A HIGH-profile council leader is facing challenges from his own group and other senior councillors for a chance at winning a Senedd seat.
Nick Byrne is the Welsh Labour councillor for New Inn on Torfaen County Borough Council and also its member champion for mental health.
Peter Jones is the Welsh Labour councillor for Two Locks, Cwmbran and the Torfaen County Borough Council cabinet member for equalities
Anthony Hunt, who has led Torfaen council since 2016, is facing a challenge from six other councillors for the coveted second-place spot on the list of candidates Labour will put forward for the combined Monmouthshire and Torfaen constituency.
Seats in the expanded 96-member Senedd will be allocated on a party’s percentage of the vote, with the greater the share of their vote in each constituency the more of their candidates will be elected.
Welsh Labour has agreed sitting Members of Senedd are guaranteed the top spot on its list of candidates meaning that is taken in the Sir Fynwy Torfaen constituency by Lynne Neagle who has represented Torfaen since 1999 and is currently the education minister.
Members to rank candidates
As Monmouthshire is a Conservative-held seat the second spot on Labour’s list is free and will be determined by party members who will be asked to rank the seven candidates in preference order.
Cllr Hunt, who as well as leading Torfaen Borough Council speaks for all Welsh councils on finance making regular media appearances, is considered by many as the favourite for the position considered the only other placing on Labour’s list with a realistic prospect of securing a seat in the Senedd.
He has previously worked in Parliament and the former Welsh Assembly and was a special advisor to former Torfaen MP Paul Murphy when he served in the UK Government as Welsh Secretary and Northern Ireland Secretary.
Cllr Hunt, who earns £63,020 a year as council leader which also includes the £19,771 paid to all councillors, also works part-time for current Torfaen MP, and UK Government minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds. He will be aiming to earn a place in the Senedd which has an annual salary of £76,380 for all members.
The other candidates battling with Cllr Hunt for ranking priority are Monmouthshire cabinet members Laura Wright, Ben Callard and Catrin Maby as well as Cllr Su McConnel and Torfaen counillors Peter Jones and Nick Byrne.
Cllr Jones, who represents Cwmbran’s Two Locks ward, is responsible for finance on Torfaen’s cabinet, and previously worked with youth offenders and for the Guide Dogs Cymru charity and is a member of the Unite trade union.
New Inn councillor Nick Byrne is a delivery driver for employee-owned supermarket and department store Waitrose/John Lewis as well as being a self-employed landlord and owner of The Dragonffli pub in Pontypool. He is a member of the GMB and the Musicians Union for which he is also a delegate.
Monmoutshire
Monmouthshire cabinet member Catrin Maby, who represents Drybridge, Monmouth, was Labour’s Momouthshire candidate at the 2021 Senedd election where she won 11,487 votes, or 32 per cent, but finished second to Conservative Peter Fox who polled 15,332, a 42.7 per cent share.
She has had responsibility for climate change and the environment on the cabinet since Labour came to power at County Hall at the 2022 local government elections and has been a self-employed consultant on building energy efficiency.
Cllr Laura Wright was appointed as Monmouthshire council’s cabinet member for education in May, and represents Abergavenny’s Grofield ward and is also a member of the GMB union.
Cllr Ben Callard, is responsible for finance on Monmouthshire council, represents Llanfoist and Govilon and has worked for a plastics firm and is also a member of the GMB and Abergavenny Tennis Club.
Cllr Su McConnell, who represents Croesonnen near Abergavenny, was chairman of Monmouthshire County Council during 2024/25 and has worked as a probation officer serving as vice chair of NAPO, the union for probation officers.
The Green Party has selected Ian Chandler, who sits in a coalition with Labour to run Monmouthshire council, as its Sir Fynwy Torfaen candidate. Cllr Chandler is the council’s cabinet member for social care and stood in the Monmouthshire seat at last year’s UK general election gaining 2,357 votes, a 4.6 per cent share, for a fourth place finish behind Reform and the Conservatives who lost the seat to Labour.