Wales Bill — Clause 2 — Allow Someone to Stand As Both Constituency and Regional Candidate in Welsh Assembly Election — 24 Jun 2014 at 17:00

The majority of MPs voted to allow someone to stand as both a constituency and a regional candidate in a Welsh Assembly Election.

MPs were considering the Wales Bill[1]. The amendment rejected in this vote was:

  • amendment 13, page 1, line 9, leave out clause 2.

Clause 2[2] was titled, Removal of restriction on standing for election for both constituency and electoral region. The explanatory notes to the Bill[3] explains what the operative subclause of clause 2 is intended to do:

Subsection (2) of clause 2 amends section 7 of GOWA 2006 to remove the restriction on standing as both a constituency and a regional candidate in an Assembly election. But a person cannot stand as a candidate in a constituency outside of the region in which they are standing. It also provides that a candidate on a regional party list cannot stand in a constituency as a candidate for another party. The clause also makes provision for individual candidates standing on a regional list: they can stand neither as party candidates in a constituency in the region nor as a candidate for a constituency outside that region.

The explanatory notes detail situation existing in Wales at the time of the vote:

  • Every voter in Wales has two votes: one for their preferred constituency candidate and one for a regional candidate. Before GOWA 2006 came into force, candidates could stand for election as both a constituency member and a regional member. Section 7 of GOWA 2006 prohibited this as it was thought that a member who had lost a constituency vote but was elected as a regional member could cause dissatisfaction with the political process because they would have been explicitly rejected by the electorate as a constituency member. However, this concern has been refuted in studies by the Electoral Commission and others which have demonstrated that the prohibition has a disproportionate impact on smaller parties who have a smaller pool of potential candidates to draw upon.

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Debate in Parliament | Source |

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Party Summary

Votes by party, red entries are votes against the majority for that party.

What is Tell? '+1 tell' means that in addition one member of that party was a teller for that division lobby.

What are Boths? An MP can vote both aye and no in the same division. The boths page explains this.

What is Turnout? This is measured against the total membership of the party at the time of the vote.

PartyMajority (No)Minority (Aye)BothTurnout
Con225 (+2 tell) 1074.8%
DUP1 1025.0%
Green1 00100.0%
Independent0 1050.0%
Lab0 193 (+2 tell)075.6%
LDem46 0082.1%
PC3 00100.0%
SDLP2 0066.7%
Total:278 196075.2%

Rebel Voters - sorted by party

MPs for which their vote in this division differed from the majority vote of their party. You can see all votes in this division, or every eligible MP who could have voted in this division

Sort by: Name | Constituency | Party | Vote

NameConstituencyPartyVote
Greg ClarkTunbridge WellsCon (front bench)aye

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