Senedd meeting cancelled as most members fail to attend
Chris Haines, ICNN Senedd reporter
An evidence session was cancelled after four of the five politicians who sit on a committee were unable to attend, leaving the Senedd no choice but to postpone the meeting.
The Senedd’s petitions committee was due to meet this afternoon (October 20) as part of a short inquiry into the impact of the Hafod landfill site on people living nearby in Wrexham.
But the meeting had to be pulled at the 11th hour after Plaid Cymru’s Luke Fletcher, Labour’s Vaughan Gething, Tory Joel James and independent Rhys ab Owen all sent apologies.
The Conservatives sent Gareth Davies as a substitute for Mr James but Carolyn Thomas, the Labour chair of the committee, was the only other politician in attendance.
Standing orders
Under the Senedd’s rules or standing orders, committee meetings must be cancelled if fewer than three members or less than a third of members are present. Meetings must also be cancelled if only one political group is represented by members.
Some committees – including finance, legislation and standards – currently have only four members, regularly putting meetings at risk due to roadworks or sickness absence.
‘Inquorate’
Ms Thomas said: “I have received apologies from Luke Fletcher, Vaughan Gething, Joel James and Rhys ab Owen. Gareth Davies is attending as a substitute for Joel James.
“However, as there are fewer than three members present, this meeting is inquorate under standing order 17.31 which requires at least three members to be present – so all business from today’s meeting will be rescheduled to a future meeting.
“We are next due to meet on November 10, so apologies and I will have to close the meeting until next time. Diolch.”
The danger of committees lacking enough members to ensure sufficient scrutiny was one of the core drivers behind plans to expand the Senedd from 60 to 96 members from May 2026.
Labour’s Mike Hedges, who chairs the Welsh Parliament’s legislation committee and sits on three others, has consistently expressed concerns about inadequate numbers.
Last year, he warned a meeting of the public accounts committee would have been declared inquorate if he had gone to the toilet. “You cannot run an organisation like that,” he said.
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
No surprise that vaughan did not turn up. He should just resign.
Dock their wages. One name seems to be standing out among the others for being “undependable”.
It is not more of them that we want but MSs who can run their diaries and make themselves available. Some very lazy elected members.
We don’t need more MSs we need one’s who can run a diary and make sure they are available. Select what has to be done as part of the job and make that a priority. Why agree to be on a cttee if you are not interested?
I trust they weren’t campaigning when failing to fulfil their Senedd duties.
When they want our vote they promise us the earth and the stars, when they get in they tend to forget their promises all they want is a gold pension.
I now understand why the Welsh population have been told that they will have to fork out millions and millions of extra pounds each week for more MS members.
So if a committee members ( who are well financially rewarded ) can’t be bothered to attend a meeting or want to have a Pee half way through, then they can send substitute.