Category: Wales
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Gareth Evans: Revisiting Senedd reform: Post-implementation review of the Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Act 2024
The Senedd Cymru (Members and Elections) Act 2024 (“the Act”) introduced major structural and electoral changes to Senedd Cymru (Welsh Parliament) which took effect for the election on 7 May 2026. These included an increase to the size of the Senedd from 60 to 96 members, and the introduction of a new, Closed Proportional List…
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Julio Alberto Barajas-Servin: When Electoral Lies Become Justiciable
Wales has done something unusual – it has enacted a duty to prohibit electoral lies before deciding what the prohibition will look like. Since 27 June 2026, section 13 of the Government of Wales Act 2006 has required the Welsh Ministers to make provision against false or misleading statements of fact made to affect who…
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Nikos Skoutaris: Fault Lines: The UK’s Asymmetric Constitution and the Problem of Self-Determination After May 2026
For the first time in the history of devolution, nationalist or independence-oriented parties lead all three devolved nations simultaneously: Sinn Féin in Northern Ireland, Plaid Cymru in Wales, and the SNP in Scotland. Meanwhile, Reform UK topped the national equivalent vote in England. The United Kingdom’s political geography has been fundamentally redrawn. What has not…
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Gareth Evans: The Senedd Election: What are the next steps for government formation in Wales?
On 7 May 2026, the people of Wales went to the polls to elect the seventh Senedd Cymru. For a number of reasons, this was always destined to be a change election in Wales: using a new voting system to return an expanded Senedd of ninety-six members, together with significant changes to the Senedd membership…
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Gareth Evans: The Devolution of the Crown Estate in Wales
On 22 July 2025, the Crown Estate (Wales) Bill passed unopposed through report stage in the House of Lords. The Bill, which seeks to devolve the management of the Crown Estate in Wales, was introduced as a Private Members’ Bill in the Lords by the former leader of Plaid Cymru, Lord Wigley. This is by…
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Gareth Evans: Welsh Devolution and the Co-operation Agreement
On 22 November 2021, after more than two months of talks, the Welsh Labour Government and Plaid Cymru published the text of a Co-operation Agreement (hereafter “the Agreement”) setting out how the two parties will work together during the Sixth Senedd. Unlike previous examples of cooperation between the two parties, the Agreement does not amount to a formal coalition…
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Aileen McHarg and Alison L. Young: The Resilience of the (Old) British Constitution
In 2009, Vernon Bogdanor wrote about The New British Constitution. His thesis was that a decade of New Labour reforms had produced a shift in the nature of the constitution, from one based on parliamentary sovereignty, to one based on the ‘sovereignty of the constitution’. Since 2009, further constitutional reforms have been implemented by governments…
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Mark K Heatley: The Implications of the Hertfordshire County Council Case for Local Democracy
The High Court recently delivered its judgment in the case of Hertfordshire County Council v Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, finding that remote meetings of local councils could not continue after 7 May 2021. This article looks at the decision and considers its impact for future local democracy. In England council…
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Gareth Evans: The Senedd Election and the Constitutional Prospects for Welsh Devolution
On 6 May 2021, the people of Wales went to the polls in the sixth Senedd election. More so than in previous Senedd elections, the focus of the debate centred around a catalogue of distinctly Welsh political issues, including the constitutional future of the Welsh devolution settlement. Among the constitutional possibilities offered to voters at…
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Nicholas Kilford: The UK Internal Market Act’s Interaction with Senedd Competences: The Welsh Government’s Challenge
On its passage through Parliament, the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020 (UKIMA) attracted a great deal of criticism, the majority of which was directed towards the – since withdrawn – provisions which purported to break international law (albeit apparently only in a limited and specific way). Another, perhaps initially overshadowed, criticism, now coming to…