Richard Wyn Jones examines evidence from a new report that makes the case for increasing the AMs in the National Assembly
In some important ways Welsh devolution is a remarkable success story. From uncertain beginnings at the time of the 1997 referendum, our institutions of devolved government have rapidly gained widespread public support and legitimacy. Indeed, according to the most recent public attitudes evidence, fully 80 per cent of the population now support some form of devolution. By contrast, only 9 per cent continue to hanker after the abolition of the National Assembly, with an equally meagre 9 per cent supporting outright independence.
That the electorate have embraced ‘home rule’ despite the manifest inadequacies of the successive constitutional dispensations visited on Wales serves to make the transformation in attitudes since the 1990s even more striking.
The UK government’s establishment of the Commission on Devolution in Wales, coupled with its enlightened decision to collaborate with all the mainstream political parties in drawing up its wide-ranging terms of reference, has created a unique opportunity to finally place Welsh devolution on a truly stable and sustainable basis.
The UK’s Changing Union partnership has embraced this opportunity by submitting its own evidence to the Commission, by publishing background reports, and by encouraging debate across civil society. What has become ever clearer through this process of deliberation and engagement is that, however politically inconvenient it may be to say this, Wales will not have the system of devolved government it deserves until the size of the National Assembly is properly addressed.
Truly effective, accountable government requires a powerful, properly resourced legislature to hold the executive to account. The evidence suggests that the capacity constraints resulting from the National Assembly for Wales having only 60 Members is a real barrier to good government. The National Assembly’s 60 members compares with 108 in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the 129 Members of the Scottish Parliament and the 1,400+ Member of Parliament and Peers at Westminster.
Today the Changing Union Project and the Electoral Reform Society Cymru jointly publish Size Matters – Making the National Assembly more effective. The first systematic, evidence-based investigation of the size of the National Assembly, it argues that the current number of AMs are insufficient to allow for proper scrutiny of the Welsh Government and its legislative programme. What one might term the Silk process will remain incomplete until this nettle is finally grasped.
In making this case we are of course fully aware that the instinctive reaction of many will be dismiss out of hand any argument for more politicians. This is not an easy, let alone a fashionable case to make. All we can reasonably ask is that critics first consider the evidence that Size Matters puts forward. We firmly believe that when considered in an objective manner, the evidence is compelling.
Leaving aside Ministers and other office holders, only 42 of the present 60 AMs are available to hold the Welsh Government to account and scrutinise legislation. This compares with 113 in the Scottish Parliament and 522 in the House of Commons at Westminster. It means AMs have to attend multiple committees. They are always in a hurry, constantly moving from one meeting or issue to another. Many say that they do not always have time to read, let alone reflect properly on their documents ahead of meetings. This is currently not a legislature that is in a position to regularly submit Ministers and civil servants to searching, forensic examination.
The Assembly’s Remuneration Board has attempted to redress the balance between executive and legislature by improving the research and support services available to AMs. However, this is a second best option to actually increasing the number of AMs to at least bring their number closer into line with the other devolved legislatures in Edinburgh and Belfast.
A comparative analysis of equivalent small nation and ‘regional’ legislatures elsewhere in the world indicates that 60 members are extremely few for a legislative Assembly that also provides an Executive. The analysis finds that for an institution with the National Assembly’s functions, at least 100 representatives is the norm.
A history of the half-century leading to democratic devolution in 1999 illustrates the arbitrary way in which the number of 60 Members came about. In all previous proposals the recommended membership never fell below 75, and generally assumed a figure of around 100.
Since the publication of the Richard Commission report in 2004, which recommended the expansion of the National Assembly to 80 members once it was given proper law-making powers, it has been recognised that a growth in the power and responsibilities of the Welsh legislature should be accompanied by a concomitant increase in the number of legislators. But like 60, 80 is itself an arbitrary number that has no clear intellectual or comparative basis. Based on a rigorous international, comparative analysis of legislatures, our report recommends that the National Assembly should be expanded to 100 members.
