Cesspool on the Taff?

Pollution in Cardiff Bay isn't just confined to the air and the water.
(Pic : Wales Online)

To paraphrase a famous episode of The Simpsons, what we now call Cardiff Bay used to be a stagnant swamp, and very little has changed. It stank then, and it stinks now.

I'm not going to be the first or last person to say this, but it's been a torrid few weeks for Welsh democracy, and just as we head into the final six months before the 2016 Assembly election.

• News that the Assembly Members pension fund had been investing in morally-dubious companies (Hear No Evil, See No Evil).
• The decision by the Welsh Government to stop publication of Ministerial Decision Reports, which prompted a broadside from leading Cardiff Bay lobbyist, Daran Hill.
• The stop-start passing of the Local Government Bill, and reported behind-closed-door talks between Labour and Plaid Cymru (more from National Left). Nobody seems to have a clue what's happening there.
• A report from the Constitutional & Legislative Affairs Committee which hints that Welsh Government officials don't understand the boundaries between legislature and executive and do too much through regulations, enabled by passing "framework laws", which grant sweeping powers to Ministers.
• The sacking of Jenny Rathbone AM (Lab, Cardiff Central) – with the ruthlessness of a Klingon (The conspiracy at the heart of Welsh Government) - from an EU funds committee for comments opposing a Newport bypass....replaced by someone who has themselves publicly spoken out against a Newport bypass. Only in Wales.
• The First Minister's – uncharacteristically ill-thought through - response to that, where he claims that because the chair of that committee is a representative of the Welsh Government they're bound by collective responsibility (meaning they support government policy or they resign/get sacked).
• The Leader of the Opposition, Andrew Davies (Con, South Wales Central), has rightly pointed out that this brings into question decisions taken by any committee Jenny Rathbone contributed to. Government representatives aren't allowed to sit on Assembly committees, as committees scrutinise the government.
• Embarrassing revelations from the Public Accounts Committee inquiry into RIFW (Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap IV), where Welsh Government officials have admitted serious blunders for the first time. It's been subsequently described in the Western Mail as an inquiry where "the reputation of devolution is at stake". When they publish a report I'll cover it of course.
• The release of draft sections of the Institute of Welsh Affairs Welsh media audit (and its subsequent impact on political scrutiny), which makes depressing reading. Despite countless hand-wringing, inquiries, summits and reports, bugger all has been done about it.
• The Draft Wales Bill - due to be published tomorrow – could, as it stands and in practical terms, overturn the 2011 referendum result and seriously restrict the National Assembly's law-making powers (The Coming Constitutional Crisis).

"Crisis" is an overused term. In their own way these are minor stories, with it being unlikely that anybody outside the Bay Bubble cares.

Taken together, however, they add up to an unpleasant sum and, as Daran Hill said a few weeks ago on Click on Wales, "I want to feel enthused and enamoured of how our Welsh democracy is notably better, more transparent and more responsive. But frankly I can’t be because on so many levels it is so deeply disappointing."

In some important ways – particularly things like e-petitions, access to official information from the Assembly and the quality of both committee and legislative scrutiny – devolution is working as intended.

In other ways, how the Assembly and Welsh Government operate behind the scenes makes it quite clear that the bright new dawn in 1997-1999 was, in fact, a typically grubby overcast sky.

One aspect – long criticised – is that committee chairs are party political appointments made via the Assembly's Business Committee, and are not directly-elected by AMs.

Assembly committee chairs are prestigious positions, which come with a salary bump worth £8,000-£12,000 a year, meaning the positions are used by parties as an effective way of both rewarding loyalty and maintaining discipline. It's worth pointing out though that some committee appointments, like Jenny Rathbone's, are unpaid and have little to do with the Assembly itself.

Anyone removed as a chair by their party for stepping out of line takes a fairly substantial personal hit, with little regard given to the impact and disruption removing a chair causes to a committee. It's the sort of cliquey backstabbing and patronage-based politics you see in student unions and local government played out at a national level, and everything the Assembly wasn't supposed to be.

