Thursday, October 29, 2015
When is an urgent question not urgent?
There is continuing controversy in the Welsh Assembly over the process for accepting and rejecting urgent questions. Essentially, nobody knows what criteria is applied and reasons are never given by the Presiding Officer for her decision.
All four political parties have concerns about this process and I think I am safe in saying that the vast majority of AMs, as well as most of the media and third sector who inhabit the Cardiff Bay bubble, believe that at the very least the Assembly should publish and keep up to date a list of both accepted and rejected urgent questions with reasons, so that we can have some transparency.
As it happens Your Senedd has compiled a list of all the accepted urgent questions during this Assembly term. It should not be up to an independent website to do this however. It is time for reform from the Presiding Officer.
All four political parties have concerns about this process and I think I am safe in saying that the vast majority of AMs, as well as most of the media and third sector who inhabit the Cardiff Bay bubble, believe that at the very least the Assembly should publish and keep up to date a list of both accepted and rejected urgent questions with reasons, so that we can have some transparency.
As it happens Your Senedd has compiled a list of all the accepted urgent questions during this Assembly term. It should not be up to an independent website to do this however. It is time for reform from the Presiding Officer.
