{"id":46224,"date":"2024-05-08T18:06:41","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T18:06:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/08\/welsh-parliament-votes-to-increase-senedd-members-by-more-than-50\/"},"modified":"2024-05-08T18:06:41","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T18:06:41","slug":"welsh-parliament-votes-to-increase-senedd-members-by-more-than-50","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/08\/welsh-parliament-votes-to-increase-senedd-members-by-more-than-50\/","title":{"rendered":"Welsh parliament votes to increase Senedd members by more than 50%"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Welsh parliament has voted to approve an increase of more than 50% in its number of members.<\/p>\n

The Senedd<\/strong><\/a>, located in Cardiff<\/strong><\/a> Bay, currently has 60 members – but the now-approved government plans will see that figure rise to 96.<\/p>\n

This week marks 25 years since the Welsh Assembly<\/strong><\/a>, as it was then known, conducted its first election.<\/p>\n

The Senedd Reform Bill needed a supermajority of the Senedd – two thirds of members – to give it the green light.<\/p>\n

Fourty-three members voted in favour of the bill on Wednesday evening, with 16 against.<\/p>\n

The Labour<\/strong><\/a> government entered into a cooperation agreement with Plaid Cymru<\/strong><\/a> to make sure they had the numbers to vote it through.<\/p>\n

But the largest opposition party in the Senedd, the Conservatives<\/strong><\/a>, have said money should instead be spent on getting more teachers in Wales’s schools and more staff in the Welsh NHS<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Welsh Conservatives’ Darren Millar said the bill was the “biggest power grab” in the history of Welsh democracy and reiterated calls for a referendum.<\/p>\n

According to the Welsh government’s own figures, the bill as a whole will cost up to \u00a3120m to implement over an eight-year period.<\/p>\n

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How will the new constituencies work?<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n

Currently, two-thirds of the Senedd’s members represent 40 individual constituencies. The other 20 members represent five larger regions.<\/p>\n

People choose an individual candidate for the constituency, and vote for a political party or independent candidate in the regional vote.<\/p>\n

From the next election, the 32 Welsh constituencies at Westminster will be paired to form 16 Senedd constituencies.<\/p>\n

Each of the 16 constituencies will be represented by six members.<\/p>\n

Unless an independent candidate, members will be chosen from a list drawn up by political parties.<\/p>\n

Elections will take place every four years instead of five, and candidates will have to be registered to vote in Wales under a new requirement.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

‘Investment in democracy’<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Welsh government argues the Senedd will be in a better position to scrutinise and hold the government to account with more members.<\/p>\n

“It is an investment in democracy, it is an investment in the future of Wales and I urge members to support and to pass this historic piece of legislation,” counsel general Mick Antoniw said.<\/p>\n

Wales<\/strong><\/a> currently has fewer members in its devolved administration than those of Northern Ireland<\/strong><\/a> and Scotland<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Northern Ireland Assembly has 90, while the Scottish Parliament has 129.<\/p>\n

The move to increase members in Cardiff comes as the number of MPs representing Wales at Westminster will be cut from 40 to 32 at the next election.<\/p>\n

Leader of the Welsh Liberal Democrats<\/a><\/strong>, Jane Dodds, told the chamber she would support the legislation but said the bill was “fundamentally flawed” due to the proposed closed list voting system.<\/p>\n

She said those changes risked “robbing voters of true choice”.<\/p>\n

“This will be the parliament that is ready to serve a confident, independent Wales,” Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth told the Senedd.<\/p>\n

But Labour backbencher Joyce Watson said the vote “isn’t about moving towards an independent Wales”.<\/p>\n

Read more from Sky News:
Scotland’s new deputy first minister announced<\/a>
Second Tory MP in 11 days defects to Labour<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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The bill will formally become law when it receives Royal Assent in early July.<\/p>\n

The changes will be in place in time for the next Senedd election in May 2026.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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The Welsh parliament has voted to approve an increase of more than 50% in its number of members. The Senedd, located in Cardiff Bay, currently has 60 members – but the now-approved government plans will see that figure rise to 96. This week marks 25 years since the Welsh Assembly, as it was then known, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46225,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/24\/03\/512x512\/skynews-gfxwhatsapppromo-gfxwhatsapp_6490206.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[3631,18,3321,7340,3649,1979],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46224"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46226,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46224\/revisions\/46226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46225"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}