The next item is a debate on a Member's legislative proposal, and I call on David Melding to move the motion.

Motion NDM6596 David Melding

To propose that the National Assembly for Wales:

1. Notes a proposal for a Bill to increase citizen participation in policy making in Wales.

2. Notes that the purpose of this Bill would be to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of public services.

Motion moved.

Llywydd, we've lost all sense of excitement about democracy. It has become the insipid background to our daily life rather than the force that actually makes our lifestyles possible. One should not become maudlin; open, democratic societies are capable of remarkable renewal, as we have seen in the last 25 years on questions of, for example, sexuality. Yet in the political and economic fields, things look far more jaded and this can only undermine democratic culture generally.

Greater citizen participation is needed because the work of democracy cannot be merely sub-contracted to Assemblies and Parliaments. The digital age creates both a strong demand for greater participation and the technological means to achieve it, but we have been slow to respond to this demand for citizen participation. One consequence is that political elites have been viewed more as a gentry class than the appointed officers of the people. We need a new partnership that closes the stark divide we often see between politicians and citizens.

The Deputy Presiding Officer (Ann Jones) took the Chair.

A rough definition of a participative democracy would be one where citizens take on greater responsibility for decision making. This would not reduce the need for representative institutions, far less central Government—we are not heading back to Athens—but it would mean that public participation amounts to a lot more than periodic elections. When observing the public mood on polling day, most are struck by the solemn tone; it is not a time of carnival. It is this reservoir of purpose that we need to tap: active participation and active citizenship renewing our democratic institutions.

In Wales, we might go further and constitute a citizens' chamber of this Assembly. This would not require 60 members of the public to serve full-time for five years—that would be a burden and not an act of citizen service. [Laughter.] Citizen service should be a general obligation that is occasionally called upon, as jury service is now. The citizens' chamber could be a pool of 600 or even 6,000 citizens, called on occasionally. Each citizen would be allocated specific tasks that interest them and concentrate on a particular part of governmental activity and then, when that area's discussed, they would meet as part of the Assembly.

The citizens’ chamber could also lead the way in developing a digital democracy. Through online surveys and other mechanisms, a wider range of public participation would be possible, perhaps providing material for the citizens’ chamber to deliberate and develop in more detail. Such work would need to be transparent and the main outcomes evidence based and properly recorded. Draft laws, or ideas for laws, could then be fed into the National Assembly, which would become, in a very modern guise, a bicameral institution. Forget the House of Lords; we could do something really marvellous with citizens as our members. There are, of course, other models for citizens’ assemblies, but what is clear is the need for this wide engagement, if we are to forge a new democratic bond between citizen and politician.

Democracy also needs to go deep and draw on the strength that we have in the roots of communities. Again, the digital revolution offers opportunities for local networks of participation, discussion and decision making. Town and community councils are well placed to develop their role as the voice of the community. Larger town councils might consider establishing the office of an elected mayor. The councils themselves could be made up of directly elected councillors and randomly selected citizens, serving a term as part of their public service obligation. Invigorating the most local level of democracy would also help to refresh municipal government in general. Other public agencies, like NHS trusts, could also use this source of public participation.

Deputy Presiding Officer, representational democracy thrived on the excitement of electing society’s leaders; it was an incredible transformation away from aristocratic Government in the nineteenth century, but it also made the people sovereign only for a day and limited the opportunities for deeper participation. A desire to take back control could indicate that citizens are ready to carry greater responsibility for decision making.

This does not mean that most people want to become part-time politicians, but it does mean that we can explore the concept of citizen service on the basis that jury service underpins our legal system. We should not exaggerate the time commitment involved in service. It would range from full-time for a short time—a citizens’ jury on the development of a local amenity, for instance—to part-time for a longer time—a day a month for two years or so in the citizens’ assembly, perhaps.

We will only live in a participatory democracy when citizen engagement focuses on decision making as much as the gathering of public opinion through traditional consultation processes. In Wales, we have an opportunity to lead the way. We enjoy the benefits of both a new and a small democracy. If we are able to innovate, then the power of the parliamentary tradition that we have inherited could be magnified by the force of active citizenship. Alongside the Welsh Government’s legislative programme, we could see published a gwerin’s programme to be discussed in the citizens’ chamber of the National Assembly.