A 100 member National Assembly would cost the taxpayer an estimated £10.1million per annum. The report argues that with Westminster already committed to reducing the number of Welsh MPs, and with the number of Welsh councillors also likely to be reduced (Wales currently has more councillors per head than Scotland), it is time for a mature debate about the balance of Welsh political representation at UK, Welsh and local levels.
While it may not be popular or convenient to admit it, the Assembly is just too small to do the job effectively. Increasing the number of AMs to 100 is a vital part of the process, which will finally place Welsh devolution on a properly stable and sustainable footing.
Mr W.Jones is talking rubbish.The Welsh Assembly provides a wrse health Service,than in England. Welsh run Education despite the gallant efforts of our teachers is a Joke. Councils are to be forced into bankruptcy by Cardiff Bay and job loss is increasing. Meanwhile the Parish Councillors on the Bay squander huge sums of money on totally superfluous offices around the world promoting their ego’s
For Jones to say that Assembly members are over worked is crazy.!! Most of the members are not worth their pay.
In order to improve the life of the Welsh People the Health Service,Education and ,Local Government
should be given back to be run from Westminster,and representing Wales around the world handed back to our British Embassies.We could the reduce all those on the assembly pay roll, Civil servants and Assembly members alike.
Whilst very much disagreeing with Peter HC Davies, it is certainly a case that, as always with Professor Jones, one is never really sure if this is a report – a “cut and paste” update – or the polemical views of the author. The final line baffles me. Professor Jones writes “Increasing the number of AMs to 100 is a vital part of the process, which will finally place Welsh devolution on a properly stable and sustainable footing.” Two issues: Professor Jones repeats the “process” argument with regard to devolution. Why does it have to be a process? What is the endgame? Then the author talks about a “stable and sustainable footing”. Why does that need to occur? Not sure if Professor Jones realises this but governance is fluidic, not settled. The ebbs and flows of devolution, just like the ebbs and flows of the Unionism that the British nationalists adore, is ever changing. Stability = stagnation. Professor Jones is a generally sound commentator on Brit politics but he needs to perhaps take a more radical and innovative perspective if he wishes to be seen to be at the cutting edge of developments.
Peter Hugh Charles Davies: Politicians in the Assembly are no more or no less competant than the politicans in Westminster or anywhere else in the world. If we don’t like how they are governing Wales then we can vote them out at the next election.
If I don’t like a particular UK Government for example I don’t say, ‘Strip them of their powers and transfer them to Brussels’- I will vote them out. The matter at hand is constitutional and how the Assembly can better hold the Welsh Government to account, including how they are performing on health, education and local government. And if the Welsh Government are not exercising their powers wisely (and granted they don’t always do so), then we can vote them out.
100 is also an arbitrary number unless you have explained how you would elect 100 AMs – ie We know we have 40 constituencies now, but that may change at the whim of Westminster. If we end up with, for example, 31 constituencies, how do you get to 100 from there?
The point being that Wales needs a holistic approach to local and national government reform. We need to decide how many local authorities / counties we need, how many constituencies we need, and how many MPs / AMs we need, and we should decided these things in connection with one another, not as a series of silo-ed reports and recommendations. The problem is, as far as I’m aware, none of this stuff is devolved so we need to start there.
My own personal preference would be to go back to the pre-1996 8 counties and to lower the number of constituencies to 32. From there you could easily get to 96 AMs, made up in from one a number of different ways. But I must admit, that’s mainly based on maths rather than a detailed analysis of what Wales needs.
“it argues that the current number of AMs are insufficient to allow for proper scrutiny of the Welsh Government and its legislative programme”
This whole situation is becoming so predictable it’s a joke. Where, pray tell was Mr Jones and his ‘think tank’ prior to the last referendum on further powers when the opposition (if it was ever given enough airtime to speak) was arguing exactly that.
It seems logical to me to increase the numbers. Presently half the AMs are on the Government benches, so scrutiny is limited to 30 overstretched AMs and their research/coms support (which in practice is regularly no more than one person per AM).
I think that any overhaul of the AM structure needs to be matched with a similar overhaul of the support staff structure. This has recently occurred with regards to the civil service but various political blockages have prevented that happen to research staff.
