For almost as long as there has been a parliament in Cardiff Bay, discussions have been ongoing about whether the number of Senedd members should be made bigger. In recent weeks we've seen the Labour and Plaid groups in the Senedd publish plans for how they want that enlarged Senedd to look.
The two groups have enough support to get it through the Senedd. But that's not the only obstacle the plans face. This weekend, Labour members and unions affiliated to the party have to have their say and they will do that this weekend at a special event, known as a recall conference where a vote will be held.
The two parties' joint plan is to enlarge the Senedd to 96 members from the current 60. The would be elected using closed proportional lists (meaning you vote for the party rather than candidate) with integrated statutory gender quotas and mandatory zipping - which requires parties to put forward equal numbers of male and female candidates and alternating between men and women when preparing their candidate lists. Seats would be allocated to parties using the D’Hondt formula (which is the current formula for electing regional members of the Senedd). You can see the details of that here. There would be six MSs representing 16 constituencies. Those 16 constituencies would be made up by using the 32 new Westminster constituencies which are paired.