As Alun Davies AM (Lab, Blaenau Gwent) – who you've got to say has been exceptional since moving to the backbenches - put it on his blog last week, the small size of the Assembly and the subsequent culture that develops doesn't allow backbenchers much room to wriggle, meaning peer pressure will often dictate what AMs say or do rather than party whips. "Passive-aggressive" might be one way to describe it.

One thing that's been said about Welsh Labour is that they rarely have disagreements in public. That's noticeably broken down over the last few years in Wales - particularly in local government – and long before Jeremy Corbyn became UK leader. 

Take the rows over the proposed smacking ban. Three pro-smacking ban AMs – including the then chair of the Children & Young People's Committee, Christine Chapman AM (Lab, Cynon Valley) - were removed from that committee by Labour's Chief Whip to prevent amendments being added to what would become the Social Services & Wellbeing Act 2014.

It's right to say these actions are worse when coming from a governing party/parties as it reflects badly on their leadership style; but I can't take complaints from those opposition parties, who haven't taken a cold hard look at their own way of doing business, seriously.

Nick Ramsay AM (Con, Monmouth) was sacked from his position as (an excellent) chair of the Enterprise & Business Committee for not backing Andrew Davies on the income tax lockstep (Marching out of lockstep). It was right to discipline them within the party by removing them from shadow cabinet positions, but what bearing should it have on the committees, which are whole Assembly bodies and shouldn't work at the behest of individual parties?

If there's one party quick to claim the moral high ground on issues like this it's Plaid Cymru. However, they've proven to be just as guilty of being a party which "hides from scrutiny and debate" - as Simon Thomas AM (Plaid, Mid & West Wales) described Labour's actions last week.

Plaid Cymru sacked Dafydd Elis-Thomas AM (Plaid, Dwyfor Meirionnydd) from his position as Environment Committee chair in March 2014 after he criticised comments Leanne Wood made about UKIP, and – nearly word for word – for the same reasons Labour gave for sacking Jenny Rathbone. It's not just confined to senior figures either, as you can point towards the party's expulsion of Syniadau's Michael Haggett too (Never Mind The Bollocks....).

Before anyone getting out of the UKIP clown car gets too excited, just remind yourselves of Farage's purge at the end of the 2015 campaign. Needless to say there've been significant personality clashes within the Welsh branch of the Green party too.

The good news is none of these problems are insurmountable. AMs have the power to change the culture and practices at the Assembly if they want to - in the same way they reacted to their own mini expenses scandal much quicker than Westminster did with theirs.

The bad news is the only party currently represented in the Assembly who can say their hands aren't dirtied are the Liberal Democrats. So if you're going to listen to anyone on this – and if any party can lead credible reforms without being accused of hypocrisy - it's the class swots in orange. The small problem there is it's highly unlikely there are going to be many of them left next May, so we're stuck with what we've got or what we're going to get.

It should be expected – and as voters we should demand - that major projects like the Newport bypass, Wylfa B or the Swansea Tidal Lagoon are subject to sustained extra scrutiny because of the sums of public money involved and the significant impact they have on their respective regions.

We should also expect our AMs to go into the Senedd not to make friends or pursue a career, but to represent their constituents - most do in fairness, though that can't always apply to cabinet members.

After all this there's a nagging perception that, even if it's a consideration at the back of their minds, a number of AMs subconsciously crave the salary bumps, office titles and perks of the job because of their own personal ambition and because they've seen their peers do it, not because they've actually done anything to merit those advancements. They're just better at hiding it than MPs.

They may well become big fish in a small pond, but when they leave politics they're going to have to ask themselves whether they made a difference or not and whether they spoke up on issues when they really needed to. By over-policing their own behaviour - as well as stifling debate and dissent on awkward issues, whether within their parties or within the Assembly - they're preventing themselves, and each other, from doing their jobs properly, subsequently letting the country down.

Perhaps the biggest indictment of the current state of affairs is that what disenchants you more than anything about politics is actually following politics for a significant period of time. I was much happier when I didn't care.