Madam,

I went to a meeting last Thursday night at Arad Goch. The event was co-hosted by the Politics Department of Aberystwyth University and the Welsh Assembly. It did not seem to be well advertised but about 50 people attended. I don’t think advertisements indicated that it would be chaired through the medium of Welsh.

The meeting was part of the public consultation about changes to the Senedd that might result from additional powers devolved from Westminster under the Wales Act 2017 and in particular, as far as I was concerned, a proposed increase in the number of AMs from 60 to 90 at an additional cost of about £10m per annum.

I am not in favour of this proposal and Elin Jones, the Llywydd, admits that it is unlikely to be popular with the general public.

The chair of the Working Party making the recommendation, Prof Laura McAllister, said: ”I have no doubt that many will question whether money should be spent on more politicians at a time of austerity.”

As I understand it, a change of this nature requires a “super majority” in favour of two-thirds of Assembly Members and that there is no political consensus to achieve this. As such I wonder why the consultation is being carried out at all. It will be a courageous act on the part of any political party to go against what seems to be acknowledged as the popular opinion.

With the First Minister under investigation for matters relating to the sacking and subsequent suicide of Carl Sargeant this may not be the best time to propose an increase in the number of AMs.

There were problems with the simultaneous translation equipment during the meeting, the projector was not working for the first half of the initial presentations and the lights were not dimmed when it was operational, making it hard to see the screen.

Several people voted with their feet and left before the end of the meeting.

The method of election of AMs was discussed. The Assembly has been in operation for nearly 20 years. In my opinion, any system that results in the election of Neil Hamilton as one of our representatives is badly flawed. I believe this man lives in England. He is thus not able to vote in Welsh elections and yet can be an AM. He represents UKIP – a Party in freefall that has recently had almost as many leaders as Donald Trump has sacked political advisors.

Can I paraphrase Prof McAllister - I have no doubt that many will question whether money should be spent on a consultation of this type at a time of austerity.

Yours etc,

David Kirby, Cae Melyn, Aberystwyth.

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