The Senedd's biggest open petition carries more English signatures than Welsh ones

The Senedd is the Welsh parliament, and its Petitions Committee weighs what proportion of the names on a petition come from within Wales when it decides whether to ask for a debate. Across the four largest open petitions that proportion ran from 24.8 per cent to 95.4 per cent on Monday morning, and the most Welsh of the four closes on 18 September.

Christine Jones · Mon 7 Sept, 07:33 · updated Tue 8 Sept, 00:21

The Senedd in Cardiff Bay, viewed from the east. Photo: Rosser1954, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Wales share of the four largest open Senedd petitions, read at 07:12 BST on 7 September 2026

4 figures

Build a new crossing over the Menai7,110 of 7,455 signatures came from Wales, 315 from England and 30 from elsewhere. It closes 18 September 2026: 95.4%
Immediately unfreeze gender-affirming surgeries and protect NHS Welsh Gender Service patients.7,680 of 13,771 signatures came from Wales. It closes 3 March 2027: 55.8%
We call upon the Senedd to reject any badger cull in Wales.5,960 of 15,585 signatures came from Wales, the lowest share of the four biggest. It closes 11 November 2026: 38.2%
Challenge the greyhound racing ban in Wales2,190 of 8,835 signatures came from Wales. It closes 1 December 2026: 24.8%

Source: Senedd petition records; the shares are Cover's arithmetic on the Senedd's own counts

Where this sits

5 checked facts

Is this normal?
- 99 petitions are open on the Senedd's site.
  petitions.senedd.wales
How does it compare?
- The Senedd's biggest open petition has more English signatures than Welsh ones: 7,851 to 5,960 of its 15,585.
  petitions.senedd.wales
- The Wales share of the four largest open petitions runs from 24.8 per cent to 95.4 per cent, a spread of 70.6 points.
  petitions.senedd.wales
- The most Welsh petition of the four, the Menai crossing at 95.4 per cent, is also the smallest and the only one closing this month.
  petitions.senedd.wales
Who can change it?
- The Petitions Committee's own published test counts where the names come from: it weighs "the proportion of signatures which come from within Wales".
  petitions.senedd.wales

Every line above was checked against the source named beside it before this piece was published.

More of the names on the Senedd's biggest open petition come from England than from Wales. The Senedd is the Welsh parliament in Cardiff Bay, anyone in the world can sign a petition to it, and where the names come from counts towards whether it is ever debated. The petition, titled "We call upon the Senedd to reject any badger cull in Wales.", held 15,585 signatures when Cover read the Senedd's own record at 07:12 BST on Monday 7 September: 7,851 of the signatures from England and 5,960 from Wales, a Wales share of 38.2 per cent. The remaining 1,774 names came from 71 other countries, 73 in all.

The test the Committee applies

Where the names come from is not incidental. The Senedd's published guidance states that in deciding whether to ask for a chamber debate, the Petitions Committee, the cross-party group of Senedd members that handles petitions, weighs "the proportion of signatures which come from within Wales", alongside the issues raised and the urgency of the situation. The same page sets two thresholds: the Committee reviews every petition that collects over 250 signatures, which the petition pages say it does once those petitions have finished collecting signatures, and considers asking for a debate once one passes 10,000. Starting a petition requires a Wales address, though the published rules set no residency bar on signing one. The country on each signature is the signer's own answer on the form, chosen from a dropdown of 204 entries. The Senedd publishes no check on that answer, though it emails every online signer to verify the signature, and it maps Welsh postcodes to the 16 Senedd constituencies. That second measure is stricter, and it moves the badger cull petition further: only 3,884 of its 5,988 Wales signatures resolve to a Welsh constituency, a Wales share of 24.8 per cent rather than 38.3, on the record read at 20:49 BST on 7 September.

The four biggest, and how Welsh each one is

Ninety-nine petitions were open on the Senedd's site when Cover counted the open list at 07:28 BST on Monday. Across the four largest, the Wales share runs from 24.8 per cent on Challenge the greyhound racing ban in Wales to 95.4 per cent on the Menai crossing, with the badger cull at 38.2 per cent. Immediately unfreeze gender-affirming surgeries and protect NHS Welsh Gender Service patients., which opened on 3 September, sits at 55.8 per cent. That petition asks for a pause to be lifted. Cardiff and Vale University Health Board's update of 28 August says the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee asked the board to pause the surgical pathway: "New referrals for gender affirming surgery have been paused", along with surgical assessments and scheduled surgery on that pathway. The board gives two reasons, referral data from 2025-26 indicating significantly higher rates of referral than English gender services, and concerns about aspects of referral and assessment processes. Hormone therapy, endocrine review, psychological support and speech and language therapy are not affected.

