9. Debate seeking the Assembly's agreement to introduce a Commission-proposed Bill — The Welsh Parliament and Elections (Wales) Bill

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:15 pm on 10 October 2018.

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Photo of Siân Gwenllian Siân Gwenllian Plaid Cymru 4:15, 10 October 2018

(Translated)

I welcome the opportunity to have this debate in the Senedd today on your proposal, and the Commission's proposal, to bring forward a series of reforms to strengthen our major democratic intuition here in Wales. Twenty years have passed since the legislation establishing the National Assembly was passed, and at that time the organisation was more similar to a county council than a national parliament. We've come a long way since then, and Plaid Cymru has been consistent that the process of building a nation is but a start with the establishment of our national, democratic institutions. So, Plaid Cymru naturally supports the intention of any legislation to strengthen this body.

Given the narrow-mindedness of the British state and those who want to see us closing the door on our collaboration with our European neighbours, it's a requirement upon us to ensure that this institution is a platform for the aspirations of the people of Wales, and a vehicle to create the new Wales that we want to create together.

We are proud to welcome the intention of introducing votes for 16-year-olds, and it's good to see our Senedd here in the vanguard, opening doors and bringing people into the work of creating a real, new, inclusive Welsh democracy where young people are the architects of their own future, in total contradiction to what is happening in Westminster.

The purpose of today's debate, of course, is to seek the Assembly's agreement to bring more detailed proposals forward in the new year, to put some meat on the bones, as it were. We look forward to scrutinising those proposals in detail, but we must bear in mind that this is the first phase of a package of reforms following the excellent reports produced by the working group chaired by Laura McAllister. I very much hope that we will move immediately to introduce the rest of the proposals.

Like Jane Hutt, I'm disappointed that recommendations 10 and 11, in relation to increasing equal representation in terms of gender, aren't being brought forward at this point. But I do understand the background to that, of course. Quotas and job-sharing are an excellent way of providing women with an enhanced voice, and I'm very pleased that my party, Plaid Cymru, last weekend has introduced women-only shortlists in target constituencies. That's to be warmly welcomed.

Finally, I wish to turn to the proposal to change the name of the National Assembly for Wales to reflect its status as a national parliament, and I do note that the Commission's proposal at the moment is Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament. Plaid Cymru's view is that the name 'Senedd' should be used for this institution in both our official languages, and that Members should be called 'Aelodau o'r Senedd' or 'Aelod o Senedd Cymru' in Welsh, and 'Member of the Senedd' or 'Member of Senedd Cymru' in English. I do hope that we can return to this issue during the scrutiny process.

May I just make brief reference to the rationale for this stance on the name? The main aim of changing the name of the Assembly is to enhance public understanding of its function. At the moment, very many people call this institution—not the building, but this intuition—the Senedd. It's common parlance now. However, there are many who still use terms such as 'Welsh Assembly Government' or 'Welsh Government' to refer to the Assembly, because of a lack of understanding. There is no usage at the moment of 'Welsh Parliament', generally speaking, so changing the name of the institution to that would mean a change in public practice and would add another term into the mix that exists at present. The monolingual name 'Senedd' would avoid this problem, because it’s already in common parlance.

Now, during the consultation, 'Aelod Senedd Cymru/Member of Welsh Parliament' was favoured by 30 per cent of the respondents, only 1.6 per cent more than the percentage that favoured 'Aelod o’r Senedd/Member of the Senedd', which was 28.4 per cent. Now if we add the percentage who favoured the third most popular title, namely 'Aelod o Senedd Cymru/Member of Senedd Cymru', which was 13.5 per cent, then there is a clear preference for a title for Members that includes the monolingual use of the word 'Senedd', at 41.9 per cent.

There are a number of other national institutions, such as Chwarae Teg, Mudiad Meithrin, and, indeed, the title of Llywydd itself, which are the same in both languages and that causes no difficulty. I would also request, in this context, that the Commission publish any language impact assessment that has been done on the policy decision to recommend the name 'Senedd Cymru/Welsh Parliament' as the name of this institution and I would ask for evidence-based consideration to be given to this as we move forward.

Finally, it would be good to see our main national democratic body reflecting the nature of our ambition for a truly bilingual Wales where the Welsh language belongs to all of Wales’s citizens.