Retiring member Mick Antoniw reflects on his 15 years in the Welsh Senedd and looks at the issues that still need to be addressed.

May 2026 will be the most important Welsh general election since  devolution just over 25 years ago. It will not only be a  referendum on  the Welsh Labour Government but also a reflection on the current state of Welsh political and civic society.

It will elect a Welsh Parliament / Senedd , increased in size from 60 to 96 with a radically reformed electoral system. It will be the most democratic election ever in Wales and the UK  and will elect a Parliament that more accurately reflects the way in which people have voted than under the previous system.

The franchise will include voters  at 16 years of age . It will also include potentially another 400,000 voters as a direct consequence of Welsh legislation introducing automatic registration of voters.

The model could become a template for the UK Government to introduce automatic registration across the United Kingdom, adding millions of lost voters to the register.

The reforms also include the removal of first past the post voting in favour of a fully proportional list system.  Voters will vote for either a political party list or  independent  candidates, and votes will be allocated using the D’Hondt formula to allocate seats. Unlike the previous mixed system introduced in 1999 when the National Assembly for Wales was created, every vote will count. Constituencies will be paired using existing parliamentary boundaries,  to elect six members. Guidance will be issued to encourage greater diversity and gender balance.

It was the original intention to create a framework for statutory gender balance but this had to be abandoned because of outdated restrictions in the Welsh constitutional settlement which have yet to be reformed.

I joined the Senedd in 2011 just as it had achieved primary legislative powers and greater devolution, becoming a fully-fledged parliament able to pass its own laws without reference to Westminster and it has been a roller coaster of a learning experience.

Since then over 80 Acts of the Welsh Parliament have been passed, together with thousands of pieces of secondary legislation, creating a Welsh legal jurisdiction in practice, albeit one that Westminster Governments inexplicably remain reluctant to formally recognise.

The scope of legislation has varied from active travel, animal welfare,  agricultural workers and environmental issues to the groundbreaking Human Transplantation  Act, establishing presumed consent, which has now been adopted across the UK. More recently it has ranged from legislation to protect trade union rights in devolved areas, to legislation establishing a statutory social partnership model for trade unions, business and Welsh Government.

The political and financial environment has been intensely difficult. An increasingly hostile anti-devolution Tory Government, 14 years of austerity and Brexit have all tarnished what should have been a road to  greater democratisation, decentralisation and empowerment of local communities.

The Welsh budget in real terms is now worth less that it was in 2010. Nevertheless, the welcome change in government has resulted in a significant improvement in the Welsh financial settlement, helping to avoid further cuts and fund pay settlements while increasing the amount of money available for much-needed capital investment in infrastructure and technology. Welcome though this is, austerity has not yet been vanquished. The financial legacy inherited by Labour from the Conservatives is devastating. The impact of Brexit and the global situation creates a difficult and uncertain economic and social environment within a dysfunctional and asymmetric post-Brexit constitutional structure.

The need for further radical reform in the UK was recognised in the report by Gordon Brown on the future of the UK commissioned by Keir Starmer, which reported in 2022. The report recognised dysfunctions in our current constitutional arrangements in the UK  and in particular England. While there are moves to begin to  address this in England, the recommendations for Wales have seen little progress and this does not bode well for the future.

 The recent budget settlement for Wales was essentially a Barnett settlement of consequential funding  based on the budget for public services in England. Welcome though it was across the UK,  many fundamental issues need to be resolved.

The funding formula is outdated and unlike Northern Ireland, it is not needs-based and is increasingly bypassed by the Treasury. Funding for transport is now recognised as being in a perilous state after decades of underfunding. Despite having 12 percent of the railway lines, infrastructure investment in Wales has hovered around the 2 percent level at best. Restrictions on borrowing and failure to devolve the Crown Estate limit the levers available to devolved government to deliver on its manifesto commitments.

Despite a stated commitment to devolution in Wales, there is much to be done and constitutional reform – so far it is more mirage than reality.

It is disappointing there has never been a detailed response from the UK Government to the Brown report as it affects Wales. The report recognised the fragmentation of our civic society and set out key principles for further reform to bring power closer to the people and communities.  The same is true of the Independent Commission on the future of Wales, commissioned by the Welsh Government.

The constitution is the framework in which power is exercised. We disregard it at our peril. The growing disaffection and disconnect with our political system and constitutional structures, together with growing inequality, feed political disaffection and instability. It is this disaffection that far right groups and Farage’s Reform Party feed off and exploit.

