BRIEFING PAPER Number CBP 7594, 19 May 2016 National Assembly for By Lukas Audickas Wales Elections: 2016 Contents: 1. Introduction 2. Party summaries 3. Candidates 4. Results 5. Turnout 6. Composition of the Assembly 7. Appendix www.parliament.uk/commons-library | intranet.parliament.uk/commons-library | [email protected] | @commonslibrary 2 National Assembly for Wales Elections: 2016 3 National Assembly for Wales Elections: 2016 Editor Richard Keen, Contributing Authors Lukas Audickas Cover page image attributed to: National Assembly for Wales, Licensed by Creative Commons Attribution-NonComercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) / image cropped 4 National Assembly for Wales Elections: 2016 Contents Summary 5 Seats and votes by party 1999 to 2016 6 1. Introduction 7 2. Party summaries 9 Conservative 9 Labour 10 Liberal Democrats 11 Plaid Cymru 12 UK Independence Party 13 Green party 14 Other Parties 14 3. Candidates 15 4. Results 16 Percentage share of the vote, by party, 2011 and 2016 16 National Assembly for Wales elections: 5 May 2016 17 National Assembly for Wales elections: 5 May 2011 18 5. Turnout 19 6. Composition of the Assembly 20 Parties and regions 20 Ethnicity 20 Gender 20 7. Appendix 21 7.1 Constituency Ballot 21 Table 1: Constituency results - votes and turnout by constituency 21 Table 2: Constituency results - seats by majority (from highest to lowest percentage majority) 22 Table 3: Constituency results - party share of vote by constituency, and majority 23 Table 4: Change in share of the vote and turnout by constituency 24 Table 5: Constituency results - votes and shares by region and party 25 Table 6: Constituency ballot results - change in share of the vote by region 25 Table 7: Difference in turnout and party share of vote between constituency and regional ballots by region 25 Table 8: Constituency results - party share of vote by constituency 26 Table 9: Largest and smallest constituency majorities by party 27 Table 10: Constituencies with highest and lowest turnout in each region 27 Table 11: Highest and lowest shares of constituency vote 28 7.2 Regional ballot 29 Table 12: Regional results - votes and turnout by constituency 29 Table 13: Regional results - change in party share of vote and turnout by constituency 30 Table 14: Regional ballot results - votes and turnout by party and region 31 Table 15: Regional ballot results - party share of vote by party and region 31 Table 16: Regional ballot results - change in share of the vote by region 31 7.3 Assembly Members elected 32 Table 17: Seats won by seat type, party and region 32 Table 18a: Assembly Members elected, May 2016 33 Table 18b: Assembly Members elected, May 2016 34 Tables and underlying data in this briefing are available as Excel files via: http://researchbriefings.parliament.uk/ResearchBriefing/Summary/CBP-7594 5 National Assembly for Wales Elections: 2016 Summary Labour fell short of a majority winning 29 of the 60 seats in the National Assembly. The seats won by each party were as follows: • Conservatives 11 • Labour 29 • Liberal Democrats 1 • Plaid Cymru 12 • UKIP 7 Labour’s share of the vote fell to 33.2%, from 39.6% in 2011, but it remained the largest party in the National Assembly. Plaid Cymru have overtook the Conservatives as second largest party with 20.7%, up from 18.6%. The Conservatives polled 20.0%, 3.8% points less than in 2011. The UK Independence Party’s share has risen by 10.4% points to 12.7%, compared to 2.3% in 2011. The Liberal Democrat’ share fell to 7.1% from 9.3%, and the Green Party polled 2.7%, up from 1.8%. Average turnout across all the constituencies and regions was 45.4%, up by 4.0% points from 2011. The highest turnout was in Cardiff North (56.8%) and Brecon & Radnorshire (56.5). The lowest turnout was in Alyn & Deeside where 34.6% voted. Following the elections, the Assembly comprises 35 men and 25 women. The overall women representation have increased by one, compared to 2011. It is three fewer than in 2007 and five fewer than in the 2003, when there was an equal number of men and women elected. There are currently two known ethnic minority Assembly Members. Mohammad Asghar was first elected for Plaid Cymru in 2007 and then for the Conservatives in 2011 and in 2016; Vaughan Gething was elected for Labour in 2011 and