Government of Wales Bill

No, I should like to make progress in dealing with matters raised by hon. Members who have been present throughout our proceedings. Amendment No. 67 and related amendments propose that the Assembly’s electoral system should be changed, and that the single transferable vote system should be introduced. The Plaid Cymru amendment proposes that the 80 Assembly Members should be elected from the five regional constituencies which were formerly used for the election of MEPs and which would be created from the existing electoral regions. Each constituency would return 16 Members. That is a fundamental change, and it would mean that Assembly Members would serve gigantic constituencies, both geographically and in terms of the number of electors. It would damage severely the important link between constituency Assembly Members and the people they serve. The Mid and West Wales constituency, for example, would stretch from Harlech to Welshpool and from Fishguard to Crickhowell, and would thus be an enormous area to try to represent. The North Wales constituency would extend from Holyhead to Wrexham, and South Wales West from Gower to Bridgend, and so on. Two of the constituencies would have almost 0.5 million electors, and even the smallest would have nearly 400,000.