I will not be standing for re-election in May 2026. Approaching the age of 72, I feel now is the time to make space for a new generation of socialists and activists; After 15 years in the Senedd and in the Welsh Government there is much to be proud of.

The achievements of the Welsh Labour Government in the most difficult of economic circumstances are significant. We were able to limit the worst of the effects of Tory austerity on Welsh local government and public services.  We can take pride in our 21st Century schools rebuilding programme which has been modernising and rebuilding our educational infrastructure, investing hundreds of millions of pounds in new state-of-the-art schools  throughout Wales, and the massive £2 billion heads-of-the-valleys infrastructure project over the past decade which opens up the valleys to new investment, jobs and greater prosperity for the future.

Investment in the recently devolved rail and transport system, creating an electrified nationalised South Wales Metro, investing in new trains to replace the decrepit fleet of train carriages and railway infrastructure that we inherited in 2019 – none of these achievements would  have happened without devolution. It is a work in progress in South Wales, North and West Wales, but we are gradually transforming the transport system after decades of neglect.  An imminent bill on buses will legislate to  re-regulate the industry after the disaster of Thatcher’s privatisation, to create an integrated public transport system, consolidation of planning law, and many other areas. Devolution works, but it does not and cannot stand still. As we move away from an archaic model of centralised sovereignty  to a more democratic federalised governance, devolved parliaments and regional government must have the levers necessary to fulfil the democratic mandate it receives at elections.

There are some outstanding key issues  to be addressed, such as youth justice. Probation as a starting point needs to be devolved. Our justice system is at a precipice. Maintaining a centralised, Victorian structure when all the key components are devolved makes no sense and restrains progress.

The Crown estate needs to be devolved. This is not about finance and there are risks, but freeing up the capacity of Welsh Government to develop its economic and particularly renewable energy opportunities for the benefit of Wales and the UK is long overdue. Current opposition to this from the UK Treasury lacks credibility and smacks of a colonial governance culture towards Wales that must change.

The Sewell convention, whereby the UK Government will not normally legislate in devolved areas needs reform. it was much abused by the Tories  and needs to be put on a statutory basis. All these issues could be addressed by a new Constitutional Reform and Governance Act.

The intergovernmental framework needs to be strengthened. It is wholly dependent on subjective goodwill and trust. It needs to become a cornerstone of four nation engagement and hegemony. There needs to be a review and reform of the role of the Welsh Office which was a pre-devolution creation which does not sit well with the inter-governmental arrangements.

Finally, there is a desperate need for a fairer financial settlement for Wales and the rest of the UK including the regions of England. The current system is outdated and unfair. The abuse of consequential funding by the Tories has become legendary, HS2 spending being just one example. Labour must not make the same mistake or it will pay the price at the ballot box.

On a UK and European level, Brexit has been a disaster. It has been bad for Wales, economically and culturally. It has been particularly bad for Welsh agriculture and the fishing industry. The sooner the red tape of Brexit is removed and we again become part of a single market the better. This would be the best tonic for economic growth we could have. Europe is our nearest and largest trading partner.

There are many challenges – child poverty, educational attainment, GP appointments, waiting lists – which need to be addressed and on which Welsh Labour will be judged. Many of these have their roots in 14 years of austerity, privatisation and demographic change. There will be a need in the next Senedd for progressive political parties to seek a common framework and agenda for Wales to move forward. It will not be easy. Welsh Labour has never had a majority  and has always had to work with other parties but we can win and we can succeed. To do so we need a radical agenda of social and economic reform and we need the UK government to recognise the need for it to play its part in social and democratic reform.

This election will also be a platform for the far right Reform Party. The political threat should not be underestimated. Wales is a stepping stone. The only two policies they are currently promoting are immigration, which is not devolved, and the NHS, which they want to break up and privatise. Although they are riding relatively high in the polls, their lack of Welsh policy is a vulnerability. Nevertheless it would be a mistake to underestimate them and political agitators such as Tommy Robinson and various far right social media groups. We cannot and must not fall into the trap or trying to out- reform Reform. Welsh Labour standing up for Wales is a model that has succeeded in uniting centre and centre-left voters in Wales for constructive and progressive policies and it works.

Mick Antoniw MS is the Senedd / Welsh Parliament member for Pontypridd and former Counsel General and Minister for the Constitution in the Welsh Government.

Image: Source: Mick Antoniw AS / MS. Author: Senedd Cymru / Welsh Parliament from Wales, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.