Q&A: What's the plan for extra Senedd politicians?

A plan to increase the number of Senedd members and shake up how they are elected will be discussed at a crucial Welsh Labour Party meeting on Saturday.

The proposals - which have been agreed by the Welsh government and Plaid Cymru - would see the Welsh Parliament expand by more than a third, and its members would be elected differently.

Backers say its needed because the body has many more powers than it did when it was first opened with 60 Assembly Members back in 1999.

But it needs the agreement of the Labour Party - and a new law - before it happens.

Meanwhile Conservatives believe there should be a referendum on the plans.

The proposed reforms to the Senedd were agreed by the leaders of Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru - Mark Drakeford and Adam Price - in May.

The announcement of a Drakeford-Price agreement angered the Welsh Conservatives, who were opposed to more politicians and decided to quit a committee examining the reforms in protest.

They said that the deal had effectively undermined the committee's work, and there were concerns from the Welsh Liberal Democrats that it could freeze them out - claims rejected by one Welsh Labour minister.

Welsh Labour is holding a special conference in which there will be a vote to decide whether to back the proposals.

While there is party leadership support for them, this is not a done deal.

There are reservations about the plans amongst some Labour MPs, local constituency parties and trade unions, all of whom are entitled to vote.

Earlier this month, Rhondda MP Chris Bryant said members in his area had voted against the proposals, though they supported reform "in principle", as they would leave politicians "less connected" to voters.

Swansea East MP Carolyn Harris, and deputy Welsh Labour leader, told BBC Radio 4's Any Questions: she was "not overly keen on having 96 members" in Cardiff Bay but "can see the need for having more members of the Senedd, in order to make it a place which functions, and is open for scrutiny".

It is not the last step - the proposals would need to be agreed in the Senedd through a new law which would need two-thirds of the parliament's approval to pass.

The Senedd, also known as the Welsh Parliament, is made up of politicians elected in Wales to deal with policy areas, and laws, that were previously the responsibility of the UK Parliament but which have been transferred to Wales.

These areas include the health service and social services, education, housing, agriculture and local government, and there are also some tax powers, including partial control of income taxes.

The party or parties able to get enough support from Senedd members after an election forms a Welsh government led by a first minister. This could be made up of politicians from one party or more than one party, in a coalition.

Ministers are usually drawn from the parties forming that government, but sometimes members from other parties can be included.

That government takes decisions on matters such as health and education, and also proposes laws where legal changes are needed to put its plans into action.

Members of the Senedd, known as MSs, who are not part of the government, have the task of scrutinising and challenging decisions made by ministers.

This includes keeping on eye on Welsh government actions, laws it proposes, and the performance of the various bodies ministers are ultimately responsible for.

MSs, just like MPs, also do what is called constituency work, helping people in the areas they represent with matters of concern they have raised with them.

There are currently 60 Senedd members, 40 of them elected by the traditional Westminster style first past the post system. The other 20 represent bigger regions using a process which better reflects the voting share particular parties have received in elections.

The members sit in the Senedd building in Cardiff Bay.

The current total of 60 has been the number since the creation of what was then called the National Assembly for Wales 1999. In those days it had very limited powers and no tax powers.

The Senedd, and the Welsh government, have since acquired direct law-making powers and some tax powers, including over a share of income tax.

It is argued that with all these extra powers more politicians are needed to scrutinise proposed new laws and government ministers' actions, and that there are simply not enough Senedd members to do that job as well as it could be done.

Unlike at Westminster, where there are 650 MPs in the House of Commons, there is also no equivalent of the House of Lords in Wales, which provides a second check on the legal plans of UK ministers.

In essence, it is said Senedd members currently have too high a workload if they do all they are required to do, and ministers plans and actions are not being challenged as much as they could be.

That might mean for example, in extreme cases, that mistakes that would otherwise have been spotted in advance are that much more likely to occur.

This proposal is to move from 60 to 96 members in Cardiff Bay, to cope with the additional work involved in providing greater scrutiny.

Many politicians, if not all, will admit that persuading voters that they need more politicians is not the easiest of tasks.

The proposed increase is likely to be criticised on grounds of cost. It was estimated a few years ago to be around £12m a year for 30 extra MSs.

It could also be argued that when the case was being put in the past for more powers for Cardiff Bay, it was not made clear to the public that more powers and responsibilities could require more politicians to manage them in the future.

Also, asking for more politicians and the funding for them in the midst of the current cost of living crisis makes this potentially trickier than it might have been.

That is the argument being made for the proposed changes - that better scrutiny would mean better decisions.

In addition to more politicians keeping an eye on the Welsh government, it would also give that Welsh government a wider choice of ministers to put around the cabinet table.

MSs would be elected from 16 new constituencies, made by combining the proposed new 32 Westminster seats for Wales, from party lists based on the proportion of the vote the political parties receive in elections.

But this would apply only to the next Senedd election, due in 2026.

Under the proposals a boundary review would be held to determine the makeup of seats for the election that follows that.

For all elections, from 2026 on, the party lists would also be required to alternate between men and women to ensure gender balance in the Senedd chamber.

It would mean an end to the Westminster style first past the post electoral system for Senedd elections, currently used to elect 40 of the current 60 members of the Welsh Parliament.

In terms of the number of politicians, the Northern Ireland Assembly, for a population of around 1.8m, has 90 members.

The Scottish Parliament has 129 members, representing around 5.5 million people.

Wales, with just over 3m people, currently has 60 MSs.

The Scottish Parliament uses a system similar to the one currently used in Wales, but with a smaller number of Westminster style first past the post elected constituency members and more politicians representing bigger regions elected using a more proportional system.

The Northern Ireland Assembly uses the proportional STV voting system, by which parties win roughly the same proportion of seats as the share of votes they receive.

Neither Scotland of Northern Ireland has a system requiring certain numbers of men or women to stand for election.