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Senedd backs U-turn on election gender quotas

Getty Images A brightly lit exterior picture of the front of the Senedd building with the Wales Millennium Centre in the backgroundGetty Images
Political parties would have had to select at least 50% women or more under the plans

Senedd members have voted to withdraw plans to force parties to ensure at least 50% of candidates are women at Welsh Parliament elections.

Labour, Plaid Cymru and Liberal Democrats politicians expressed their disappointment at the decision, with Plaid's Sioned Williams calling the U-turn "shameful".

But Conservative Darren Millar said pursuing the now abandoned policy had been an "atrocious waste of taxpayers' money".

Labour minister Jane Hutt said there was now an opportunity for parties to cooperate on creating voluntary guidance to ensure a more representative Senedd in 2026.

Proposed when Mark Drakeford was first minister, the plans faced questions over their lawfulness and whether the Welsh Parliament had the power to make the change.

The proposals were originally intended for the 2026 Senedd election and later delayed until 2030, but ministers announced last week they were dropping them altogether.

Labour's Joyce Watson said she was "hugely disappointed that we are where we are today".

"I think it raises some level of concern about putting bills forward when they are questionable in whether we have the powers to exercise what we want," she said, accusing the government of raising "false hope" on the issue.

For Plaid Cymru, Sioned Williams said she was "bitterly disappointed and disturbed at the lack of leadership and this change of direction from this government".

She criticised the new Labour First Minister Eluned Morgan for "celebrating the fact rightly that she is Wales' first female in that role" while "binning the very bill that to ensure women have an equal voice in this Senedd".

Liberal Democrat Jane Dodds said she had "always thought that the Welsh government had real guts, real guts to stand up for equality and what they believed in, but this is so disappointing".

Senedd Cymru Eluned Morgan sitting in the Senedd chamber with her arms folded next to Jane Hutt, who has her head downSenedd Cymru
Eluned Morgan (L), seated next to Jane Hutt, had to listen to some angry criticism of the decision

Jane Hutt, the cabinet secretary in charge of getting Welsh government business through the Senedd chamber, assured members that "we can come through this disappointing moment".

She said it was "an important moment in terms of what we can practically do in this Senedd by actually committing across this chamber to a gender balanced Senedd, getting more women into politics, but also more diversity into a more representative democratic Senedd here in 2026".

The Conservatives joined Labour in backing the withdrawal of the proposals, meaning the government won the vote by 40 votes to 12.

After the vote, Tory Darren Millar said the "divisive election gender quotas were obviously outside the competency of the Senedd and therefore pursuing them was an atrocious waste of taxpayers' money".

"Conservatives have always favoured candidate selection based on merit and by the voters, not on the basis of their gender or any other aspect of diversity," he said.