, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
The Deputy Presiding Officer role, Deputy Presiding Officer.
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
Is it okay to move on to something slightly different?
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
It could. On vacancies, there's a clear situation about vacancies at the moment: if it's a closed list, it goes to whoever's next on the list, if this is a party position. If it's not a party position, if the individual either leaves a party or was elected as…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
Yes. And of course it's worth us considering the fact that the next Senedd elections would be undertaken at a time when automatic voter registration is taking place as well, and that, because of its first implementation, could also throw up challenges…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
So, we'll need to make some consequential amendments to other pieces of legislation, potentially.
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
Thank you.
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
And I think we all have accepted that, obviously, some of the ministerial briefs are extremely wide, the portfolios are extremely wide. Some of the subject responsibilities of committees are very broad and wide as well. But, of course, if there were to be…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
Obviously, I appreciate the Business Committee has discussed some of these matters as well—which I and other people around this table also attend. There is a proposal, of course, to increase the number of Ministers from 12 to 17, possibly up to 19, by a…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
There's no proposed increase in the number of Senedd Commissioners. You obviously chair the Senedd Commission. Do you think that that is a problem? Do think that we need more Commissioners, or do you think, actually, it could function, with 96 Members, with…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
Do you think 96 Members is the right number of Members for the Senedd and what complications might that throw up for the working arrangements in the Senedd Commission?
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
Just to put it into context, the costs laid out in 2017, which were for a 90-Member Senedd—the upper-scale costs—in today's money, according to the Bank of England's inflation calculator, would be about £4.2 million. So, it's significantly different than the…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
No? They were just accepted.
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
At the time. And there was no challenge from the Welsh Government about the assumptions that had been made on those capital costs in particular.
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
Yes. I'm just trying to understand why they're so wildly different, and why even those figures are still less than those that were in the report in 2017. So, the figures I've got in front in me from the 2017 report have the costs of the alteration of the…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Llywydd and the Senedd Commission
I do just want to test this area of costs a bit, because, looking back at the expert panel's recommendations back in 2017, the costs even then—the capital costs—were higher than the capital costs the Commission has put forward now. Obviously, now's costs you…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform
I'm grateful.
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform
Okay. It was just a really simple, straightforward question. Under the current arrangements, any constituency that's twinned with Anglesey to form a Senedd constituency will have about 25,000 fewer voters than everywhere else. Do you think it's right that…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform
It's a really, really brief one.
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform
Can I ask just one final question?
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform
Okay. And with the current arrangements kicking in at the point of candidature, rather than on election, do you think there's an issue there? So, at the moment, we have rules around individuals who can stand for election and are not disqualified from becoming…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform
I have four minutes. Can I ask you about residency requirements, if that's okay? So, in the Bill, it proposes that in order to be both a candidate and a Member of the Senedd, you must live in Wales. I think everybody's got sympathy with that point. But some…
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform
Yes. Great.
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform
—won't necessarily deliver a balanced Senedd without other action perhaps being taken. But you can assure us that this issue of ensuring gender zipping can still take place within a flexible list system, which is what you've already—?
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform
Yes. Laura's already answered the question about the fact that the proposed zipping arrangements—
, Reform Bill Committee
Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Bill: Evidence session with the Expert Panel on Assembly Electoral Reform
Okay. Thank you, Chair.
