Welsh Parliament accused of allowing Senedd members to be spied on

Serious criticisms are made of the Senedd authorities by Alun Davies

A Senedd member says the institution's new IT policy authorises "snooping and spying" on politicians' emails to constituents and other documents.

Labour's Alun Davies says: "These are intrusive surveillance powers not possessed by the police and or even the security services - they need to go."

The relationship between elected members and the Senedd authorities was "at its very lowest ebb," he adds.

Presiding officer Elin Jones has denied the rules will be used for spying.

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In his latest blog post, the Blaenau Gwent MS says the group of Labour members of the Senedd took the "extraordinary" step of writing to Presiding Officer Elin Jones, "to express the deep unease felt by many Labour members about this direction of travel".

"It is disappointing that we have received only warm words in response," he writes.

Alun Davies also supports calls for reform of the way the Senedd works, made by the leader of the Welsh Conservatives in Cardiff Bay, Andrew RT Davies.

Andrew RT Davies recently said the Senedd was "stale and subdued" and called for the daily timetable to change, more time for back bench legislation and more opportunities for opposition front benchers to ask ministers questions without giving of them notice in advance.

Both men have called on the Presiding Officer, Elin Jones, to emulate the Speaker of the House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, in ensuring that government ministers make statements on Covid restrictions to parliament before the media.

Alun Davies warns that changes mean that a "small institution will be made smaller"

In his blog, Alun Davies also says scrutiny of the government is being jeopardised by a decision to hold committee meetings fortnightly rather than weekly.

"At a stroke the time available to scrutinise and hold the government to account is halved," he writes.

"This is important. The finance committee has already written to say that it will be unable to deliver on its statutory obligations to scrutinise the government's budget.

"For other committees with a larger legislative load the time and space available for policy scrutiny will be reduced still further.

"This will also mean that the ability of the institution to deliver private member's legislation will also be reduced. A small institution will be made smaller."

What do the Senedd authorities say?

A spokesperson for the Welsh Parliament said: "We're at the beginning of really interesting discussions about how we in the Senedd serve the people of Wales, and what changes can be made to better allow us to scrutinise proposed new laws and hold the Welsh government to account.

"The [Senedd] Commission regularly reviews the way that it can best support Members of the Senedd to do their jobs effectively."

Last year the Llywydd [presiding officer] asked for a committee of members to look at proposed reforms, including the capacity of the Senedd.

"Although the Senedd rightly shifted its priority to tackling the pandemic, the committee was still able to make recommendations on how we can work more effectively," the spokesperson said.

When Alun Davies raised his concerns about the IT policy in the Senedd, the presiding officer denied that it was implemented for spying or snooping.

Elin Jones said she was happy to review the policy, but it "is in place to both protect Members and, also, to ensure if investigations of abuse of any kind or criminal behaviour have been undertaken by any member or member of staff, that there is the ability to look into that information.

"But the ability to do that is done in light of restrictions that we have placed on ourselves, and it's not, in any way, any fishing exercise that can happen by the Commission."