Senedd constituencies and electoral regions

Electoral constituencies and regions of the Senedd, the Welsh Parliament

The Senedd constituencies and electoral regions (Etholaethau a Rhanbarthau etholiadol Senedd Cymru)They are known as Senedd constituencies and Senedd electoral regions in the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020 and revised Government of Wales Act 2006, but may be alternatively titled by Senedd Research, and English language news sources as Welsh Parliament constituencies and electoral regions, or Senedd Cymru constituencies and electoral regions. The districts were formerly known as National Assembly for Wales constituencies and electoral regions, or informally, (Welsh) Assembly constituencies and electoral regions from its establishment in 1999 until May 2020, when it was renamed to its current name(s). are the electoral districts used to elect members of the Senedd (MS; Aelodau'r Senedd or AS) to the Senedd (Welsh Parliament; Senedd Cymru), and have been used in some form since the first election of the then National Assembly for Wales in 1999. New boundaries were introduced for the 2007 elections and currently consist of forty constituencies and five regions. The five electoral regions are: Mid and West Wales, North Wales, South Wales Central, South Wales East, and South Wales West, with the forty constituencies listed below. Voting last took place in all districts in the 2021 Senedd election, and is not used for local government. The constituencies were created through the Government of Wales Act 1998, with the boundaries of the Welsh constituencies of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom (Westminster), as they were in 1999. The new boundaries were also used for the 2010 United Kingdom general election. Therefore, between the 2007 Assembly election and the 2010 United Kingdom general election, the two sets of constituencies, Assembly and Westminster, had differing boundaries. The Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011, unlinked the two sets of constituencies, meaning any changes to one set, no longer affect the other. This has allowed for differing proposals for constituencies in Wales, with separate proposals for an increase in Senedd seats and a decrease in UK Parliament constituencies in Wales. Senedd constituencies are grouped into electoral regions consisting of between seven and nine constituencies. An additional member system is used to elect four additional Members of the Senedd from each region, in addition to the MSs elected by the constituencies. The Electoral Regions boundaries were based upon the pre 1999 European Parliament constituencies. At each general election of the Senedd, each elector has two votes, one constituency vote and one regional party list vote. Each constituency elects one Member by the first past the post (single member district plurality, SMDP) system, and the additional Senedd seats are filled from regional closed party lists, under the D'Hondt method, with constituency results being taken into account, to produce a degree of proportional representation for each region. Altogether, the sixty Members of the Senedd are elected from the forty constituencies and five electoral regions, creating a Senedd of forty constituency MSs and twenty additional MSs. Every constituent is represented by one constituency member and four regional members.

Following the 1997 Welsh devolution referendum, where a narrow majority voted in support of the creation of a devolved Welsh Assembly, constituencies of the devolved legislature were established. Section 2 of the Government of Wales Act 1998 stipulates that the constituencies for the National Assembly for Wales be the same as the constituencies used for elections to the United Kingdom Parliament. The same act sets out the creation of five regions which would use the same borders as the five European Parliamentary constituencies in Wales which themselves were set out in the European Parliamentary Constituencies (Wales) Order 1994, used for elections to the European Parliament between 1994 and 1999. The electoral regions set out are still used, despite the abolishment of the five European Parliamentary constituencies for an all Wales constituency, and the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union. Although minor border adjustments to the regions have taken place.

On 6 May 2020, the Senedd and Elections (Wales) Act 2020 came into force, renaming the Assembly constituencies and Assembly electoral regions of the National Assembly for Wales, to the Senedd constituencies and Senedd electoral regions of "Senedd Cymru" or "the Welsh Parliament", known in both Welsh and English as the Senedd.

Wales is made up of 40 constituencies for elections to the Senedd, the constituencies are currently the same but are not linked to those used for elections to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, with each constituency containing a population of around 60,000. The borders of each constituency are drawn using Local government boundaries, defined in Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 as "the boundaries of counties, county boroughs, electoral divisions, communities and community wards".

The Boundary Commission for Wales, a non departmental public body, is responsible for proposing alterations to the boundaries of UK parliamentary constituencies in Wales, and reports proposals to the UK Government. Boundaries of Senedd constituencies and electoral regions are currently not overseen by any statutory review body, following the delinking of Senedd and UK Parliament constituencies in 2011, although the current configurations of both constituencies share the same boundaries (only the Senedd has electoral regions). Organisations such as the Electoral Reform Society Cymru have indicated a preference for coterminosity (meaning the mirroring of Senedd seat boundaries in Wales along the lines of the 2016 proposed reforms to the Welsh seats in the UK Parliament), however, such coterminosity is merely desired and is not enforced by law, meaning any changes to UK parliamentary constituencies in Wales do not necessarily need to be mirrored with the same changes for Senedd constituencies. If the differing proposals to constituencies in Wales, the proposed reduction of UK parliamentary constituencies and a proposed increase in Senedd constituencies in Wales are followed through, full coterminosity would be impossible. On 8 September 2021, a draft proposal of new UK parliamentary constituencies, reducing to 32, was published, with no plans to pass these changes to Senedd Constituencies, meaning the next UK general election may use different constituencies to the next Senedd election, once more.