The recent review Mr Jones mentions did nothing to change the situation other than give some senior staff a pay raise and lower general moral. The Assembly has a real problem at the moment with a high support staff turnover due to long hours and under remuneration. At the moment there is simply no incentive to retain the knowledge capital.
Surely we need to match an increase in the number of AMs with a major decrease in the number of Councillors. It seems crazy to me that authorities like Powys and Cardiff have bigger councillor chambers than Cardiff Bay.
Like almost every other failed political construct, the only solution its supporters and insiders have for failure is more of the same! Failed political constructs are often a triumph of intellect over intelligence and the movement in Wales is clearly no exception! The more they fail the more desperate and controlling they become…
It starts with apparently trivial micro-management of peoples’ lives often involving legislation ‘for our own good’ based on some real or imaginary ‘beneficial crisis’ or scare – e.g. telling parents what their kids can eat on school premises, claiming ownership over dead peoples’ organs – and it ends with a totalitarian state which has usually failed so badly economically and logistically that essential services collapse (see education and health to name but two…) and basic essentials are in short supply for all but the ruling class. Wales hasn’t quite got there yet (though I suspect people now using FoodBanks might not agree!) but if the open border with England was closed and the £10 billion p.a. social prop provided by the Treasury was removed then it very quickly would do… So – do you really want to give these serial failures more powers?
Eventually the people will have to rise up and kill them or live like people in Cuba or maybe even North Korea. It doesn’t have to be like that. The only question is – how far do we let these fools fail before we do something about it?
So we now have sixty politicians making the decisions that used to be made by one, and as a result we have fallen even further behind England in the key areas of health, education, and economic development – and this is our Professor’s definition of ‘a remarkable success story’! Of course, he undermines his own case by admitting that there is a problem and a need for change, and then undermines his credibility even more with his proposed solution – even more politicians! It explains a lot about the Welsh public sector if someone who is supposed to be its expert on ‘governance’ sees more politicians, and presumably bureaucrats, rather than less, as the answer to anything. The irony is that the mutual back-scratching, to put it politely, between Welsh academia and the Assembly does neither of them any good: both would benefit from letting in a bit of fresh air in the form of independent thought.
It’s a no brainer. Just get on with it.
The Welsh Government increases civil servant headcount by +/- 40 with the blink of an eyelid if there is an administrative/functional requirement and the budget/business case stacks up.
Quangos and government agencies hire and fire +/-40 people without question if it is within their budgets
The decision to increase headcount by +/- 40 people wouldn’t touch the sides of a second or third tier management committee in a major corporation (e.g. with a cost budget of £15bn) let alone go to the national Board or an annual meeting of shareholders. It would be preposterous.
It’s either the right thing to do or not.
When most AMs sit on 2 or sometimes 3 committees, perhaps scrutinizing 2 separate pieces of legislation at the same time, and when party leaders themselves (Kirsty Williams) are on subject committees, you know you have a far from adequate arrangement.
I don’t think the Assembly was created by the Labour Government with success in mind. Its limited powers indicated it to be a talking shop to debate the expenditure of the Welsh Office whose powers it inherited.
Professor Jones correctly observes that devolution has been an astounding success as far electoral support is concerned, especially considering the mediocre performance of the succession of Labour-led administrations since 1999 to the present day.
Public support indicates an appetite for more powers beyond those gained in the 2011 referendum. That these will come in due course is in no doubt. Consequently, the institution has to become an effective legislature, which no-one could argue it is at present.
The legislatures of some of the smaller EU members are as follows:
Luxembourg (525,000) 60 seats
Malta (452,000) 69 seats
Cyprus (838,000) 86 seats
Estonia (1,339,000) 101 seats
Croatia (4,800,000) 151 seats
Ireland (4,582,000) 166 seats plus 60 Senators
Latvia (2,041,000) 100 seats
Lithuania (3,007,000) 141 seats
Slovenia (2,055,000) 130 seats
It is interesting to note that Scotland and NI’s devolved legislatures require 100+ members. Wales’ population falls between theirs. Its legislative assembly surely requires a similar number if it is to fulfil its functions effectively on our behalf. Those who complain about the Assembly’s shortcomings have to bear in mind its limitations. If you buy an badly underpowered car, don’t be surprised if it struggles or fails to climb hills.
