Latest vote failure triggers new call for STV in all Welsh council elections

Martin Shipton

The “absurd” outcome of votes at two local authorities has prompted one of Wales’ leading democracy campaigners to renew calls for all the nation’s councillors to be elected by STV.

Ceredigion became the second council in Wales to back a switch from First Past the Post (FPTP) to the Single Transferable Vote system of proportional representation with an 18 to 17 majority.

This followed councillors at neighbouring Gwynedd Council voting 65% in favour of moving to STV in October.

But because under rules insisted upon by the Welsh Government neither council supported STV by a two-thirds majority, the change will not happen.

Consultations in both council areas had shown overwhelming public support for what is seen by many as a fairer voting system, with respondents favouring a move to STV by over 70% in Gwynedd and 67% in Ceredigion.

Councillors in Powys rejected a move to STV by 33 votes to 21 in October, despite its consultation showing 60.5% support in favour.

Democratic mandate

Jess Blair, director of Electoral Reform Society Wales, said: “These votes now create the absurd situation where councils cannot move to STV despite the public in those areas overwhelmingly backing the move and it having a democratic mandate from the majority of councillors in two areas.

“This means that Wales risks repeating the farcical scenes seen at the 2022 local elections where over 100,000 people were denied a vote as only one candidate stood in their ward, meaning the election was decided before a vote was cast.

“The current FPTP system, which often creates uncompetitive wards where other parties have little incentive to stand, was a prominent factor in so many people being denied a vote. FPTP also frequently produces unrepresentative results where council chambers don’t accurately represent the way the electorate as a whole in the area voted, with parties often getting seats out of proportion with the share of the vote they won.

“Moving to STV would help drastically reduce the number of uncontested seats in Wales. For example, Scotland, which has STV for council elections, has had fewer uncontested seats in all the elections combined since STV was introduced in 2007 than the number in Gwynedd council alone at the last local election.

“ERS Cymru is now calling on the Welsh Government and parties in the Senedd to address the absurd situation where councils are being prevented from moving to a fairer voting system, which the majority of councillors have voted for, by bringing in STV for all councils across Wales.

“This would mean Wales would join Scotland and Northern Ireland, which both use STV, and ensure that at local elections every vote counts, and council chambers better reflect the way their area voted.

“The onus is now on the Welsh Government to address this unfair, undemocratic situation and act to avoid a repeat of the last local elections where thousands more people are locked out of having a vote.”

Resistance

The outcome of the recent council votes reflects the huge and long-standing resistance to electoral reform across much of local government in Wales. Labour groups in particular have opposed a move away from FPTP because it has provided them with majorities that on a proportional basis they do not deserve.

And instead of legislating to introduce STV in local authorities across Wales, Labour grudgingly agreed to let individual councils make the choice – but only if they achieved a two-thirds majority.

As long ago as 2002, in the then National Assembly’s first term, a Commission chaired by Eric Sunderland, a former vice-chancellor of the University of Wales, recommended a switch to STV in council elections by 2008. But the report was shelved.

Proposals made by successive ministers to reduce the number of local authorities in Wales have also faced considerable resistance and have got nowhere.

Set up as part of the Assembly Coalition Deal in June 20001, the nine-strong committee, led by Eric Sunderland, has spent the past year probing how councillors are elected.

The review started as one of the conditions within the coalition deal that was brokered between Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

Having considered seven voting models, the Sunderland report recommended a form of PR known as the Single Transferable Vote.