Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:48 pm on 8 June 2022.
Well, I was in the Senedd in—. I wasn't in the Senedd in the earlier, third Senedd, but I'm not aware of any proper scrutiny of decisions by either Andrew Davies or Ieuan Wyn Jones approving and then scrapping plans, and I can't recall any proper scrutiny of a decision to spend £1 billion and then £1.5 billion and then what would certainly have risen to £2 billion by the fourth Senedd. I can see a brief reference to it in a Finance Committee report in relation to the budget, but nothing really substantial on whether this was a suitable way of spending £2 billion. With the benefit of hindsight, how lucky are we that we made a decision in 2019 not to go ahead with this road? Because in the context of the climate emergency, we'd all look completely stupid to have spent money on such a futile project, when we actually have to reduce our emissions from vehicles, not increase them.
So, the size of the Senedd is too small and something that Welsh Labour—as Darren Millar pays such attention to it—has already voted on, both in 2019 and earlier this year, about increasing the size of the Senedd. I do have some concerns about the method of voting, because I think closed lists could be used by party machines to get rid of members of the awkward squad, and members of the awkward squad are the best scrutineers, because they are prepared to think outside the box and question the rationale of long-held holy grails that may have outlived their usefulness.
So, I find STV quite an attractive option, because it does enable voters to cast their vote for a worthy candidate who may have no hope of being elected, but without feeling that this would be a wasted vote, because they can then have a second choice about the person they think they would have as their second-best choice. So, I do want to question the Chair of the committee. When discussing the limitations of STV, there's a phrase that found its way into page 29 of the report, saying that the limitations were:
'It can be argued that this could lead to an imbalance in Members' focus on constituency matters to the detriment of other elements of their roles.'
Well, I regard focusing on the needs of my constituents as essential to doing my job in all aspects of it, and I have to admit that it is one of the challenges of necessarily having to have larger constituencies to make any PR system work, because you've got to—. Obviously, if you're going to apportion based on the proportion of the vote, you're going to have to have constituencies of more than one Member. But I think there are ways around it and ways in which people can agree amongst themselves, once they're elected, that X is going to focus on the north of the area and Y is going to focus on the south of the area. So, I think there are ways around that problem. But I recognise that STV is not the choice of many people, and I know there are other opinions for and against.