If Wales is to climb out of the pit of poverty which centuries of Westminster government has dug for it, then it must have the requisite institutions and powers to remedy the problem. More London government is not the answer, as it has failed time after time.
All these arguments that are being put forward as a reason for the increase in AMs would have been bleeding obvious (prior to the 2011 referendum) to any forward thinking ‘think tank’ that was capable of even half a thought. However, none of the Welsh political establishment or the academics that they were in bed with uttered a word. In fact, as I recall, a few even had the brass neck to go on tv and point blank lie to the Welsh public that more AMs wouldnt be needed! John Winterston Richards is correct…. back-scratching doesnt even begin to cover what has been going on behind the scenes.
“Eventually the people will have to rise up and kill them…”
Perhaps John Winterson Richards would like to add John R Walker’s suggestion to his list of six strategies for unloved unionists?
belowskander, no doubt you are right – they all lacked the courage to come clean. But that doesn’t alter the argument. Our politicians are in the wrong place. We have more councillors than Scotland with a much smaller population, we have 40 MPs, the same number as when they influenced health and education policy in Wales, which they no longer do. And we have an inadequate number of AMs for the job they are charged with doing – as shown by the comparative numbers. So wouldn’t you think there was a case for some realignment – whatever you think of the people making the case?
Hendre, please don’t misuse the word ‘unionist’. Anyone who is not in favour of full independence for Wales is a ‘unionist’ including all those people who want more power for the Assembly. The people that you are teasing are not unionists but colonialists. They don’t think Wales should have its own democratic institutions but want us run by a governor general from London. Imagine Cheryl Gillam or David Jones with all the powers of the Assembly and no democratic check from the people of Wales. That is the position that PHC Davies, John Walker et. al. favour. Ych a fi!
Hendre, a bit too radical, even for me! …Joking apart, it is essential we have a sensible and properly informed dialogue if we are to avoid the remotest possibility of violence. While most of the Welsh Nationalists who frequent this site seem to be civilised and intelligent, and in general most seem honest and well-meaning, history shows that it is hard for honest and well-meaning people to control the forces of nationalism after raising them. Anyone who takes the complacent line of ‘It couldn’t happen here’ should brush up on the recent history of Bosnia, which has a population not much bigger than Wales. Things could get nasty very quickly, especially in the context of a sharp reduction in the standard of living.
Mr Tredwyn, do you honestly believe what you are writing? Do you seriously think that those who oppose devolution ‘want us run by a governor general from London’ with all the powers of the Assembly? Seriously, is that what you think? Who has ever suggested such a thing? Is it too much to ask that you inform yourself of someone’s opinions before attacking them?
The real debate is, and has always been, between Welsh Nationalists and anti-devolution Unionists. The position of the ‘pro-devolution Unionists,’ that devolution was an antidote to Nationalism, has, predictably, been thoroughly discredited since 1997 in both Scotland and Wales.
I read with interest all the arguments. However, as a Welshman who can trace his family back to Madog Vychan who died 1351 and his wife Gwenllian a descendant of Edwin Lord of Mostyn who were also Owain Glyndwr’s Great Grand parents, I do not regard myself as suggested by R. Tredwyn as a London Colonist or Unionist. I merely want to see life improved for the people of Wales in which I live!! I do not know from where Mr Tredwyn’s family herald, but surely he must agree that the Assembly does not lead in that direction? It is considerably worse than government form Westminster in which we have the opportunity to sack MPs at election time if they don’t do an efficient job with the assistance of their colleagues and civil servants. For the past six hundred years Wales has been a number of Princedoms unable to agree with each other.Lloyd George was howled down in the Westgate Hotel in Newport in the 1890s when talking to liberals about advocating a welsh league of youth. So let’s go for what all Welsh People can agree upon—– A better standard of living.
