribal party loyalists are likely to get selected as candidates while more independent-minded mavericks will be rejected. I wanted to know where the preference for the closed list system had come from, given that the Single Transferable Vote (STV) is the best-known form of proportional representation and came well recommended.
In 2017 an expert panel chaired by Professor Laura McAllister of Cardiff University backed STV for the Senedd, stating in their report that STV “maximises [the] power of voters to express nuanced preferences for individual candidates (including independent candidates) rather than parties”.
During the last Senedd term a Committee on Senedd Reform chaired by Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney MS Dawn Bowden carried out a public consultation exercise and produced a report which recommended STV as the proposed voting system.
The Electoral Reform Society Cymru had submitted a response to the consultation which said: “STV scores very highly across most criteria against which to evaluate an electoral system, in particular proportionality, voter choice, diversity and member accountability. Voters are more likely to have representatives they want and the overall result is likely to be broadly proportional to the number of votes cast for each party. Each area will almost certainly be represented by a number of people from different parties.”
Another consultee, the Make Votes Matter group, stated that “good systems allow voters a wide choice of parties, and allow voters to express preferences for people rather than just parties”.
In its report, published in November 2020, the committee recommended that the Senedd should introduce STV, stating: “This will give voters more choice, maintain clear links between Members and constituencies, and produce more proportional electoral outcomes.”
One of the members of the committee was Ogmore Labour MS Huw Irranca-Davies. In the new Senedd term he chaired another committee which looked at the issue again and recommended the closed list system instead when its report was published in May 2022.
Although there were nine bullet points listed in favour of STV, there were three against:
- Voting by ranking preferences is unfamiliar in Wales;
- Method of translating votes into seats could be perceived as complex;
- Maximises power of voters to express nuanced preferences for individual candidates (including independent candidates) rather than parties. The report said: “It can be argued that this could lead to an imbalance in Members’ focus on constituency matters to the detriment of other elements of their roles.”
Alternatively, this could be seen as a positive point - forcing neglectful MSs to do constituency work. Four points were put forward in favour of the closed list system: that it was familiar to voters, that there was a single route to election for all Members, that it could secure high proportionality and that it could facilitate “strong, cohesive political parties”.
But two compelling points were made against it - that it provided for no choice for voters between individual candidates and that there was no accountability for individual Members directly to voters. The two negative points seem much more powerful to me and should have ruled the closed list system out.
I wondered what had happened behind the scenes between the two reports to swing support away from STV and in the direction of the closed list. I asked around.
Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price, whose party supports STV in principle but has gone along with Labour’s desire for the closed list, said all he knew was that First Minister Mark Drakeford had made it clear to him, both publicly and privately, that STV was unacceptable to Labour and that the agreed electoral system would have to be the closed list.
A source suggested that affiliated trade unions had insisted on the closed list, but union sources denied that. One senior Labour source told me without naming names that while most local parties in Wales supported STV, there were some in the party who “didn’t like STV” - possibly because they thought Labour would lose out if it was introduced. Agreeing to the closed list was seen as a compromise.
The other significant factor was the belief that gender balance was more likely to be achieved with closed lists than STV.
Yet, as Prof McAllister herself has asserted, there is no evidence that voters will discriminate on the grounds of gender in a proportional system. And while political parties would, under the Labour-Plaid proposals, be obliged to alternate men and women on their candidates’ lists, it would still be possible for an uneven number of male and female MSs to be elected, depending on the level of support achieved by each party.
I asked Mr Irranca-Davies why he had turned against STV in the 18 months between the two reports he was involved with.
He sent me this statement: "The Special Procedure Committee [which he chaired] concluded its work before the end of May 2022, as it was instructed to do by the Senedd. It agreed a clear position in favour of electoral reform, as laid out in detail in the committee report.
“This was subsequently supported by a supermajority (two-thirds) vote after a full debate in the Senedd, and the Senedd has instructed the Welsh Government to bring forward the necessary legislation for scrutiny and further consideration.
“As the former chair of the committee, my thanks again go to the committee members for their willingness to seek a position which delivered the remit set us by the Senedd in 2021, and to establish a position on Senedd reform which could command support by the Senedd too.
“That was a mighty and challenging task, which they diligently and collegiately applied themselves to and duly completed."
It seems to me that there’s a lot that hasn’t been said - and a lot more to be teased out before the legislation proceeds and we’re stuck with a system that gives voters in Wales less power than they’ve had since the universal franchise was introduced.
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