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Government of Wales Bill

Since my report has been mentioned, perhaps I may explain why we came to our conclusions. Briefly, this was a severely practical argument that resulted in what I hope was a severely practical conclusion. We looked at the work the Assembly would be called upon to do and concluded that 60 Members would be insufficient. If one takes away from the total the number who would be Ministers, one is in a situation in which it is barely possible to man the committee system which the Assembly has operated for some time with the remaining Members. If the Assembly is too small in terms of manpower, one has to ask this question: if you increase the number of Members, can the electoral system be left exactly as it is? Again, we came to the conclusion that 80 Members would be the right number. There is nothing magic about the figure; it is a sensible number to recommend for an assembly with the additional powers that we had recommended for it. I agree with the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Livsey, that the Assembly is now going to have some legislative powers and therefore the burden being placed on it by this Bill is not all that different from the burden that would have been placed on it if the recommendations of my commission had been accepted in their entirety. From there, we asked how to get 80 Members elected to the Assembly. During the course of the commission we heard a fair amount of evidence to suggest that there were difficulties between the Assembly Members elected for the constituencies and those who were on the list. The Committee will forgive me if I do not go into the detail of what those difficulties might be, but there is no doubt that 40 directly elected Members and 20 from the list system has created certain inner tensions, which it was difficult to see how to resolve by increasing the number of list Members. If there are problems with a 40:20 division, the problems with a 40:40 split would be infinitely greater. We then came to the following conclusion as the result of what I hope was a fairly logical sequence: if the Assembly is to be given more powers and 60 Members would make it too small and 80 is the right number; if you cannot have a system of 40 elected and 40 list members, what should you have? I have to say that when the commission started out on this exercise, I was not an unquestioning adherent to the single transferable vote. But I am also bound to say that once we had looked at all the alternative systems of proportional representation—we accepted that there had to be an element of proportionality built into it, otherwise we would end up with one-party domination of the Assembly which even those on my side would agree might not be entirely appropriate—we had to ask which system should be adopted. We looked at all the different systems of proportional representation in order to achieve a system in which, first, every AM would have equal validity and, secondly, there would be broad proportionality across the Assembly in order to reflect in broad proportion the views of the people of Wales. However, with the best will in the world, we could not come up with a different or better system. A system with a number of constituencies grouped together so that the operation of the single transferable vote could take place would result in an Assembly that was broadly proportional and large enough to do the job the commission wanted to place upon it. If the Bill goes through in its present form, we will be placing burdens on an Assembly of 60 Members which personally I doubt whether they will be able to fulfil. By all means let them try—I can see the argument which says, ““Very well. We think we can do it with 60 Members””. If that is the message sent by the Assembly, it is not for this House to stand in its way, saying: ““If you think you can do it with 60 Members, try it with that number””. However, I have no doubt whatever what the eventual result will be: the Assembly will not be able to function properly with a membership as low as 60, and there will then be pressure to increase the number. If that is so, we will have exactly the same electoral difficulties as the ones my commission tried to face.