Deputy Presiding Officer, democracy is not sick and feeble, but it does need rejuvenating. Today, the greatest act of political leadership would be to enhance the energy of citizenship. This is the purpose of my Bill.

Thank you very much for introducing these ideas. I think there's a lot of merit to them. Would you agree that the health service, above all, does need to have much better citizen participation? Just because the health service is free at the point of need doesn't mean that we should be getting people going to the doctor because they've got a sore throat. We really do need to get people to choose well, like the Government campaign says. We need people to take some responsibility for their own health. So, I think prudent healthcare summarises that and I think, without prudent healthcare, we will find, increasingly, that the health service cannot meet the more complex needs of citizens who have serious illnesses. So, I think this is something that it would be useful to pursue.

But I also wanted to just ask you whether you think that we also need to do something to reverse the suppression of voter participation that's gone on over the last few years. The way in which it's been made more difficult for people to register to vote means that there are many thousands—indeed, across the country in the UK, many millions of people—who are not registered to vote. Either because of literacy issues or other reasons, they are unable to grasp this simple process. Would you therefore consider including in your Bill making it an obligation on public services that, when they are transacting business with the citizen, whether it's on council tax, housing benefit, child benefit, DVLA, or changing a licence, automatically that public service would be able to register them to vote? This isn't an obligation to vote, but this is enabling them to register to vote. So, I would be interested to know whether you think that would be part of your Bill.

I'd just like to record my support for these legislative proposals. The concept of a national citizens' service has long been Welsh Conservative policy, but, of course, it's one that transcends all party divides and there are, as David said, different models to consider here. But I particularly welcome this, as any contribution to ideas for a participatory democracy that offer an alternative to referenda are certainly something to be welcomed.

I support this because, essentially, at the heart of this, we're talking about an acknowledgement and even a celebration of both the individual and the collective, and if I could speak to my socialist colleagues here, that sense of community, a call on untapped social capital to contribute to social cohesion, enhance public services in the way that David has mentioned, and absolutely to build that confident, proactive and politically engaged citizenry.

I remember one of my early disappointments when I became an Assembly Member was in a question to the First Minister, when I put to him the question whether he'd be prepared to consider some sort of national citizen service at that point, and he said that Wales didn't need one, because it was already promoting volunteering to younger people. I think he was talking, at that time, about GwirVol, which no longer exists, unfortunately, and which did reach some young people, and was, I've no doubt, valuable in terms of them and their development as individuals, but it didn't really offer much at a strategic level with a clear, population-level societal purpose. 

With colleagues, I visited Israel a few months ago, and there, of course, military national service is compulsory for non-Arab citizens and some other exempt categories, lasting somewhere between two and three years. Clearly, I'm not advocating any kind of replication of that, but I was very struck by some of the lasting effects of that experience on virtually every Jewish Israeli person that we spoke to, regardless of how long ago they had had that experience. The first was the sense of unity and responsibility for each other, regardless of socioeconomic background. Of course, I will accept that the ever-present security threat there is bound to concentrate minds to a certain extent, but even so, it was clear that we were meeting people who had learnt to be confident about making decisions, acting upon those decisions, and trusting each other to do the same—and not just for themselves, but in a sense of common cause. Mistakes were considered inevitable, as was the dusting down and starting again when people did make mistakes.

The second thing that struck me was how this translated into their attitude towards the economy and its growth: people of all ages and backgrounds being bold, very can-do, taking calculated risks, not always succeeding but being very comfortable in co-operating with each other, even in a competitive environment. And some told us that it was their experience of service alongside others that had given them this approach to progress—a progress that they saw as providing benefits extending beyond themselves. [Interruption.]

Oh, is it? It's only three minutes I've got, is it? Oh, I'm really sorry about that.

Effectively, all I wanted to say is that if we're serious about co-production and, particularly, the imperative embodied in the Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015, then we really have to do something now to encourage the population at large to be confident enough to be participants in that co-productive Wales.

Thanks to David Melding for today's Member's legislative proposal. I'm intrigued by these ideas of increasing citizen participation. Of course, the aim is laudable, but I'm not sure how easily it will be achieved in practical terms. In short, I'm not certain that this scheme, innovative though it is, is actually a workable one.