The numbers don’t really matter. It’s function and organisation that matter.
60 members do not oversee the Government because some 25 ARE the Government.
As a result you have the ridiculous situation that Carwyn Jones (or David Cameron come to that) is expected to “call his own Government to account”. Of course this never happens. It is the major flaw in the “talking-shop for amateurs” that is the Parliamentary system. We elect representatives who then do a job for which they were not elected. The electors are left with a secretary to do the AM/PM’s job for them.
In my view the Government ought to be elected and not be part of the body which “calls it to account”.
Voting out MPs makes no difference to the government when you have only 40 out of 630. Under the old dispensation Welsh electors could not determine the policies applied to Wales. Now in some
policy areas they can. That must be an improvement. If they do not exercise that power in the way you would like, that does not necessarily make the government ‘worse’. Give them time, perhaps they will come around to your way of thinking!
The real debate is decidedly not between independence and no devolution, both uninteresting minority positions espoused by fewer than 10 per cent of the population. The real debate is the form of devolution, how much of it and how to make it work for the benefit of the Welsh people. J W Richards denies being a colonialist but what else would you call it. A government elected by English votes appoints a Secretary of State (often from an English constituency) who had all the powers currently exercised by the Assembly with no direct responsibility to the people of Wales. I’m not making that up. It was the situation before devolution. And you want that back. It basically amounts to saying the Welsh are unfit to manage Welsh affairs. For shame.
I get the feeling from reading these comments that some of the commentators haven’t actually read the report they are completely rubbishing based on the small excerpt above.
I also cant help feeling that we still haven’t got over the way the Assembly was set up in the first place as a corporate body, with the Welsh Assembly and Government not properly separated. As many of the arguments we have on this issue don’t seem recognise the difference we have had formally since 2006 and informally even before that. Also it was noted back in 2004 in the Richard Report that 60 members weren’t enough, and it was always a fudged number of members. This has never been a secret (and before you say, this was never at stake in the 2011 referendum, that is why it was rebuffed when raised).
We are very unlikely to go backwards (i.e. scraping the Assembly) as the figures showing growing public support for the institution show, and what would we go back to anyway? The administrative devolution we had from the 1960’s, where we were still behind the rest of the UK on a number of indicators, or before that? So if we really want to improve the governance of Wales we need to move towards improving how the institutions of government work.
It was always going to take at least a generation for it to make an positive impact, this was guaranteed by the complex and half baked settlement we started with. While it is clear the Welsh Government (and by some association the National Assembly) have not done a great job of running Wales, at least these are our own mistakes we can learn from. Probably the most important part of self determination.
We are always looking at the short term. If we direct our criticism at the right institution (the government, not the Assembly), we may one day, I really hope, vote in a new government (of whichever political persuasion) and it will become clear that we have a choice. If those who oppose changes being made in Wales spend all their time just attacking the institution of the Assembly (and it is always much easier to knock institutions down then it is to build them up) then we are not going to get anywhere.
“The real debate is decidedly not between independence and no devolution, both uninteresting minority positions espoused by fewer than 10 per cent of the population”
actually support for no devolution is over 20% and here’s a link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-21602742
It’s just support for independence that is below 10%…. but dont let facts get in the way of your argument.
Out of interest, what polls have you been reading? Surely not ones that sampled >40% Welsh speakers like was pointed out by David Davies MP recently 😉
“fully 80 per cent of the population now support some form of devolution. By contrast, only 9 per cent continue to hanker after the abolition of the National Assembly, with an equally meagre 9 per cent supporting outright independence”
This does seem to suggest a measure of public confidence in the process after 14 years. It is interesting to note that those who decry the very idea of devolution have overlooked this perhaps inconvenient truth.
Given that “fully 80 per cent of the population now support some form of devolution. By contrast, only 9 per cent continue to hanker after the abolition of the National Assembly, with an equally meagre 9 per cent supporting outright independence” this might just suggest there is a popular consensus that the WAG is doing at least some of its job well. Indeed, this may imply a greater degree of public aproval than enjoyed by Westminster. Those who decry the entire process would do well to consider the most notable set of numbers in this article.
