Third of Welsh public would support abolishing Senedd - New poll

Emily Price

A new poll has revealed that almost a third of the Welsh public would support abolishing devolution altogether.

Results gathered by YouGov between 2 - 8 September from a weighted sample of 1207 adults in Wales found that 31% would prefer to reinstate direct rule from London.

In contrast, 21% of the Scottish public said they would back such a reversal of their own parliament's powers.

46% of the Welsh public said they were opposed to ending devolution.

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Distinction

The poll showed a noticeable distinction between Scotland and Wales on full independence with 41% of Scots in favour compared with only a quarter of Welsh people.

61% of Welsh people said they were opposed to the idea of full independence.

19% of Scottish people polled were in favour of watering down existing devolution arrangements - a result similar to the Welsh public at 23%.

However, devolution with current or more powers proved to be the most popular arrangements in both countries.

Four in ten Welsh people (39-40%) said they were in favour of ‘devolution with more powers’ and ‘devolution with the current level of powers’ with around half of Scots calling for the same.

Autonomy, whereby nations would remain within the UK but hold power over everything except foreign affairs and defence was supported by 32% in Wales and 42% in Scotland.

The most popular option among Plaid Cymru voters was devolution with more powers, with 77% in favour.

55% of Labour voters said they would support more powers - similar to the 56% who were in favour of the existing arrangements.

9% Plaid voters and 16% of Labour voters said they were in favour of abolishing or weakening devolution.

Reform

The Senedd which celebrated its 25th anniversary earlier this year is set to be expanded by more than a third with changes to how politicians are elected.

Backers says the plan is needed because the Welsh Parliament has more powers now than when it was first established in 1999.

The proposals put forward by the Welsh Government have been supported by Plaid Cymru but heavily opposed by the Senedd Tories because of the cost.

The YouGov poll found that only one in five Conservative or Reform voters would support any expansion of the powers of the Senedd and a quarter of Tory voters supported the existing political set-up.

This was in noticeable contrast with 41% of Scottish Tories who favour their status quo.

Single-issue party Abolish the Welsh Assembly won 4% of the vote in the last Senedd elections.

66% of Conservatives and 61% of Reform UK voters said they would be happy to see the devolved institutions in Cardiff Bay abolished - though 45-47% would settle for a devolved government with fewer powers.