The most Welsh, and the first to close

Build a new crossing over the Menai is the smallest of the four and by a distance the one with the highest Welsh share: 7,110 of its 7,455 signatures came from Wales, 315 from England and 30 from elsewhere. Its signatories are spread across 15 countries. The badger cull petition's are spread across 73. It also closes first, on 18 September, eleven days from Monday. It holds 7,455 names and needs to pass 10,000 for the Committee to consider asking for a debate, so it needs 2,546 more. Cover read the same petition at 7,439 on 4 September, so it has added 16 names in three days. That is about five a day. Reaching the threshold by 18 September would take about 232 a day, on Cover's arithmetic from the Senedd's own two counts.

What happens next

All four have passed the 250 signatures at which the Committee says it reviews a petition, and so have 36 of the 99 petitions that were open on Monday morning. None of the four has been referred to the Committee yet, and no petition on the system carries a date for a debate. On the Senedd's record a referral date appears only once a petition has closed, so an empty field on an open petition says nothing about what the Committee thinks of it. The badger cull petition passed 10,000 on 25 July and the gender service petition on 5 September. The Senedd has been on its summer break and sits again on 14 September, and the Petitions Committee next meets on Thursday 24 September at 14:00, six days after the Menai petition closes.

Correction, 7 September 2026: this piece gave the badger cull petition's closing date as 7 October 2026. It closes on 11 November 2026, as the Senedd's own record states in English and in Welsh. Every signature figure and percentage was correct as filed.

An earlier correction the same day fixed that petition's title, which the first version had shortened.

Signature totals, country splits, constituency splits, opening and closing dates and the threshold fields from the Senedd's own petition records, read at 07:12 BST on 7 September 2026, re-read at 07:25 and checked again at 20:49. (badger cull), (gender service), (greyhound racing) and (Menai crossing), each also read as JSON at the same address with.json appended. The 11 November closing date confirmed on the English page, on the Welsh page at and in the record's own closed_at field. The open list, counted page by page to 99 at 07:28 BST, of which 36 hold more than 250 signatures; the closed and completed lists at the same address with state=closed and state=completed, 50 records of which 49 carry a referral date. The proportion-from-within-Wales test and the 250 and 10,000 thresholds from the Senedd's petitions help page. The Wales address requirement and the absence of any residency bar on signing, and the self-declared country field from the signing form itself. The paused pathway, the body that asked for it, both stated reasons and the services not affected from Cardiff and Vale University Health Board, Welsh Gender Service update, 28 August 2026. Committee meeting dates from and recess dates. The 4 September Menai count from Cover's own earlier piece, /story/menai-crossing-petition-2026.

Sources: petitions.senedd.walespetitions.senedd.walespetitions.senedd.walespetitions.senedd.walesdeisebau.senedd.cymrupetitions.senedd.walespetitions.senedd.walespetitions.senedd.walespetitions.senedd.walescavuhb.nhs.walesbusiness.senedd.walessenedd.wales

How we verified this(17)

every count and country split read off the four petitions' own records at 07:12 BST on 7 September 2026, re-read at 07:25 and again at 20:49, and the reading time stamped in the copy and on both panels
the badger cull closing date settled against three renderings of the Senedd's own record, the English page, the Welsh page and the JSON closed_at field, after the first version carried 7 October
the 99 open petitions counted by the desk page by page through the Senedd's own JSON, not taken from a summary, and the count stamped at 07:28 BST because it moves
the 36 above 250 signatures and the 49 of 50 closed or completed petitions carrying a referral date counted the same way, off the state=open, state=closed and state=completed lists, all cited in the source note
no raw signature count in the headline or the standfirst, because the counts move by the hour
the proportion-from-within-Wales test quoted verbatim and, as the help page has it, tied to the decision on whether to ask for a debate rather than presented as a general test
both Wales measures the record carries are given: the self-declared country field the piece leads on, and the stricter postcode-to-constituency mapping, which puts the badger cull petition lower still
the two thresholds, 250 and 10,000, taken from the help page; the 2,546 stated as taking the Menai petition past 10,000, since the threshold is over 10,000 and not 10,000 exactly
the pace comparison labelled as Cover's arithmetic on the Senedd's own two counts, with the pool and both read dates given
the gender service petition reported as one row of four, by its own title including its closing full stop, with no characterisation of either side
the pause attributed to the NHS Wales Joint Commissioning Committee, which asked the health board to make it, with both of the board's stated reasons given verbatim and the services it does not affect named
the phrase 'Service of Concern' appears in that petition's own text and is not used here, because no official source uses it
no ministerial comment printed, because none was found on record.senedd.wales
the Committee's next sitting taken from its own meetings page; no claim made about when it last met
one provider for every number on the page, the Senedd's own petition records, with every percentage labelled as Cover's arithmetic on those counts; the health board is quoted for its own words and supplies no figure
three cards rendered and looked at, at 2128x912, 1080x1620 and 1080x1350
petition titles taken verbatim from each petition's own Senedd record, including the closing full stop on two of them

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