Mr Tredwyn, some of your posts on other threads indicate that you are capable of making reasonable points, but you undermine your own positions when you rely on ill-informed insults. Friendly advice: quite apart from the discourtesy, ‘ad hominem’ arguments are weak because they indicate a lack of confidence in the logical content of your own case.
To repeat and rephrase the basic question, have you any evidence that any substantial Unionist has ever advocated a ‘governor general’ or a Secretary of State with ‘all the powers of the Assembly’ – including its limited legislative powers – as you claimed? If not, you should withdraw your claim and apologise for misrepresenting our position.
As you should know, most anti-devolutionists take that position out of a more general belief that less government rather than more would be beneficial to the people of Wales, both individually and collectively. It should therefore be clear that an executive with legislative powers would be particularly obnoxious to us.
What most of us would prefer is Wales governed no more than the rest of the United Kingdom, but with a representative within the British Cabinet to deal with Welsh cultural issues, the only area where a specifically Welsh exceptionalism is justified.
FAO The Editor
Please inform me why my comment of yesterday afternoon criticising JWR’s citing of Bosnia as a possible model for future outcomes of Welsh self-determination has not been published.
Has there been an error or do you take exception to the content?
Thanks,
P Davies
Mr Tredwyn, some of your posts on other threads indicate that you are capable of making reasonable points, but you undermine your own positions when you resort to ill-informed insults. Friendly advice: quite apart from the discourtesy, ‘ad hominem’ arguments are weak because they indicate a lack of confidence in the logical content of your own case.
To repeat and rephrase the basic question, have you any evidence that any substantial Unionist has ever advocated a ‘governor general’ or a Secretary of State with ‘all the powers of the Assembly’ – including its limited legislative powers – as you claimed? If not, you should withdraw your claim and apologise for misrepresenting our position.
As you should know, most anti-devolutionists take that position out of a more general belief that less government rather than more would be beneficial to the people of Wales, both individually and collectively. It should therefore be clear that an executive with legislative powers would be particularly obnoxious to us.
What most of us would prefer is Wales governed no more than the rest of the United Kingdom, but with a representative within the British Cabinet to deal with Welsh cultural issues, the only area where a specifically Welsh exceptionalism is justified.
In reply to Mr J W Richards: The Secretary of State for Wales had all the executive and secondary legislative powers (i.e. to make legislative orders authorised by primary legislation) that the Welsh government and Assembly had before the latter acquired limited powers of primary legislation in 2011. No UK government since the 1970s has depended on Welsh MPs for its majority so legislation affecting Wales could be and was passed without it being favoured by a majority of Welsh representatives. It was then embellished and implemented by the Secretary of State. People who want to abolish Wales’ democratic institutions apparently wish to restore that situation. To describe that position as ‘colonialist’ is not to make an ad hominem argument since I apply the adjective indifferently to anyone taking the position. You may well be right that government should be less active or less intrusive but in matters affecting Wales alone why should the Welsh electorate not be the ones to decide? I agree with David Lawrence; there is much to criticise in the performance of the Welsh government (it compares poorly with the performance of the Scottish government post devolution in my opinion) but it would be more constructive to criticise that than seek to abolish our measure of home rule and to make Welsh government less democratic. England itself is politically over-centralised since local government was emasculated but that is a matter for English voters to put right.
Tredwyn, it is, to put it very politely, disingenuous in the extreme to suggest ‘colonialist’ has no pejorative connotations on the side of the political steam where you seem to have pitched your tent. It is even more disingenuous to equate the primary legislative powers of the Assembly with the delegated authority of a pre-1997 Secretary of State to draft statutory instruments subject to Parliament. Indeed, it is, ironically, a denial of the massive changes that have occurred since devolution.
The debate is not about democracy – neither side is putting forward any alternative form of government – but about the boundaries of the polity within which that democracy should operate. Nationalists say it should be Wales, Unionists the United Kingdom: that is the real question.