The final part of this mini-series on democracy and independence focuses on raising standards of political conduct and making politics more representative.
Although merit is important, diversity can be just as important in a democracy.
If a group of people elected to represent the population as a whole don’t reflect the make-up of that population then they can’t be considered to be entirely representative.
What are the issues and what has been done to date?
- Women are under-represented in politics and public life more generally despite making up a slight majority of the population. Although the Senedd was at one point gender balanced, as of the Sixth Senedd this has fallen to 43% of members (though it’s always been above 40% – which is good by global standards7).
- Despite increasing by 8 percentage points since 2017, only 36% of local councillors are women as of 20228.
- Before the 2022 local elections, 11% of county councillors had a disability (compared to 22% of the Welsh population) and just 1.8% came from a non-white ethnic background (compared to 4% of the population)9.
- The average age of local councillors has long been around 6010. There’s seemingly no equivalent figure for Senedd Members, but the average age is likely to be in the 50s or 60s.
- The number of openly LGBTQ+ Senedd Members as of 2024 (5%) broadly matches or even exceeds their population share (3%), though information at a local government level is patchy.
A lot of the focus here to date has been on mentoring/shadowing programmes – where prospective candidates get an idea of what elected roles are like.
The Welsh Local Government Association has the “Be a Councillor” programme, while the Women’s Equality Network and EYST have done similar things for women and people of colour at the Senedd level.
Some political parties – notably Labour – have introduced “zipping” of candidates on the Senedd regional lists where the order is female-male (or similar). They’ve also twinned constituencies (male candidate in one constituency; female in the other) – and this has had some success.
What could be done?
The big point of discussion in Wales at the moment is the Senedd (Electoral Candidate Lists) Bill.
If/when the Senedd & Elected Members Bill clears the final legislative hurdles, as mentioned in Part III, all Senedd Members will be elected via closed lists. One of the arguments in favour of a closed-list system is that it would be easier to introduce gender balance.
The Senedd (Electoral Candidate Lists) Bill will make it a legal requirement for political parties standing two or more candidates in the new 6-member constituencies to have, at a minimum, equal numbers of female (which includes trans-women) and male candidates.
Women would also be placed first on the list in at least half of the constituencies parties are standing in and where the first candidate isn’t a woman, the next candidate on the list would need to be a woman.
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As things stand in April 2024, the judgement is that the Senedd doesn’t have the power to do this as equalities legislation remains a reserved matter for the UK Parliament. In September 2024, proposals for gender quotas in future Senedd election were officially dropped.
With independence, there would be no issue over whether the Senedd has the power to introduce gender-balanced lists.
Another “hard” measure that could improve diversity – but, funnily enough, isn’t discussed for the Senedd or local government – is the introduction of term limits. The reasons why are obvious.
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7. Senedd Cymru, Senedd Research (11th May 2021). “Election 2021: How diverse is the Sixth Senedd?”. Available at: https://research.senedd.wales/research-articles/election-2021-how-diverse-is-the-sixth-senedd/
8. Peter Gillibrand, BBC Wales (9th May 2022). “Election 2022: Welsh politics needs more women, new councillor says”. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-61365374
9. Cllr. Andrew Morgan, Welsh Local Government Association (14th January 2022). “Promoting diversity amongst councillors”. Available at: https://www.wlga.wales/promoting-diversity-among-councillors
10. Expert Group on Diversity in Local Government (2014). “On Balance: Diversifying Democracy in Local Government in Wales” (p34). Available at: https://www.gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-06/140305-expert-group-report-en.pdf
