Covid: Potential Senedd 2021 election delay splits parties

Moves to potentially delay the 2021 election if people risk spreading coronavirus have divided the Senedd.

On 6 May voters are due to head to the polls to vote for their representatives in the Welsh Parliament.

Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats have said they would support delaying the election if the Covid-19 situation "was extremely serious".

But the Conservatives and Brexit Party said other countries had gone to the polls during the pandemic.

All parties agreed "the continuing aim" should be for the election to take place as planned.

First Minister Mark Drakeford said he is "very committed" to having an election in May.

But in the Senedd he warned no one knows what the state of coronavirus will be next spring.

With just over six months to go until the polls open, almost two million people are under local lockdown in Wales.

The election will be the first time 16 and 17-year-olds are able to vote in Wales and also the first poll since the Welsh assembly was renamed the Welsh Parliament.

The Welsh Government's elections planning group has met five times since the end of June to discuss how the vote will be held if lockdown measures are in place.

The group, made up of all five political parties, the Senedd and electoral commissions and the Welsh and UK governments, is looking at whether changes need to be made to electoral law "to enable the election to be held safely".

In a draft report, seen by BBC Wales, the group has agreed:

But the parties are divided on giving a possible extension to powers of the Senedd's Presiding Officer Elin Jones "to vary the date of the 2021 Senedd election to enable the date to be moved by more than one month".

This would mean the election could be delayed until the summer or autumn.

Labour, Plaid and the Liberal Dems favoured the move "as a contingency measure in extremis", but the Tories and Brexit Party rejected it, saying that elections had been held in other countries "with appropriate social distancing and other measures in place".

There was also no cross-party consensus on extending voting "over multiple days" rather than only on 6 May 2021.

The group as a whole felt "there would be little benefit in extending hours within one day further than the current arrangement of 7:00 to 22:00".

The election group is set to meet again on Tuesday. A report will then be submitted to the Welsh Government before any potential debate in the Senedd.

Welsh Labour said it was "fully committed to ensuring the smooth running of the Senedd elections in May 2021".

In the Senedd, Mark Drakeford said: "I am very committed to having an election in May of next year. That is absolutely the right thing, that is what I think should happen.

"It is not right that the Senedd should be extended beyond its current term.

"I feel very strongly that the Senedd needs a democratic refresh."

He said May was a "very long way away" and added: "We want an election in which every Welsh citizen feels they can go to the polling station and are not put off from doing so because the state of public health at the time might be very off putting to them."

But Labour backbencher Alun Davies warned the elections "should not be determined by deals behind closed doors or by small groups of individuals".

"It is a matter upon which we should all be able to vote on and debate and discuss openly"," he said.

A Senedd spokesperson said: "The Government of Wales Act provides for the Llywydd [presiding officer] to be able to vary the date of the Senedd elections by up to one month earlier or later.

"Any other more significant change would require an Act of the Senedd but such an Act would only require a simple majority, not a super majority."