Next year’s Senedd election will see 16 and 17 year olds in Wales be able to vote for the first time in our nation’s history. This move has the potential to be game-changing, but when this particular issue is mentioned there is always one stock sentence rolled out by those who disagree.

‘But they don’t know enough…’

Ignoring the fact that the same statement could apply to plenty of adults, there is an easy answer to this claim that should unite naysayers from all political perspectives.

Teach them about politics.

It’s hardly a radical idea but right now it’s rarely done properly. It’s a simple step to make political education mandatory in schools and ensure that the next generation will be the most politically savvy we’ve ever had. And the benefits will last a lifetime.

How many of us had a proper political education in school? For those who did it was probably not a full and in-depth look at politics and its impact on our lives. More likely was a brief thirty five minute session somewhere in a general studies class or a visit by a single local politician one year in secondary school? 

In 2018 ERS Cymru spoke to 200 young people in thirteen schools throughout Wales to find out what they wanted to learn as part of a political education curriculum.

The overwhelming response in every school was that they all wanted to learn about politics, they wanted to be taught basic life skills and they wanted to see more of their politicians. What became clear to us was there was a huge disparity in basic knowledge of things like the names of parties, leaders and what politicians actually did between different schools and even between pupils in the same classes. Political education now, as it was in my day, is patchy and usually dependent on teachers being interested or knowledgeable in politics in the first place. 

Despite continued calls from politicians and young people themselves, Welsh Government still hasn’t ensured that political education is a required topic in our classrooms. It remains missing from their new upcoming curriculum offered neither as a distinct subject or compulsory topic in schools. 

What they do offer is a range of new resources that are being developed for schools to be able to deliver political education ahead of next year’s elections. I am not attacking them, if those resources are anything like what’s being produced by Welsh Government, the Senedd and the Electoral Commission in preparation for new voters in May 2021 then our young people will be very lucky indeed. But resources specific to the election will not be sufficient in giving every young person a broader understanding of politics in Wales.

The new curriculum that is to be introduced in Wales is ‘purpose-led’ and one of its four purposes is for our young people to be ‘ethically and informed citizens of Wales.’ Our concern is that learning about politics in Wales is not a compulsory part of this, so while they may be informed on numerous issues the basics about the country they live in won’t be covered. It may mean that, again, there will be pupils with different levels of understanding about how decisions in Wales are made and those on the narrowest understanding will struggle to better know how they can make their voices heard within society. Knowledge is power, so they say.

I know teachers reading will be groaning at my call for yet another subject being shoehorned into their already jam-packed week but surely the basics of society should be a fundamental part of our learning?

I do not recall a time when terms such as ‘unprecedented’ and ‘once in a generation’ have become such common parlance but here we are. There is an historic election to our new Parliament next year and a radical overhaul in the way our young people are taught will follow. This must be the time to make certain we don’t repeat the same mistakes of the past but ensure young people in Wales are fully prepared to understand and participate in what sort of country we live in for decades to come. 

Read ERS’ Cymru’s Manifesto for Democracy

Has there ever been such a time of change in Welsh politics? By the end of this year there is a chance that none of the parties in the Assembly will have the same leader as at the beginning of the year.

This period of flux is very interesting for the political nerds (myself included) but it is also one where we have an unprecedented opportunity to deliver some game-changers in the policy world.

As well as the ‘who’, we now need to see the candidates making strong commitments to the ‘what’ – and chief among these should be what they intend to do to tackle issues around diversity and inequality.

In July, ERS Cymru released a report, New Voices: How Welsh politics can begin to reflect Wales, which explored the issues around diversity in Welsh politics. It revealed a pretty depressing picture of how progress is being held back in Wales: councils with consistently slow progress on female councillors (including two in Wales with no women at all on their cabinets,) an Assembly that has gone backwards on equality, and one party never having a Welsh female MP in Westminster.

