Welsh Conservative leader Andrew RT Davies was wrong to say Wales' 20mph speed limit was a blanket policy but he did not breach the code of conduct as he did not set out to be deceitful, the Senedd's standards watchdog has ruled.
Mr Davies, the south Wales central MS, was investigated by standards commissioner Douglas Bain over messages he posted on social media site X, formerly Twitter, about the default 20mph speed limit introduced in Wales in September in urban areas.
The complaint alleged that the description of the policy as a “blanket” speed limit was untruthful and therefore a breach of the code of conduct. But Mr Bain rejected the complaint in an 11-page report, published on Wednesday January 24. Mr Davies is not named in the report but sources confirmed he is its subject.
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Mr Bain said that the “blanket” description was “imprecise and inaccurate” but had not been made deceitfully and was therefore not a breach of the code of conduct.
“Untruthfulness, like dishonesty, requires some element of deceit, fraud or moral turpitude,” he said. “Whilst all untruthful statements are imprecise and incorrect, not all imprecise and incorrect statements are untruthful.”
The commissioner said Mr Davies has made clear that there were exceptions to the new general speed limit.
He said: “I cannot be satisfied there was any element of deceit, fraud or moral turpitude.”
On whether the description "blanket" was accurate, the report said Mr Davies argued that the word blanket was not the same as calling it a universal limit, citing dictionary definitions.
But the commissioner found: “The Collins Dictionary definition, for example, is ‘applying to or covering a wide group or variety of people, conditions or situations’. Significantly, it does not say applying to or covering almost all of a large group.
“None of the other definitions provided suggest that ‘blanket’ means other than providing universal coverage.”
Mr Bain concluded that incorrect usage of the phrase has to be tolerated under Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The standards committee, which includes Labour, Plaid Cymru and Conservative members, agreed with the concept of honesty being about more than incorrect or careless statements.
MSs concluded that without clear evidence of intent to mislead, the threshold had not been met by Mr Davies’ comments.
The Conservative group in the Senedd declined to comment.
