Politicians who break rules could lose seats in the Welsh Parliament

Under new proposals, the public could be given the power to throw badly behaving politicians out of the Senedd.

Unlike MPs in Westminster, politicians in the Welsh Parliament do not face the risk of losing their seats if they are found to have violated codes of conduct.

This proved controversial at the beginning of the year, when Senedd member was suspended for six weeks, which, had he been a member of parliament, would have triggered a motion for his dismissal.

The Senedd's Standards Committee is examining whether a similar system could be introduced when the institution grows at the next election in 2026.

Although recalled MPs from Westminster must stand for a by-election, the new Senedd electoral system for 2026 no longer allows this.

Since 2016, MPs who are suspended from office in the House of Commons for ten days or more have been subject to a process called “removal”.

This means that a petition is submitted in their constituency and if 10% or more of local voters sign it, a by-election is triggered in which the politician can defend their seat.

They can also be recalled if they are sentenced to a prison term of less than 12 months. If they are sentenced to a longer term, they are immediately disqualified.

Earlier this year, Plaid Cymru MP Ben Lake said that his former party colleague in the Senedd, Rhys ab Owen, should have threatened a by-election after he was excluded from Parliament for 42 days for inappropriate behaviour towards two women during an evening outing.

Mr. Owen, who later apologised and was expelled from Plaid Cymruremains Member of the Senedd for South Wales Central.

Chris Davies, former MP for Brecon and Radnor, was the first and only politician in Wales to lose a recall petition in 2019, and a subsequent by-election.

He had admitted to having made false expense reports twice.

The idea of ​​a recall system has cross-party support in the Senedd, but the Welsh Government did not include it in the bill that expands the size of the Senedd from 60 to 96 politicians.

To make matters worse, in the new electoral system, politicians are elected via their party lists based on the share of the vote they receive.

Since the proportional representation system does not allow for by-elections, the Committee has examined options whereby a candidate is replaced by the next available candidate on the party list.

In this way, the committee said, the proportional share of the parties in the Senedd would remain the same and would reflect the voting behaviour of the population at the last election.

Committee members are considering various methods to achieve this goal, including one that would allow members to run campaigns to defend their position.

Members are also interested in comments on whether an alternative system could be considered and what the hurdle for a petition should be.

The committee is also discussing proposals for how the Senedd could expel people from Parliament for lying – following a Government commitment to implement such rules.

The Committee Advice ends on September 27th.