The difference between us in this Chamber and the general public is that we are, believe it or not, professional politicians. I know that seems far-fetched at times, when we're all shouting across the Chamber at one another, but we are actually the professionals. That is, we are paid to be here most weeks. We sit on committees, we listen to evidence, we have paid staff to help us to research things. Now, that isn't to say that we have any innate ability to do politics any better than the general public, but we do this job week in, week out, within a structure that does allow us a certain amount of expertise—I stress, 'a certain amount'. 

The problem with engaging the general public with the democratic process is that many people are not that interested in politics. Others are interested in politics up to a point, but only in relatively small doses. The idea of actually participating in organised debates, in committee scrutiny and so on, may not be that attractive, even to the semi-engaged section of the electorate who actually follow politics a little bit. Of course, we can give it a go, these are interesting ideas, but I do bridle a bit at the element of compulsion, at the idea of people being called up for citizen service, and I wonder if that prospect might turn many, even of the semi-engaged people, completely against politics.

Perhaps we need to consult some available statistics to note the enthusiasm of the Welsh public for the Assembly. Turnout in Assembly elections: about 45 per cent. That is a statistic that is widely known and readily accessible. There are other figures we could examine. For instance, what are the average viewing figures for BBC Wales's coverage of FMQs? What are the relevant figures for Senedd.tv in its broadcasts of Chamber business and Assembly committees? I think these broadcasts are a valuable public service, but I fear the take-up among the public of Wales is probably fairly low. When I look up at the gallery here and in the committee rooms, most of the time they're almost empty.

Some people do get engaged from time to time, usually when their local areas are perceived to be under some kind of threat. At these moments, campaigns begin and petitions get under way, and this is all good stuff; we are all for local campaigns in UKIP. Indeed, for some time our policy has been to allow legally binding local referenda on major planning issues affecting a particular area. This is where political engagement may effectively be nurtured, in demonstrating that legislators will take account of the wishes of the local residents. But the idea of the citizenry forming a separate Chamber in an enlarged Assembly—I must confess, I find the notion a little far-fetched and I fear that, far from enthusing more people, it may actually backfire and turn more people against politics.

So, although I think these are very interesting ideas, I think we have to be very careful in how we go forward in trying to apply them in a practical way. So, I think we need to tread carefully here.

Can I now call the leader of the house, Julie James?

Diolch, Dirprwy Lywydd. The Welsh Government is strongly in favour of increasing citizen participation in policy making in Wales, and we certainly share the aspiration as set out by David Melding in his really quite exciting proposal to close the gap between politicians and the public, both to engage the people of Wales in decisions that affect them and to keep us rooted in the communities that we serve. I'm not sure I quite share the pessimism he expressed about some of the aspects of that, but nevertheless I understand the sentiment.

The proposal that David Melding has made for citizen service, including a second Chamber for this Assembly, would certainly be an interesting approach to this, and I'm sure he's aware that there are a number of models of citizen service, including models of engagement for all young people, both as a learning and as a work experience tool in performing a wide range of socially useful tasks. I believe the Institute of Welsh Affairs set out one such model a few years back, which I was certainly very interested in pursuing in my previous role.

Also, there are a number of examples of citizens' assemblies, mainly set up by parliaments around the world: for instance, in the Republic of Ireland, Canada, the Netherlands and Poland. They've all deliberated on very specific issues rather than acting as second chambers of legislatures in general. A citizen's assembly or second chamber of this legislature is of course a matter for the Assembly Commission and not the Welsh Government. But David Melding has certainly set out a lot of food for thought, especially for me, on the digital possibilities of some of those aspects of it.

But I think that I would like to suggest that, if there was interest amongst Members in establishing such a body, there would be a number of issues to consider. Some of those issues were mentioned already, but such as would we need to ensure that participants would be representative of the wider public. If people are voluntarily coming forward, that's unlikely to be the case; they'd be self-selecting. Would we be looking for experts in particular fields? Conversely, would it be acceptable to make participation at some level compulsory? How would we enforce that? Indeed, how would we pay for it, as a very large number of people, particularly self-employed people or people running small businesses, already have severe disadvantages if they're called for jury service? Indeed, David Melding, I know, is aware of some of the difficulties of getting juries together for long, complex fraud trials, and so on, and how that's had to adapt over time.

