威爾士國民議會

在1969年英國首相哈羅德·威爾遜的政府成立某皇室委員會研究給予蘇格蘭和威爾士權力放下的可能性；並在1974年檢討皇室委員會研究后，公布有關白皮書《Democracy and Devolution: proposals for Scotland and Wales》。威爾士選民曾以四對一反對1979年公民投票。現時威爾士議會由1997年九月十八日的威爾士權力放下公民投票，以50.3%通過而成立。在1997年白皮書《A Voice for Wales》中，出任的工黨政府主張一個威爾士議會，將會比現有英國威爾士事務部，有更高的民主性問責。直至1997年前的十一年內，擔任英國威爾士事務大臣的內閣大臣並非是一位來自任何威爾士選區的國會議員。

位於鄰近卡迪夫灣的新議會大樓“Senedd”在2006年三月一日，由女皇伊利沙伯二世剪綵開幕。威爾士議會大樓是由Richard Rogers設計。

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威爾士國民議會大樓

威爾士國民議會由六十名議員組成。每名議員(簡稱AM/AC；英文：Assembly Member；威爾士文：Aelod y Cynulliad)選出威爾士國民議會的行政機關，威爾士議會政府。

威爾士議會政府成立於1999年，隨著威爾士國民議會第一次選舉而產生成立；並為威爾士國民議會的行政機關。現時仍由威爾士首席大臣莫洛蒂·摩根擔任。

其餘威爾士國民議員在議會大樓辨公。威爾士議會政府大巨及其政府公務員隊伍在卡迪夫市內Cathays Park辨公。

威爾士國民議會在法律和憲法上，並無行政立法兩功能的分離；並不像其他英國境內權力下放議會的體制。直至《2006年威爾士政府法》立法生效前，“Assembly Government”和“Assembly Parliamentary Service”兩名詞繼續分別兩功能組織。

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威爾士國民議會大樓，Senedd

直至《2006年威爾士政府法》立法生效前，威爾士國民議會只能有限度行使立法功能，例如威爾士政府的財務預算仍是倫敦西敏寺國會的保留權力(Reserve Powers)。威爾士國民議會暫時只在被權力下放的事務上立法。 Sometimes secondary legislation can be used to amend primary legislation; however, the scope of this up to now has been very limited; for example, the Government of Wales Act gave the Assembly power to amend primary legislation relating to the merger of certain public bodies.

It is important to note that most secondary powers were conferred on the executive by primary legislation to give the executive, (i.e., Ministers) more powers. By inheriting these powers from ministers, the Assembly has sometimes surprisingly wider legislative powers than appearances would suggest.

For example:

The Assembly delayed local elections due to be held in 2003 for a year by use of secondary powers, so that they would not correspond with Assembly elections. (In 2001 the UK parliament used primary legislation to delay for one month local elections in England during the Foot and Mouth Disease epidemic).

Whilst in theory the Assembly has no tax varying powers, the Assembly in reality has some very limited power over taxes. For example, in Wales, as in England, the rate of Council Tax is set by local authorities, however since the Assembly largely determines the level of grants to local councils, it can influence the level of local taxation indirectly.

In terms of charges for government services it also has some discretion. Notable examples where this discretion has been used and varies significantly to other areas in the UK include:-

Charges for NHS prescriptions in Wales - these are now considerably less than elsewhere in the UK.

Charges for University Tuition - are different for Welsh resident students studying at Welsh Universities, compared with students from or studying elsewhere in the UK.

Charging for Residential Care - In Wales there is a flat rate of contribution towards the cost of nursing care, (roughly comparable to the highest level of English Contribution) for those who require residential care.

This means in reality there is a wider definition of "nursing care" than in England and therefore less dependence on means testing in Wales than in England, meaning that more people are entitled to higher levels of state assistance. These variations in the levels of charges, may be viewed as de facto tax varying powers.

This model of more limited legislative powers is partly because Wales has had the same legal system as England since 1536, when it was annexed by England. Ireland and Scotland were never annexed by England, and so always retained some distinct differences in their legal systems. The Scottish Parliament and the Northern Ireland Assembly, (when it isn't suspended) have deeper and wider powers.

The Assembly inherited the powers and budget of the Secretary of State for Wales and most of the functions of the Welsh Office. It has power to vary laws passed by Westminster using secondary legislation. Peter Hain, whose principal UK cabinet role is as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and who represents a Welsh constituency in the Westminster Parliament, retains a vestigial role as Secretary of State for Wales.

Richard Commission

Some Plaid Cymru (the Welsh national party) politicians had argued that its powers were limited and confusing. In July 2002, the Welsh Assembly Government established an independent commission, with Lord Richard (former leader of the House of Lords) as chair, to review the powers and electoral arrangements of the National Assembly in order to ensure that it is able to operate in the best interests of the people of Wales. The Richard Commission reported in March 2004. It recommended that the National Assembly should have powers to legislate in certain areas, whilst others would remain the preserve of Westminster. It also recommended changing the electoral system to the single transferable vote (STV) which would produce greater proportionality.

