Our committee's report sets out an integrated package of proposals for a strengthened Parliament to better represent the people of Wales, and a route-map for getting us there. We believe that our proposals can command the support of at least the 40 Members necessary for a supermajority here in this Senedd. As we state in the report, we firmly believe that these reforms are essential and they are achievable before 2026, but to do so, we cannot dither or delay. 

Today, we in this Siambr can choose to send a clear message to the Government that there is now a consensus that we should move forward. In presenting this report, I and the members of the committee are conscious that we do indeed stand on the shoulders of giants, and not just one or two giants either: the late Lord Richard, Sir Paul Silk, Professor Laura McAllister and the members of the independent expert panel, the former Chair of the Committee on Senedd Electoral Reform, our own Dawn Bowden MS, to name but a few. And as we heard in exchanges yesterday during First Minister's questions, the architects and exponents of a strengthened Parliament and a stronger voice for the people of Wales go back even further into our history. 

And yet, the history of devolution is peppered with reports that sought to move the devolution story forward, to move this Parliament forward. Most recently, our committee's report drew on the foundations established by the expert panel on electoral reform, and the Committee on Senedd Electoral Reform, but we did not seek to replicate the evidence previously gathered through their public consultation and expert deliberation. None of those more recent reports and inquiries had the immediate impact that their authors would have wished, though they have stood us in good stead.

Today, in debating our committee's report, entitled 'Reforming our Senedd: A stronger voice for the people of Wales', we also have a moment in time, possibly a moment in a generation, where we can choose to move forward and instruct Government to bring forward legislative proposals. So, we look forward to hearing Members express their views on the proposals today, and Members will quite rightly want to express their own views on their own preferred or even ideal system, on their best way forward.

In doing so, two points, I would suggest, are worthy of your consideration. Firstly, there is no one single unadulterated perfect package of electoral reform that will satisfy everyone. Yet, there are some systems, or combinations of systems, that potentially seek more perfectly to achieve multiple aims, such as different expressions of proportionality, simplicity, diversity, and so on. Secondly and unavoidably, the odyssey that our committee set out on was to find proposals that must also win support across the whole Senedd—that supermajority of myths and legends—not to seek some vision of perfection, and thereby sacrifice practicality and delivery by 2026. 

Let me turn to the key building blocks of our package of reforms, namely the size, electoral system, boundaries, gender equality measures, recognising that these issues are inextricably intertwined; they influence and they inform each other. Firstly, on size, we have concluded, as has every single august body that preceded us, that the Senedd is categorically underpowered for the job it is asked to do. In short, there are too few of us backbenchers to do our job effectively in holding the Government to account. Our power of scrutiny is constrained. Our ability to specialise, to delve deeper, to challenge harder, is underpowered by all national and international comparators; we are too few. 

This is about recognising that the Welsh Government makes critical decisions that affect the lives of millions of people in Wales, manages a budget of nearly £20 billion, and those decisions need to be scrutinised and challenged most effectively. We recommend, therefore, that the Senedd's size should be increased to 96, a number that should be set out in primary legislation. It would bring Wales broadly in line with levels already in place in Scotland and Northern Ireland, though still, to note, below some of the international comparators. It's not a magic number, but it is tied integrally to the wider package of reforms, and, crucially, it will also enable us to make a coherent proposal for reform that is doable by 2026.

Let me make the point that if we fail to take this opportunity to equip our Parliament in Wales, this Senedd, with the capacity to meet the additional responsibilities we now have—of primary law-making, tax-varying and borrowing powers; of the additional and enduring legislative, policy and inter-parliamentary burdens we have assumed in a post-Brexit scenario; of the heightened public awareness of our responsibilities, not least because of the pandemic; and of the not-unrealistic potential of additional future responsibilities—then we will not simply tread water, we will go backwards as a Parliament, and we will set this Senedd up to fail.

Our package of reforms also includes changes to the electoral system itself. The current hybrid mixed-Member system may have served its purpose initially, but it's not fit for purpose now or for the future; it's complicated for the public, it results in two types of Member and so on. Our proposals for a proportional representation system using closed lists will be at least, or more, proportional than the current system; it's a type of voting familiar to and easily understood by voters, as it's currently used in part of the existing Senedd electoral system, indeed.

The changes to the electoral system, and an increase in membership of the Senedd, in turn, provide us with the opportunity to consider measures to ensure that the Senedd better reflects the diversity of Wales, whilst managing the legislative competence risks. So, we do propose the introduction of legislative gender quotas and other measures to promote and embed for the long term greater equality and diversity in the membership of this, our Senedd. We can be proud of our record on gender, but we cannot be satisfied. We must now take the next step to make us the first country in the UK to embed, legislatively, gender balance in this, our Parliament—our Senedd. Beyond the immediate legislative proposals, our report also recommends actions on wider diversity too.

On the boundaries and the boundary-review mechanism that will now be needed, equal electoral districts—ardaloedd etholiadol cyfartal—were one of the great demands of the 1839 Newport rising of the Chartists. They were right, yet our current boundaries guarantee unequal votes. Our Senedd electoral boundaries are also ossified, with no mechanism to review them. This is no way to run a democracy. So, we must take this step to shape an independent boundary commission that can set Wales's boundaries for Wales's own needs, conferring the powers upon the existing Local Boundary and Democracy Commission for Wales, but renamed and reconstituted to reflect its new functions. These proposals enable the establishment of more equal, multi-Member constituencies before 2026, based on pairing the new Westminster constituencies.