Why it is utter maddess to think of abolishing the Senedd – Wales Online

A recent WalesOnline poll suggested that the Abolish the Assembly party were on course to win five seats at the upcoming Senedd election.

Putting aside the fact that there is no longer a Welsh Assembly (it became the Welsh Parliament/Senedd last year) this would be the first time that a party running on an solely anti-devolution ticket will have won seats in the Senedd on that mandate.

As you can probably guess from the headline this column does not support abolishing the Welsh Parliament but it is totally understandable why someone would think that removing the Senedd and rolling back devolution is the right thing to do.

There is a long list of reasons why voting to get rid of the Senedd is a perfectly reasonable course of action.

Covid has exposed the total inadequacies in our current system. The madness of the First Minister of Wales and the Prime Minister not speaking for over a month is just one example. You cant look at the current situation and say: This is something that is working well."

In the handling of Covid there have been well-documented mistakes from the Welsh Government over the course of the pandemic. Care homes, ineffective local lockdowns, a fire-break that came too late and was too short.

When you are sat in your house, heading into the fourth month of a far-from-inevitable long lockdown, havent seen your close family since last year, and have lost your job why wouldnt you look at Cardiff Bay and say: 'We need change'?

Perhaps you look around the community you love and believe that two decades on from devolution and feel like nothing has improved. Maybe you are a proud supporter of the union who feels like abolishing devolution will help safeguard the United Kingdom.

Add to this the fact that a significant amount of the Senedd Members hire their own family members at the publics expense and many are still unsure exactly what the role of the Senedd is and it is totally understandable that calls to abolish the institution would strike a chord.

Though I totally get this point of view it isnt one I personally agree with. Actually I think it would be utter madness to try and abolish the Senedd and roll back devolution. But if the EU referendum has taught us anything it is that shouting at people who happen to disagree with you and questioning their intelligence when they have legitimate grievances leads only to an entrenchment of views, not to persuasion.

Firstly, but by no means most importantly, lets start with the politicians who are calling for the halting and rolling back of devolution.

Abolish the Assembly have currently got two MSs Mark Reckless and Gareth Bennett. Both have been vocal in criticising waste in the Senedd.

Lets first take Mark Reckless, who has joined more parties than Charlie Sheen. The one-time Tory MP defected to Ukip, then left Ukip in 2017 to join the Conservative Group in the Senedd, before becoming the Brexit Party leader in the Senedd. He has now jumped ship again as a member of the Abolish the Assembly party.

Despite now running solely on a platform that the Welsh Parliament should be abolished because it is a waste of money Mr Reckless has employed his wife Catriona Brown-Reckless since December 2016 as a senior adviser for 37 hours a week, earning up to 40,972.

If it seems strange that MSs are allowed to do this then it should. In October 2018 an independent Remuneration Board recommended an end to MSs being allowed to employ their own family members citing "public trust in and perception of the reputation" (though for some bizarre reason those already doing so can keep them in post till 2026).

In November last year Mr Reckless wrote in a column that the Senedd should be abolished and that it falls to us to bring their gravy train to an end. The hypocrisy of employing your partner at the public expense while campaigning about abolishing a gravy train is self-evident.

Mr Bennett, while not employing his family members, has also wasted his fair share of taxpayers' money when he spent 10,000 of public money on an office that was riddled with damp and was unusable. This was done without a survey and against the advice of solicitors. That office never opened.

It is not just Abolish. The Welsh Conservatives have toed a far more sceptical line on devolution recently promising to put a halt on any further powers going to Cardiff Bay. Just last year then Welsh Conservative leader Paul Davies vowed to end the Assembly gravy train but again these promises seem hollow because Mr Davies employs at the public expense the spouse of one MS and the son of another.

The new Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies also employees his wife as PA. A WalesOnline investigation found that she was actually running a hypnotherapy business as well as being the PA to her husband with several former employees casting doubt on whether she was really working enough to justify her full-time salary (Mr Davies strenuously denied these claims).

Then of course there is Ukip's Neil Hamilton who has also called for the Senedd to be abolished as a waste of money while not mentioning the fact that he claimed 7,620.30 in travel expenses between Cardiff Bay and his manor house in Wiltshire while a member. Add to that an additional 1,471.70 in travel costs for his wife Christine who he has employed a senior adviser since May 2016 on up to 40,972 a year at the public's expense.

In terms of the debate around the Senedd the hypocrisy of Wales loudest devolution sceptics is only a side issue. But it is still worth being aware of the inconsistencies between what they say and what they do. You cant argue that we should stop the gravy train when you have bought a first class ticket and you cant be the cure when you are part of the disease.

But just because politicians advocating for the abolition of the Senedd are opportunistic doesnt mean that they havent tapped into legitimate concerns or grievances.

One legitimate grievance is that the current system, where Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and England have all had different policies, has made it harder to tackle the coronavirus crisis.

