CHANGING WALES FOR GOOD – PRICE SPELLS OUT VISION FOR PLAID GOVERNMENT

“First 100 days of a Plaid government will be more radical than previous 20 years”

Plaid Cymru Leader Adam Price will today spell out his vision for a Plaid Cymru government in a speech to the party’s first ever Digital Conference.

The programme for government will consist of a commitment to build 50,000 public homes in 5 years, a £10 minimum wage for carers and cutting council tax for average families.

Adam Price is expected to say that the first 100 days of a Plaid Cymru government “will be more radical than the previous 20 years – caring, building and believing – in a good life for everyone and a better life for you and your family.”

Under the banner of Changing Wales for Good, the Plaid Cymru leader will outline a transformational policy platform in areas such as childcare, council tax, housing, wages, health, and social care.

Adam Price will say:

“We in Plaid Cymru have a clear goal for our country: we want to stand on our own two feet, independent, free and equal with other nations across the world.

 “But in becoming an equal nation we have our eyes on a higher goal: of becoming ourselves a Nation of Equals. That should be no surprise. The idea of equality is woven into the very fabric of our history, our culture, our character.

 “Income inequality means lower life expectancy, lower literacy and numeracy, lower social opportunity. It means higher infant mortality, higher crime, obesity, mental illness, and addiction. It means not just greater unfairness for some, but greater misery for all of us because unequal societies are universally unhappy on every single score.  Remember the pandemic lesson, we are all connected. 

 “Managing child poverty, homelessness and pollution simply won’t do. We have to eradicate them in the same way we are trying to eliminate this virus. This isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s the hard-headed, logical, and more cost-effective one too.  Every pound invested in homelessness returns triple. Ending child poverty is the best investment in our collective future that we could ever make. Why manage a problem when we can solve it?

 “Many of us are inspired by the language of build back better. But let’s lay the foundations of permanent change. Let’s Change Wales for Good.”

Outlining Plaid Cymru’s ambitious policy platform for government, Adam Price will say:

“Universal free childcare for every family and for every child from age one on. A Welsh Child Payment for every child in a family who needs it. A guaranteed job for every young person that needs one, working on a green recovery, caring for our children, for our elderly, for our planet.

 “And hundreds of pounds off the bill for the average family by reforming the unfair Council Tax – as a first step to replacing it with something fairer altogether.

 “We’ll build 10,000 homes a year. Public homes on public land. Genuinely affordable, high-quality and to the highest environmental standards – 50,000 during our first five-year term – 30,000 social homes, 15,000 affordable purchase homes and 5,000 affordable rental homes.

 “This will be the biggest public housing programme since the 1970s.

 “And while we’re doing that, we’ll end no-fault evictions, and freeze and cut unfair rent in the private rented sector.  We’ll tax second homes and end the housing blight in our rural communities. 

 “And here’s a third and final priority that should be at the core of everything we do: care, those who provide it, and those that need it. 

 “The pandemic has held up to us a dark mirror of how we’ve organised our society – and it’s a sobering sight.  Care has been the forgotten sector, underfunded, undervalued, its workers under-paid because the State – even under a Labour Government – outsourced to private firms on the clear understanding that they would provide the maximum number of care hours at the minimum price.  We’ve seen where that has led us. 

 “When I’m First Minister, I will never allow that to happen again. We will introduce parity between the pay scales in the care and healthcare sectors and give NHS workers the decent pay rise for which they are currently campaigning.

 “We’ll bring care back where it belongs, a public service, publicly funded, paying decent wages – a minimum of £10 an hour – in the public sector.  And as part of a National Health and Care Service, social care, like healthcare, will be free to all who need it.”