The last year in Welsh politics has been, it’s fair to say, fairly turbulent. In the first few months of 2024 we had three First Ministers alone. There were leadership battles, rows, no-confidence votes, and more leading to plenty of uncertainty about the direction of the Welsh Government.
Then, in August, Eluned Morgan was named First Minister, becoming the first woman to hold the role, and she later appointed her cabinet and has set out her agenda and priorities. As 2025 looms there are 17 months before the Senedd election takes place in Wales. At that election it’s all change with a new electoral system and an increased Senedd with 96 rather than 60 MSs.
The changes are causing headaches across the political spectrum because there is plenty of uncertainty about exactly they will mean in practical terms. While things have slowed down a little in terms of Welsh politics in recent weeks – notwithstanding a change to the leader of the opposition shortly before 2024 closed – the next year already promises challenges and intrigue aplenty. Here’s what lies ahead.
We’ll learn the new constituencies
Reforming the Senedd brings with it plenty of changes, not least with the former regional/constituency boundaries changing. Instead of the current system of a split between the constituencies and regions it will change to 16 constituencies. Exactly how they are being made up is yet to be confirmed but we know that the 32 Westminster constituencies are being paired up – it is which are being paired that is still being debated.
The Democracy and Boundary Commission Cymru has published initial proposals, which you can see here, with a final decision in March 2025. And that in turn kickstarts….
Who will put their name in the mix?
There is plenty of work going on behind the scenes in terms of finding the candidates needed to fill the soon-to-be plentiful gaps on each party’s candidate lists. Parties often love what is called a “full slate” meaning they have found someone to stand in every single seat but to get that they will need 128 willing participants.
How they do that involves some complicated decisions having to be made. Plaid and Labour for example want to ensure gender parity – but they have to work out how to deliver that in practice. An actual law which would have made it a requirement for parties to have at least 50% of their candidates as women was scrapped.
Parties will have to decide if they automatically give incumbent MSs first dibs on seats and if it is two incumbents against each other it will be a thorny question as to who gets the top spot. If they factor in their gender too there will then be a question over whether that means some of the bigger names find themselves further down the list.
And who will rule themselves out?
It’s always as, if not more, interesting to see who rules themselves out of standing rather than in. Already we know of some big names saying they won’t stand for election again. Llanelli MS Lee Waters, the de facto architect of the 20mph law, has said he will not stand and former First Minister Vaughan Gething, who has been the MS for Cardiff South and Penarth since 2011, has already said this is his final term of a Senedd member as has his predecessor Mark Drakeford.
Money, money, money
There will continue to be an awful lot of noise and chatter about money. Wales gets the bulk of its money from Westminster and there have been lots of promises during elections about how two governments of the same colour will work better together. There were good signs for Wales in October’s Budget with the amount given to Wales either directly or through consequentials being described as “transformational” by independent experts.
But even with those promises the £25m UK Labour promised towards coal tip remediation was welcomed – but it is a fraction of the £600m promised. The row about HS2 and what Wales hasn’t received is not going away. There have been hints that in the spring spending review there may well be some movement in terms of rail for Wales but that would be new money or infrastructure and not retrospective money for HS2.
New laws
Buses in Wales are a mess. Expensive, not joined up with other transport services, and that’s if they run at all. But in 2025 we will, finally, hear about long-discussed Welsh Government plans to totally change the system. We don’t know the detail but we know it will come in March and will revolve around plans to decarbonise the bus fleet and introduce new technologies. Transport minister Ken Skates has said it will mean a “better bus network” and will re-regulate bus services and put passengers ahead of profit. There will be “integrated train and bus timetables, tickets, and routes” he said.
The much-discussed tourism tax is expected to become law in 2025. It will see anyone staying overnight in Wales subject to an extra tax of between 75p and £1.25 depending on what sort of accommodation they will stay in. You can read more on that here.
The big budget question
The Welsh Government has announced its draft budget for 2025 but the final vote will be in March which is when the fun really begins. However all the drama starts now because Labour cannot get that budget through without help. The party currently has exactly half of the Senedd seats with 30 out of the 60. For the Welsh Government to get anything through the Senedd it needs help from someone else.
The current make-up is that there are 16 Conservatives, 12 for Plaid Cymru, one Lib Dem, and one independent MS. The Welsh Government will need help from at least one of those politicians to get its budget through and that requires negotiation. It means other parties gaining something from it so they can get enough from in a PR sense to make “doing a deal” with Labour worthwhile because both the Tories and Plaid try to make capital from criticising Labour and its dominance and telling voters to try something new. That argument is much harder to sustain if you’ve just backed a piece of policy with the party. Equally should someone not step up and back the budget the First Minister has said Wales stands to lose £1bn.
The rise of Reform UK
There is no doubt that Reform are a growing force in Wales. Their general election result in Wales was a boost to the party which is now clearly investing in Wales. In November it held a conference at the ICC in Newport. There is little accurate polling available about what the Senedd could look like post-election given it is still a long way out from polling day but that will come once constituencies are set. The analysis there has been, though, suggests we could see Reform with more than 10 seats. Cardiff University’s Jac Larner suggested Reform could get 16 seats. Separate polling from Reform themselves put them at somewhere like 19 seats and their conference in Newport’s Celtic Manor Hotel was well-attended. A poll in December put Plaid at the top of the pecking order with Reform taking 23% of the vote and third place overall.
Nigel Farage told us at that event that his party was Labour’s biggest threat, and Eluned Morgan too has said she is aware of the threat her party face, but there are plenty of hurdles for Mr Farage’s party to overcome. Mr Farage has said it will turn from a business to a party with branches and committees while he will have to find candidates and come up with policies.
Labour’s fightback
Anyone in Labour who says they are not worried about the 2026 Senedd election is lying. The party is the one which has pushed through Senedd reform including the millions being spent on more Senedd members and expanding the actual building itself to cope with them. And, as mentioned above, after decades of electoral dominance in Wales the polls are showing that could be under threat. In a poll in December Plaid came out top.
For Labour to lose its grip after 102 years of dominance in Wales would be huge. Labour’s leader, and the First Minister, Eluned Morgan has made it clear she doesn’t plan to let that go on her watch and has put all her eggs across four baskets – health, delivering jobs, higher standards for families, and connecting communities. Quite simply the party has to show it has delivered on some or all of those in a way that voters understand and appreciate – and all with a clock ticking.