On top of this were the shocking reports of abuse and harassment, including razor blades and excrement being sent to Welsh politicians. 266 of them took part in a survey for the report and over 45% said they had suffered abuse or harassment. When this came to women alone it rose to 54%.

Wales needs action on diversity – our political system is fundamentally not representative of the country it serves.

Unless the next leaders of the main political parties in Wales take this seriously we cannot move forward.

That’s why we’ve written to the candidates for leadership of each of the three main political parties in Wales urging them to make strong commitments on equality.

These include committing to:

• Fielding at least 45% female candidates in Assembly elections
• The introduction of measures to encourage a broader range of candidates from ethnic minorities, a wider age spread and those with disabilities, as well as monitoring processes to ensure progress
  Delivering the recommendations of the Expert Panel on Assembly Reform on gender parity
• Signing up for a joint code of conduct on intimidating behaviour along with other parties in the Assembly
• Delivering better political education in Welsh schools to engage a wider proportion of the population in politics in Wales.

The next leaders of the political parties in Wales have a chance here to show what leadership really means. This is a chance for Wales to set about boosting the diversity of our political institutions and to address a fundamental issue with our democracy. If politics in Wales doesn’t reflect our communities then how can it properly represent them?

The commitments we are asking the candidates to make are ones that would make a substantial difference to the way Welsh politics works and the kinds of people that would feel politics is something worth engaging with.

That the three main parties all have a leadership contest now is significant – this is a chance to get all of these parties to make the same commitments and put them all on the same page on this issue.

Those Assembly Members that are now official candidates, or who are trying to get the sufficient nominations to stand in their respective elections should take our recommendations seriously, and stand on a platform of a Welsh politics that is diverse and which properly reflects the people of Wales.

It’s a time of change, and a time for change.

Read the New Voices Report

We got a sense of the shocking scale of abuse in Westminster last year. But there has been relatively little heard about the issues surrounding harassment and diverse representation in Wales.

It turns out the situation is toxic.

We had a pretty strong idea about the lack of diversity – which groups are under-represented and put off politics. But until now, we didn’t have a clear idea what the main causes were.

ERS Cymru set about pulling together a report on the representativeness of politics in Wales and exploring what the barriers are.

The results are striking. Of 266 elected representatives who were surveyed as part of the work, 121 said they had been abused or harassed either in office or while campaigning. That’s 45.5% of total respondents.

Of 266 elected representatives who were surveyed as part of @erscymru's work, 121 said they had been abused or harassed Click To Tweet

Alarmingly, a majority – 54% – of female respondents say they have faced this kind of behaviour.

Some of the abuse went beyond what we expected to hear: one person said they had excrement delivered through the post in a Valentine’s card. Another reported inappropriate sexual advances by constituents, during advice surgeries and door-to-door canvassing sessions.

Is it any wonder, given these reports, that people are put off from standing for public office?

ERS Cymru has sought to listen and to learn from what politicians – and those who were put off trying to get involved – have told us as part of gathering the information for our new report.

But mostly we want to ensure that action is taken. It is why we have published 16 recommendations to help diversify Welsh politics.

These range from a 45% quota for women for each party at local government elections, a joint code of conduct on abuse among political parties, better training and guidance on harassment, and looking to improve funding for candidates from under-represented groups.

Others include each political party introducing an action plan on diversity to select candidates for vacant target seats at a Westminster level.

We also think that better political and civic education should be delivered in Welsh schools to begin to try and tackle the negative culture that is currently leading to a lot of the abuse we are seeing.

We need better political and civic education in Welsh schools to tackle the negative culture that is leading to a lot of abuse Click To Tweet

Politicians in Wales told us that they struggle to maintain a healthy family life, and that they worry about finances.

The abuse they face is one clear example of the barriers to a truly representative politics in Wales.

The Welsh Government and others should read these shocking stories – and act on the need for change.

The report, titled ‘New Voices: How Welsh politics can begin to reflect Wales’, is being launched at the Welsh Assembly on Thursday 12th July.

Read the report