Issues around misleading messages (like May last year when people in England were told to drive as far as they want without any mention that things were different in Wales), conflicting policies (like when people in areas of England with high infection rates were not told they couldnt travel out of area and spread the virus to Wales), and overlapping policy areas (the UK Government is responsible for prisons but the Welsh Government for healthcare in prisons) were all real problems in managing the pandemic. But the reason that these issues arose is not because there has been too much devolution it is that it has been done badly, haphazardly, and doesnt go far enough.

The issues outlined above would be resolved by having a more clearly-defined constitutional setup across the UK. At the moment Boris Johnson doubles as the Prime Minister of the UK and the First Minister of England. This is like the President of the USA also being the Governor of California. This is a bad deal for people in Wales because the primary focus of the PM is on England. And it is also a crap deal for people in England because they do not have the same level of representation/voice as people in other UK nations have because there is no English parliament. If you had separate governments for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland with an overarching UK Government above that you are less likely to end up in the facial situation we saw when the UK Government didnt extend furlough during the fire-break but did when England announced a similar policy. Clearly defined areas of interest would reduce confusion and enable the public to hold the right politician accountable for their failings.

Whenever I cover the Chancellor announcing the Budget in Westminster my first job is to work out what applies to Wales and what doesnt. My first port of call is to the Welsh Government. But up until the announcement they are as much in the dark as everyone else. That is a bonkers state of affairs when you think about it. How can a devolved government possibly tackle Wales myriad problems when they have no idea what resources they have year to year? A clearly defined structure to the UK, with robust, fair mechanisms and communication lines in place, would enable devolution to actually achieve its potential.

We have seen throughout the pandemic the inherent advantage of decisions being made as closely as possible to the people they affect. The whole UK needed a circuit-breaker lockdown as early as September 22 last year to combat the rise in cases. Because Wales had devolved powers we were able to lock down on October 23 well before England on November 5. Politicians here were able to look at the unique situation before us and think: 'What is best for the people of Wales?' and act accordingly.

Now dont get me wrong even on October 23 this was far, far too late. But it still shows the benefit of being able to take decisions here in Wales in a way that will most benefit Wales.

If the reason you want to abolish the Senedd is because you want to safeguard the future of the union then I fear you are doing more harm than good. Covid has awoken Wales devolved consciousness people here are more aware than ever before that Wales can do things differently to England and it be effective. To simply remove the ability to act independently through the Senedd won't quell calls for independence it will inflame them.

Intransigence from unionists will destroy the United Kingdom a long time before nationalists ever do. History is full of examples where the continued inability to give an inch leads to greater demands and not fewer. Ignoring legitimate concerns over a lack of representation for Wales will only strengthen the independence argument rather than weaken it.

If instead your support for abolishing the Senedd is based on the fact you feel that nothing has improved in Wales for 20 years that is an understandable position. Some parts of Wales still have 50% of children living in poverty. But to feel that the answer to this is to abolish the Senedd is flawed. Would a mass movement of powers to Westminster really lead to a golden age of prosperity for Cymru?

One party has constantly been in power since the start of devolution. If you are not happy with what you see a far better use of your energy would be to vote for a political party at the Senedd you believe can make a difference in your life if they form a government whoever that may be. Devolution is still relatively new in Wales and to discuss abolition at this point would be like deciding a toddler isnt going to ever walk because it fell over. Just use your vote to elect politicians you think would do better.

And as a voter in Wales you are in a far better position than a voter in England to do just that because the Senedd is elected on a more proportional (but by no means perfect) basis than the UK Parliament. If you live in an English constituency which is a safe seat for any party your vote is worthless and so are, electorally speaking, any views you have. First past the post is an electoral system that entrenches the gravy train mentality at Westminster that advocates of abolishing the Senedd claim to hate.

Back on the topic of reform being better than abolition even if you elected the most competent group of 60 MSs of all time in Cardiff Bay they would be unlikely to really be able to get to grips with Wales deep-seated issues because they do not have the resources at their disposal to do it. The problem stems not from too much devolution but not enough. At only 60 members there is no way that the Senedd can perform all the tests required of a functioning parliament. How can proper scrutiny of the Welsh Government take place with so few elected representatives actually there? To think that the answer to this democratic deficit is to remove the Senedd and put policy-making soley back in the hands of a House of Commons elected using a system created in 1884 (without even mentioning the utter mess that is the House of Lords) is bananas.

The answer to an under-performing Senedd is not to abolish it but enable it to fulfil its function with appropriate powers and resources. If a hospital or a school is not performing how it should be or how you want you dont abolish it. You reform it, you resource it properly, and then replace the leaders if necessary.

Ultimately everyone should want the same thing. We want a Wales which is fairer and more prosperous. Wherever you sit on the political spectrum you cant look at the situation at the moment and say: 'This works'. This isnt to make a point that you cast your vote for any particular party in May. It is just to say that the idea that Wales is going to be a better place because we give people in Wales less say in what happens here just makes no sense.

See the original post here:

Why it is utter maddess to think of abolishing the Senedd - Wales Online