Consensus Growing for Stronger Assembly
Alistair Cole, J. Barry Jones and Alan Storer
During June 2001 Market Research Wales carried out an opinion poll
on attitudes to the National Assembly. The pollsters contacted 1008
people across Wales in a telephone canvass. The results provide a
highly positive measure of the devolution process in Wales with 62%
now in favour of the Assembly and 38% opposed, a significant shift
when compared with the referendum in 1997. Moreover, 49% of respondents
supported the strengthening of the National Assembly to give it powers
at least equivalent to those of the Scottish Parliament. In addition,
the poll shows that traditional regional cleavages within Wales have
narrowed suggesting that a more cohesive Welsh attitude to devolution
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Professor Alistair Cole, J. Barry Jones and Alan Storer, a
research team at the Welsh Governance Centre, Cardiff University,
commissioned the poll as part of an on-going ESRC funded project on
'Devolution and Decentralisation in Wales and Brittany'.
Polling took place from June 18 to 29 with a representative sample
of 1,008 adults aged 16 and over and resident in Wales. Polling was
by telephone interviews, using the Computer Assisted Telephoning Interviewing
system. To ensure a representative sample, interlocking quotas were
placed on gender and region. The six regions used were North West
Wales (Anglesey, Conwy, Gwynedd); North East Wales (Denbighshire,
Flintshire, Wrexham); South-West and Mid-Wales (Carmarthenshire, Ceredigion,
Pembrokeshire, Powys, Swansea); Valleys (Blaenau Gwent, Caerphilly,
Merthyr Tydfil, Neath Port Talbot, Rhondda Cynon Taff, Torfaen); South-East
Wales (Bridgend, Monmouthshire, Newport, Vale of Glamorgan); and Cardiff.
An equal number of interviews was conducted in each region, with the
final data re-weighted to reflect the actual distribution of population
within Wales. Interviews lasted an average of 10-15 minutes.
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