Who is Darren Millar, new Senedd Tory leader?

Darren Millar has been an Member of the Senedd (MS) since 2007

Darren Millar has become the new leader of the Welsh Conservatives in the Senedd, replacing Andrew RT Davies, and elected unopposed.

The 48-year-old politician, who was chief whip under Davies in charge of party discipline, has had a big presence in Welsh politics for years, and is arguably the most senior Welsh Conservative still in office other than his predecessor.

His broadcast and media performances have led him to be discussed as a possible leader by observers for years, but it is only now that he went for the top job.

First elected to the then National Assembly in 2007, the Member of the Senedd (MS) for Clwyd West is serving his fourth term.

His website says Millar worked as a manager for an international charity supporting persecuted Christians before he joined Cardiff Bay politics.

He had also been an accountant working in the construction, care home and telecommunications industries.

Brought up in Towyn, Conwy, he is married with two grown-up children and now lives in Kinmel Bay.

Politically, Millar made vigorous contributions about the Welsh NHS in the Senedd chamber when he was the party's health spokesman, particularly on the problems facing north Wales' Betsi Cadwaladr health board.

He was also for many years a fierce critic of a Labour decision to make NHS prescriptions free for all, a policy fully introduced in 2007.

The Conservatives abandoned its opposition to the policy fourteen years later.

Millar was also generally regarded as a robust and effective previous chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.

He is president and chair of a Christian charity, the Evan Roberts Institute, which has attracted controversy in the past for financial links with the church of a pastor called Yang Tuck Yoong, who was reported to police in 2013 for his comments on homosexuality, which he called a "sin" and an “abomination”.

The controversy was raised again in the summer this year, when Millar stood unsuccessfully at the general election for the Clwyd North seat.

Millar said then he does not endorse the pastor's views and "no one should be discriminated against on the basis of their sexual orientation or religious beliefs".

The MS suffered a setback in late 2020, when he temporarily quit his front-bench after he and three other Senedd members were seen drinking on Welsh Parliament premises during a pandemic pub alcohol ban.

The then Conservative group leader Paul Davies also resigned at the time, marking the return of Andrew RT Davies for his second stint as group leader.

Millar returned as chief whip after the May 2021 Senedd election and the four politicians were cleared of breaking the code of conduct for MSs.

Red squirrel champion

He made headlines in the summer of 2012 when he attempted to bring in a law to impose a 5p levy on chewing gum to help pay for the cost of cleaning up discarded gum.

The proposal was rejected in the Senedd chamber the following autumn.

Millar also describes himself as a world-record holder, after discovering with his son the tallest hawksbeard plant, in Kinmel Bay.

They originally thought they had found the tallest dandelion.

Since 2016, Millar has also been proud to be the Senedd's "species champion" for red squirrels, regularly raising the threat the endangered rodents are facing and the need to protect them.

Millar, now leading the Conservative team in Cardiff Bay, joins Welsh Labour leader and First Minister Eluned Morgan together with Plaid Cymru leader Rhun ap Iorwerth in being elected unopposed, without a vote of the party membership.