Jayne Bryant MS, Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government
I am pleased to launch a 12-week consultation on the draft Local Elections (Wales) (Amendment) Rules 2026, and the draft Representation of the People Act 1983 (Security Expenses Exclusion) (Amendment) (Wales) Order 2026.
The first of the draft statutory instruments (which come into effect for the local elections in 2027) proposes amendments to the rules governing the running of local elections in Wales. We are not proposing making significant changes to those rules aside from some, largely technical, changes or those required to take account of changes to policy and other legislation.
The main changes proposed relate to updating the rules to ensure they are bilingual, and that they reflect recent changes made to the Senedd election rules contained in the Senedd Cymru (Representation of the People) Order 2025. We are consulting on a draft statutory instrument.
For elections to the Senedd, we made changes to ensure that reasonable expenses can be incurred to provide for the personal security of candidates and for the protection of property, without those expenses being treated as campaign expenditure. A separate piece of legislation is required to bring campaign expenditure in local government elections in Wales in line with these recent changes. The draft Representation of the People Act 1983 (Security Expenses Exclusion) (Amendment) (Wales) Order 2026 makes that change, and also forms part of this consultation.
The amendment will ensure that candidates at local government elections will not, as part of their election expenses, have to account for reasonable expenses incurred in providing for their personal security and the protection of property.
Together, these changes will ensure that the local government elections in Wales are as up to date as possible and reflect the most recent changes to Senedd elections. I encourage feedback on our proposals through the consultation:
Changes to local government elections rules in Wales | GOV.WALES