IC Wales

June 18, 2004

Summary:  A campaign group, Tomorrow's Wales, is promoting Wales switching to a PR-STV system of proportional representation for their Assembly.  

IC Wales
Launch of Lobby for More Powers
By Martin Shipton, The Western Mail
June 18, 2004

A BROAD-BASED campaign group called Tomorrow's Wales, aimed at securing more powers for the National Assembly, will be unveiled today.

Chaired by the Archbishop of Wales, Dr Barry Morgan, it will press for the recommendations of the Richard Commission to be implemented in full.

The Commission, which reported in March, said the Assembly should get full law- making powers, and that the number of AMs should be increased to 80, all elected by the single-transferable vote system of proportional representation.

The Archbishop's press officer, Sin Brynach, said last night, "Since May 13, when Archbishop Barry Morgan announced that he was to chair a movement to support and promote the recommendations of the Richard Commission, much has been happening in the background."

He said the movement is to be known as Cymru Yfory/Tomorrow's Wales.

Progress had been made in drawing together an executive committee from representatives of the business sector, the trades unions, academia, the legal profession, the voluntary sector and faith communities.

The first of Tomorrow's Wales' public meetings will be held in partnership with the University of Wales, Aberystwyth's Institute for Welsh Politics at the National Eisteddfod in early August, and the movement's web site will be launched during the next few weeks.

Meanwhile, Professor Richard Rawlings of the London School of Economics, one of Britain's top devolution experts, will tonight warn an academic audience that the Welsh Assembly Government is "rowing back" on the Richard recommendations "in a way that is contrary to the essential spirit of the report".

In the Centre for Welsh Legal Affairs Annual Lecture at the University of
Wales, Aberystwyth, Prof Rawlings will argue that the Commission "has
demonstrated a robust independence, has crossed swords effectively with the Secretary of State for Wales, [and] has confounded the expectations of the local political and administrative machine."