Plaid Cymru’s first elected peer, Dafydd Wigley, has announced that he hopes to take up his seat in the Upper Chamber on January 24 2011 as “Baron Wigley of Caernarfon in the County of Gwynedd“.
As Plaid Cymru does not have sufficient members in the Second Chamber to form their own Group, Mr Wigley hopes to take his place on the Cross-benches, where Plaid’s Dafydd Ellis Thomas AM also sits.
Dafydd Wigley was one of three Plaid members who were elected by the party’s 400-strong National Council in January 2008, as Plaid’s first nominees. This followed a change of party policy as Plaid previously refused to nominate peers because of the unelected nature of the House of Lords.
The party changed policy because legislative bids put forward by the government of Wales, in which Plaid is a coalition partner with Labour, were open to being blocked by the House of Lords.
Mr Wigley said:
“Clearly it was unacceptable to Plaid for an unelected chamber in Westminster to veto the policies of the elected government of Wales.
“Plaid believes that Wales needs as strong a voice as possible in both chambers at Westminster for however long Wales has to depend on decisions taken there on matters affecting the people of Wales.
“I am glad that it has been possible for me to use the title ‘Caernarfon’ since that was the constituency which I represented for twenty seven years – but its name has disappeared since May from the list of constituency names, for the first time in over 500 years.
“I hope to keep a watchful eye on the progress of Welsh legislative bids during my time here and also to speak up on issues relating to the Welsh economy and the National Assembly’s financial settlement.
“I also hope to rejoin the All Party Parliamentary Disability Group of which I was a Vice Chair for ten years.”