Even though the Commission included a member of all 4 main parties, and reported unanimously in favour of legislative powers the UK government refused. In the White Paper, Better Government for Wales, published on 15 June 2005, the UK Government rejected Richard's recommendation to change the electoral system, whilst proposing a half-way house between the status quo and the National Assembly having full Scottish Parliament-style legislative powers.

The Government of Wales Act 2006 received Royal Assent on 25th July 2006.

Publicly it was stated that the lack of full legislative powers in the Bill was due to lack of support in Wales, although recent polls suggest that a large majority of the Welsh supported full legislative powers. It is commonly believed that the Bill is a compromise between the pro-devolution Labour AM's and the anti-devolution Welsh Labour MP's, who feared that their number would be culled if the Assembly became a Parliament. The Act will create a Welsh Assembly Government as a separate legal entity from 1st May 2007, and not (as at present) a committee of the Assembly.

提高權力 - 2006年國會威爾士地方政府法

《2006年威爾士地方政府法》 was presented to the UK parliament and published on December 8 2005. It confers on the Assembly legislative powers akin to other devolved legislatures, although Assembly laws will be subject to the veto of the UK Secretary of State for Wales, House of Commons or House of Lords.

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The debating chamber in the Senedd

The Bill contains provision to reform the assembly to a parliamentary-type structure, establishing the Assembly Government as an entity separate from, but accountable to the National Assembly. It will also enable the Assembly to legislate within its devolved fields as specified in schedule 5 of the Bill. Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom will retain the power to veto Assembly laws (to be known as Assembly Measures).

The bill also reforms the Assembly's electoral system. It will prevent individuals from standing as candidates in both constituency and regional seats. This aspect of the bill has been subject to a great deal of criticism, most notably by the UK Electoral Commission.

The bill has been heavily criticised. Plaid Cymru, the Official Opposition in the National Assembly, has attacked the bill for not delivering a fully-fledged Parliament. Many commentators have also criticised the Labour Party's allegedly partisan attempt to alter the electoral system. By preventing regional Assembly Members from standing in constituency seats the party has been accused of changing the rules to protect constituency representatives. Labour has 29 members in the Assembly all of whom hold constituency seats.

The Bill received Royal Assent on 25th July 2006 as the Government of Wales Act 2006. Changes to the Assembly's powers are expected to be in place by May 2007.

Official Opposition party in the Welsh Assembly

The Official Opposition party in the National Assembly is Plaid Cymru - (English: The Party of Wales). The party's leader is Ieuan Wyn Jones.

威爾士議會政府

威爾士首席大臣是莫洛蒂·摩根。另外七位大臣包括：

Minister for Finance, Local Government and Public Services: Sue Essex

Minister for Assembly Business, Minister for Equalities and Minister for Children: Jane Hutt

Minister for Social Justice and Regeneration: Edwina Hart

Minister for Health & Social Services: Brian Gibbons

Minister for Enterprise, Innovation & Networks: Andrew Davies

Minister for Education, Lifelong Learning & Skills: Jane Davidson

Minister for Environment, Planning and Countryside: Carwyn Jones

威爾士議會政府常任秘書長

The Permanent Secretary is Sir Jon Shortridge. He and other civil servants support the Assembly Cabinet.

威爾士國民議會議長 / Llywydd

The Llywydd or Presiding Officer (Speaker) of the National Assembly for Wales is Lord Dafydd Elis Thomas AM. His Deputy is Dr. John Marek AM.

Electoral system

Under mixed member proportional representation a type of additional member system 40 of the AMs are elected from single-member constituencies on a plurality voting system (or first past the post) basis, the constituencies being equivalent to those used for the House of Commons and 20 AMs are elected from regional closed lists (rather than Open lists) using an alternative party vote. There are five regions Mid and West Wales, North Wales, South Wales Central, South Wales East and South Wales West (these are the same as the pre 1999 European Parliament constituencies for Wales), each of which returns four members. The additional members produce a degree of proportionality within each region. Whereas voters can choose any regional party list irrespective of their party vote in the constituency election, list AMs are not elected independently of the constituency element, rather elected constituency AMs are deemed to be pre-elected list representatives for the purposes of calculating remainders in the d'Hondt method. Overall proportionality is limited by the low proportion of list members (33% of the Assembly compared to 43% in the Scottish Parliament and 50% in the German Bundestag) and the regionalisation of the list element. Consequently the Assembly as a whole has a greater degree of proportionality (based on proportions in the list elections) than the plurality voting system used for UK parliamentary elections, but still deviates somewhat from proportionality. The Single Transferable Vote system had been considered for the Assembly by the Labour Party as early as 1995-96, but according to the evidence given to the Richard Commission by Ron Davies, a former Welsh Secretary Had we done that of course we would have had to have had a Boundary Commission and that process would have taken forever and a day and that would have frustrated our overall political timetable. So we had to settle on the existing constituency arrangements, parliamentary constituencies and European Constituencies.

To date there have been two elections to the Assembly, in 1999 and 2003.