re-elected in 2016. Results in Brief (Constituency + Regional) Votes 2011 2016 Conservative 451,162 23.8% 406,443 20.0% Asembly members Labour 751,612 39.6% 673,061 33.1% by gender Liberal Democrat 176,608 9.3% 143,669 7.1% 40 Men Women Plaid Cymru 352,706 18.6% 420,922 20.7% 35 UKIP 43,256 2.3% 259,176 12.7% Green 34,163 1.8% 55,413 2.7% 30 Others 88,634 4.7% 75,439 3.7% 25 Seats 2011 2016 Change 20 Conservative 14 11 -3 Labour 30 29 -1 15 Liberal Democrat 5 1 -4 10 Plaid Cymru 11 12 +1 5 UKIP 0 7 +7 Green 0 0 0 0 Others 0 0 0 2011 2016 Turnout 41.4% 45.4% +4.0% 6 National Assembly for Wales Elections: 2016 National Assembly for Wales seats and votes by party 1999 to 2016 Share of seats by party 1999 2003 2007 2011 2016 Seats and votes by party 1999 to 2016 50% Conservative (Conservative) Seats 9 11 12 14 11 40% Constituency 1 1 5 6 6 30% Regional 8 10 7 8 5 20% Share 16.2% 19.6% 21.9% 23.8% 20.0% 10% Constituency 15.8% 19.9% 22.4% 25.0% 21.1% 0% Regional 16.5% 19.2% 21.5% 22.5% 18.8% Labour 50% (Labour) Seats 28 30 26 30 29 40% Constituency 27 30 24 28 27 30% Regional 1 0 2 2 2 20% Share 36.5% 38.3% 30.9% 39.6% 33.1% 10% Constituency 37.6% 40.0% 32.2% 42.3% 34.7% 0% Regional 35.4% 36.6% 29.6% 36.9% 31.5% Liberal Democrat 50% (Liberal Democrat ) Seats 6 6 6 5 1 40% Constituency 3 3 3 1 1 30% Regional 3 3 3 4 0 20% Share 13.0% 13.4% 13.3% 9.3% 7.1% 10% Constituency 13.5% 14.1% 14.8% 10.6% 7.7% Regional 12.5% 12.7% 11.7% 8.0% 6.5% 0% Plaid Cymru 50% Seats 17 12 15 11 12 (Plaid Cymru) 40% Constituency 9 5 7 5 6 Regional 8 7 8 6 6 30% Share 29.5% 20.5% 21.7% 18.6% 20.7% 20% Constituency 28.4% 21.2% 22.4% 19.3% 20.5% 10% Regional 30.5% 19.7% 21.0% 17.9% 20.8% 0% UK Independence Party Seats - 0 0 0 7 50% (UKIP) Constituency - 0 0 0 0 40% Regional - 0 0 0 7 30% Share - 2.9% 2.9% 2.3% 12.7% 20% Constituency - 2.3% 1.8% 0.0% 12.5% 10% Regional - 3.5% 3.9% 4.6% 13.0% 0% Green Seats 0 0 0 0 0 50% (Green) Constituency 0 0 0 0 0 40% Regional 0 0 0 0 0 30% Share 0.1% 1.8% 1.7% 1.8% 2.7% 20% Constituency 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% 0.2% 2.5% Regional 2.5% 3.5% 3.5% 3.4% 3.0% 10% 0% 7 Commons Library Briefing, 17 May 2016 1. Introduction The fifth set of elections to the National Assembly for Wales took place on Thursday, 5 May 2016, simultaneously with elections to the Scottish Parliament, elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly, local authority elections in England, London authority elections and Elections for Police and Crime Commissioners across England and Wales. The system for electing members to the National Assembly is known as the Additional Member System. Voters are given two ballot papers. The first is used to elect each of 40 constituency Assembly Members (AMs) under the traditional first-past-the-post system. The second ballot paper is used to elect four AMs from each of five electoral regions. These Regional seats are additional members are elected so that the total representation from assigned as follows: each geographical area, including those members elected under first- past-the-post, corresponds more closely to the share of the votes cast The votes for each party for each political party in the region. are summed, and divided by the number of seats the 2016 was the first Assembly election when all three UK-wide parties: party has already gained in Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats lost seats. This was the constituencies plus influenced by UKIP’s performance, securing seven seats, their first the one. The first seat is then National Assembly. awarded to the party with Labour maintained the status of the largest party in the Assembly, but the most votes. The fell one seat short of a working majority. This was Labour’s second process is repeated, taking worse performance, in terms of seats won, after 2007 when they won the newly assigned seat 24 seats (5 fever than in 2016). into account until all The Conservatives, for the first time, did not increase their seat count regional seats are filled. loosing 3 seats. Plaid Cymru regained their status as second largest party in the Assembly, with 0.7% points of votes share and one more seat than the Conservative. Measured by number of seats gained, it was the most successful Assembly election for UKIP and the worst for the Liberal Democrats.