Plaid Cymru’s parliamentary leader Elfyn Llwyd MP has criticised plans by the UK Government that will slash Welsh representation at Westminster by up to a quarter, creating separate constituencies for the Welsh Assembly and Parliament, and hold parliamentary and assembly elections on the same day in 2015.
The plans were formalised in the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill and in the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill.
Mr Llwyd said:
“These plans really are a recipe for confusion and disaster.
“They intend to uncouple the parliamentary and assembly constituency seats and in a separate piece of legislation have the elections on the same day.
“It is very possible that in May 2015 we will be voting in two elections for three different types of constituency and with three different voting systems.
“Like everything else that Nick Clegg and his party have done since taking the Tory shilling, they’ve made an absolute pig’s ear of this.
“There is need for reform of the voting system to make it properly proportional and there is a need for fixed term parliaments, but on both issues the Liberal Democrats have got this wrong.
“The proper voting system is STV, a genuinely proportional system where your vote really matters, and a fixed term UK parliament should be for four years, not five.
“By forcing each constituency to have the same number of electors, largely irrespective of geography and history, they are doing Wales a major dis-service, cutting our number of MPs by up to 25%, but only 5% in England.
“Apparently no constituency will be greater than 13,000 square kilometres, which will be of little comfort to us in Wales where the whole country is around 20,000 square kilometres.
“But this will still mean vast super-constituencies hundreds of miles long and wide, which won’t be welcomed by constituents who will find it very difficult for them to see their MP on a regular basis.
“These are plans which have been hastily and badly prepared and are ill thought through.
“For a party which thinks that fair voting is its raison d’etre, the Lib Dems have disappointed many today with their unfair plans for Wales.”