And what issues would they be invited to consider? Who would decide what issues they were invited to consider, including whether to focus on a few topics or, indeed, to look in a bicameral way at decisions, for example on legislation, that the house is making, in the way that the House of Lords does, for example? Would people require training for their role? Would they require ongoing support for their deliberations? How would the deliberations feed back into the Assembly's own deliberations? Would their work relate to the work of the Welsh youth parliament, for example? And a number of other issues—all of which, of course, are completely surmountable but would need to be thought through and costed and so on.

In terms of policy, the Welsh Government is committed to continuing to develop its own methods for engaging people in the decisions that affect them. Again, as David Melding and Suzy Davies and a number of other people pointed out, there are a huge number of ways to involve people in decisions. No one size fits all, and new approaches are always being constantly developed. I, for example, have been privileged to be a part of the Valleys taskforce action and delivery plan group, based on the extensive feedback from people living and working in the south Wales Valleys, and the 2018-19 budget includes a participatory budget pilot for that group. It's been extremely interesting to see what the engagement has been across those communities—what has worked, what hasn't worked, what has fired people up and what has perhaps not fired them up. It has to be said that it hasn't always been the things that we anticipated would do so. Some of the responses back have been very uplifting, and some have been deeply not uplifting, but all have been unique and interesting in a way that I hadn't entirely anticipated personally.

We're very conscious of the need to develop better ways of involving people in our representative democracy—absolutely. The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 requires us to take account of the involvement of citizens in the development and delivery of our objectives as part of the sustainable development principle, and provides a comprehensive framework covering public bodies across Wales, providing for regular reporting and audit. I wonder whether such a system might be put in place if we were to look at participation in democracy. 

We are very keen on increasing citizen participation in the policy-making part of what we do here in this legislature. We welcome ideas on how best to promote increased participation and constructive scrutiny of the progress we make in doing so. I think the Assembly Commission will have a lot of food for thought in the Member's legislative proposal. Diolch.

Thank you. Can I now call David Melding to reply to the debate?

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Can I thank everyone for taking part and raising such thoughtful questions and really getting involved in this debate? Can I start with Jenny? You actually talked about the NHS requiring prudent healthcare and patients also being responsible enough to look after themselves as far as possible. And, do you know, I think that's a general model for what we need to do with democracy. Democracy cannot flourish if there isn't active citizen participation. I suppose what I'm saying is there's not enough at the moment for it fully to flourish in the twenty-first century. It's not on its knees, but we need, really, to have the sort of ambition that our ancestors had when they were making these extraordinary changes in the nineteenth century.

The difficulty on voter registration does concern me deeply. I think we need to have the highest standards of scrutiny of any system for registration, and, if there are problems with the current arrangements, I think they need to be investigated fully. We need a system that is secure, but, as soon as we can establish that a person is a citizen and has a right to vote, there should be the minimum fuss then about registering them, and there should be many methods to do that. And voting over the weekend and at local supermarkets—all these things may be possible.

Suzy said that much of what I talked about would be an alternative to referendums. I don't ban referendums altogether from this model, but I do agree that what we want is to get people to deliberate. What are the challenges? How do you trade them and prioritise? This is very important. I think, in terms of citizen service, we are probably going to see the need for a radical reform, perhaps even something along the lines of universal income, with more work-sharing also in the future. One thing we could do in that model is to emphasise the obligation we all have for citizen service. That might be a way of opening up some of these issues.

Gareth talked about the workability. Well, you know, it is used in the legal system. It's absolutely at the heart. Clearly, people would have to be supported. Our own staff would be involved in that, the research facilities, for instance, the clerking teams—it would be part of the model. Would people be interested? Well, I think, if you look around the world where it's succeeded, and the Minister made reference to this, in Iceland, in Ireland, it's been transformative in getting to discuss some of the most basic questions. And look at the new democracies that have used this in a whole host of methods, including truth commissions—they've really got to the heart of some of these things by using a citizen-based approach.

So, I'm very optimistic. The Minister said she's open to these ideas and I think that was reflected in her contribution. We need to close the gap between citizens and politicians. There are still essential things that institutions need to do and full-time politicians need to do, but we can enhance the digital possibilities and see a real chance for a new form of democracy, participative democracy, that is conducted on a much fuller and equal basis. Thank you.

Thank you very much. The question is to note the proposal. Does any Member object? No. Therefore, that motion is agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36. Thank you.

Motion agreed in accordance with Standing Order 12.36.