Better Governance for Wales
From Democracywiki
Better Governance for Wales
The Welsh Affairs Committee has been conducting an inquiry into the Better Governance for Wales white paper. The white paper proposes:
- Enhanced legislative powers for the Assembly through a streamlining of procedures so that its legislative priorities are secured more quickly and easily;
- The way forward for a formal separation between the Assembly and the Welsh Assembly Government to avoid confusion and to improve effective scrutiny;
- A change to the provisions in the Government of Wales Act so that losing candidates in Assembly constituency elections are unable to become Assembly Members through the regional list.
Legislation enabling the Welsh Assembly to legislate on devolved policy areas will be passed but will not be enacted unless it is approved by a referendum.
Controversially, this does not go as far as was proposed by the Richard Commission in March 2004. It recommended that in addition to primary legislative powers, the Welsh Assembly should have:
- Tax Varying powers - that if a legislative Assembly is constituted, it is desirable, though not essential, for it to have tax-varying powers.
- Increase in membership - that to exercise primary powers the Assembly would need an increase in membership from 60 to 80 Members.
- Method of election - that the present voting system, 40 constituency members elected by first past the post and 20 list members elected by the additional member system, cannot sustain an increase to 80 the best alternative is the STV system.
The differences between the Richard Commission recommendations and the Government's proposals was one of the key issues to be raised by the select committee. In an evidence session on 10 November the Rt Hon Rhodri Morgan AM said that
What this Bill has but Richard did not have is the intermediate stage; namely, the Orders in Council stage, or, if you like, the parliamentary release catch, where the Assembly can apply and then the Secretary of State takes a view, and then it comes through into Parliament to request Parliament to release the powers to the Assembly to pass an Order in Council. That is not in Richard. We think that is a good thing to have added to Richard.
The issue of dual candidacy was also raised with witnesses. The White Paper proposes that candidates who stand for election in a constituency seat and lose, should be prevented from becoming an Assembly member through the regional lists, as is possible and indeed inevitable, under the Additional Member System. The Richard Commission had proposed changing the electoral system for the Assembly to the Single Transferable Vote system which would have ended dual candidacy.
In his evidence to the Committee the Rt Hon Peter Hain MP, Secretary of State for Wales, argued that
The issue of dual candidacy is one that has proved controversial in many other jurisdictions that have introduced additional member systems, and there are not many that have.
He opposed the introduction of STV on the basis that
Once you move to a single transferable system you lose the individual relationship between the constituency and the elected member. It may produce a more proportional result but it breaks that link which I think is a terribly important feature of parliamentary democracy.
However, Glyn Mathias from the Electoral Commission believes that if dual candidacy is a problem a ban is not the solution.
there is a serious danger that an attempt to resolve one particular anomaly or injustice will actually serve to create other anomalies and injustices and that is the basis really of the conclusion we have come to. There are about 30 other countries around the world which have additional Member systems as their electoral system. No other country currently bans dual candidacy on the lines of the proposal in the White Paper. We therefore feel that reasons for going down this road have to be more compelling than if there were those other examples. If you are going to operate outside international democratic norms then you have to have particularly compelling reasons to do so.
The Welsh Affairs Committee report on the Better Governance for Wales white paper is published on 13th December.
