Senedd building

So let's see what she had to say.

say.The Senedd is the Welsh Parliament, and just as you have, you know, we have the UK Parliament and all the powers it holds, but in about just over 20 years ago now, there was a referendum held in Wales where it was narrowly decided that some of the powers Westminster held over Wales should in fact be given, or devolved is the proper politics word, should be given to Wales and sort of run from Wales, which ended up, there was debates, but ended up being run from Cardiff, specifically Cardiff Bay.

And that created a building which was originally called the Welsh Assembly.

Got upgraded to the Senedd.

But we are living in a very interesting media e- ecosystem where even though, you know, Wales has its own parliament, there's not necessarily coverage of that parliament on both a content creation level on social media, but also this national news landscape level either.

We started Senedd Explained just over a year and a half ago now to try and just create some content on Welsh politics and cover some of the biggest stories in a way that people can easily access.

In the previous Senedd, Labour were elected with 30 out of the 60 seats.

This did go down to 29 seats because there was a by-election last October in Caerphilly, which Plaid Cymru won, but at the end of the day, this is around 50% of the seats.

Mr Piorweth has demanded that the powers to call a referendum on independence be devolved from Westminster to the Welsh Government.

As well as that, we've also had that debate in motion in the Senedd last week.

A reform motion that Wales should stay part of the UK was narrowly defeated.

A revised amendment from Plaid Cymru that it was up to the people of Wales to decide their own future was approved by the Senedd.

So plenty for us to talk about with the Prime Minister.

Mr Burnham, you said that you were open to further conversations around further devolution.

It's the Labour conference next week.

Mr Burnham will set out his vision for the next 10 years of the UK.

Well, it's amazing, isn't it? Westminster has now broken up for party conference season.

whereas the Senedd in Cardiff Bay has just come back.

And what a week it's been.

What a couple of weeks, I suppose, it's been.

That's really awkward.

But An interesting appointment in Helen Jenner.

I think the fact that you've got somebody who's literally marking Fianna Fáil with, you know, man for man, woman for man from the same patch, beautiful welsh um speaks welsh fluently loves wales as much as he does to be honest it takes a lot of the toxicity uh that applied have been trying to generate against reform away and so we're looking weirdly at a very interesting battle now um in the center then i think you'll know more about this both of you than me but I suspect with her that what they're up against is something that's harder to dismiss because she's serious, she's committed to the Senedd, she's committed to Wales, and so we'll have a genuine opposition there, and hopefully that will determine that the group are there not to be disruptive and difficult, but to be constructive and opposed.

Do you think then, Guto, it solves a few of those questions, those problems that they had about were they serious about Wales, but also, you know, being the girl on the call, do you think it solves that woman problem that a lot of people were trying to composed that narrative and also they elected Laura Ann Jones as their deputy leader.

Uh, and this week we are recording a special live episode with 100 people here at the Millennium Center in Cardiff.

If we were, if we were any closer to the Senedd building, we would be touching it.

Uh, so-

And what a center of activity it's been over there today.

Our Wales correspondent, Hywel Griffith, reports.

reports.Dan Thomas was absent from the Senedd today where he was expected to lead the opposition in this afternoon's First Minister's Questions.

A few hours later, he released a statement announcing that he was standing down from his position as Reform's leader in Wales for personal reasons.

He went on to explain that he'd been reported to the police over the weekend and later released.

Gwent Police says that on Sunday, a 45-year-old man from the Aberbargoed area was arrested on suspicion of assault and engaging in controlling or coercive behavior, and that he's been bailed pending further inquiries.

Mr. Thomas insists that he's done nothing wrong but does not want to distract from his party's work in the Senedd.

He was made Reform's Welsh leader by Nigel Farage in February and went on to lead the party to a historic result in May's Welsh parliamentary election, where it won 34 of the 96 seats.

This afternoon, another Reform Senedd member, Sarah Cooper Lessard, announced that she was leaving the party and defecting to Plaid Cymru.

Well, all three situations are very different.

So if you take Wales first, the Welsh nationalist government under Plaid Cymru that were elected in the Senedd, which is the Welsh Parliament elections in May, deliberately downplayed independence because the Welsh people don't prioritize independence.

They ran on a campaign of standard of living, cost of living, things like that.

So it's not a live debate in Wales at the moment, independence.