Welsh Government backs STV for council elections

Martin Shipton

The Welsh Government has signalled its intention to introduce the single transferable vote for council elections – although at this stage it has given no indication of timescale.

Last week we reported how discussions were going on between Senedd Members about the possibility of making such a change in time for next year’s local government elections taking place in all 22 unitary councils.

In response to a request for comment from Nation.Cymru, a Welsh Government spokesperson said: “This new Welsh Government is committed to renewing and advancing the process of electoral reform across local authorities, including the proposed adoption of the single transferable vote system for local government elections as part of wider efforts to strengthen democratic representation and voter choice.”

In the wake of last month’s Senedd election that saw Labour win just nine out of 96 seats, former First Minister Mark Drakeford wrote: “The new, proportional voting system under which the Senedd election was fought saved the Labour Party in Wales. Under the new system, Labour received 11% of votes cast and has 11% of the seats in the Senedd.

“Every first past the post seat held under the previous system would have been lost. The nine seats won hold the balance between a minority Plaid Cymru administration and a reliable progressive majority. The new Labour group should use its continuing relevance to set a radical agenda. It should, for example, make the earliest possible call for next year’s local government elections to be held under a proportional system. Otherwise, the brutal cull of Labour councillors seen in England on 7 May will be at high risk of being repeated in Wales in May 2027.”

Ken Skates, now the interim leader of Welsh Labour, told Nation.Cymru: “Within the party there have been talks. I’m personally in favour of it as I feel it would generate greater faith in the democratic system.

“I think the presentation of it as a force for democratic renewal would be vital, rather than as a means of stopping Reform, which they’d doubtless use against progressives as a claim we’re trying to stitch things up.”

In 2021 the Senedd passed the Local Government and Elections (Wales) Act, which gave councils the option to switch their voting system from first past the post to the single transferable vote (STV) system of proportional representation (PR).

Since then, however, none of the unitary authorities have voted to make such a change, preferring to stick with first past the post.

STV is the system used to elect Members of the Dáil (the Irish Parliament), Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly and councillors in both Scotland and Northern Ireland. Voters list the candidates they choose in order of preference (1 to 4 etc), and if their first choice candidate gets eliminated at the count, their second choice candidate is counted etc.

STV gives more power to voters than the closed list system of PR used in the Senedd election, and guarantees a more proportional outcome than first past the post.

Reorganisation of boundaries

There has been talk that it may be possible to change the electoral system without having a whole new piece of legislation, but a political source told us it would be “fiddly”, adding: “You’d have to have a big reorganisation of boundaries, particularly in rural areas where you tend to have a lot of single-member wards. There would be quite a bit of pushback and there would be pressure for meaningful public consultations, which would eat into the time available.”

Another political source said: “One possibility is that local government elections could be postponed until 2028 to give time for the change to be introduced, but that would get a lot of pushback, especially from Reform, who fancy their chances at winning councils in Wales.”