Plaid Leader sets out post-Covid programme for government to “heal deeper wounds of our nation”

Fairness at heart of policies to counter “moral vacuum of Westminster”

Plaid Cymru Leader Adam Price MS will today address his party’s Virtual Spring Conference, vowing to “heal the deeper wounds of our nation” with a post-Covid programme for government designed to create an economy that works for everyone and deliver a fair deal for families.

Mr Price is expected to say that a Plaid Cymru Government if elected on May 6^th would put in place policies to tackle child poverty and the housing crisis and invest to build the best NHS and social care services with more staff on better pay, and free social care for everyone who needs it.

Other key policies will include:

– Universal free childcare from 24 months

– A council tax cut for thousands of families

Addressing the party’s second Virtual Conference during the pandemic, Adam Price is expected to say:

“Behind the daily headline figures, the cumulative toll of the last twelve months, are individual human tragedies.  But the scale of our suffering points to a deeper collective truth.  

“We are not the country that we should be. We are not the country that we can be. And we are not the country we want to be.

“The statistics tell the story. There are 70,000 children in poverty in Wales that don’t even receive free school meals. 67,000 families on housing waiting lists.

“Over half of our care workers are paid less than the Real Living Wage.

“Let this be the year when we say no more. No more child hunger. No more homelessness and housing crisis. No more poverty pay. 

“So as we all of us, united as one, over the next few weeks and months roll up our sleeves to receive our jabs, let’s also commit to doing the collective work we need to do to heal the deeper wounds of this nation.

“Let’s ask ourselves “When all this is over, how do we want our world and our Wales to be different?”  

Speaking in the same week as an ITV poll showed the highest support for Welsh independence ever recorded with 39% of those asked responding they would say ‘Yes’ in a referendum, the Plaid Cymru Leader will add:

“Britain isn’t working for us anymore – the Britain of my parents’ generation, a brave and hopeful place, no longer exists, it has been erased and, in its place, we have the moral vacuum that is Westminster. 

“We are a nation which values above all else kindness, empathy and cooperation locked into a political system increasingly based on selfishness and greed.

“The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the reality of modern Britain: a state defined by crushing poverty, ruled by a corrupt elite that gives contracts to its friends and denies furlough to its neighbours. 

“The future cannot be like the past.  And it will not be if we decide our own future.  

“The poverty we see around us as a nation is not our destiny. But it is our moment of truth. 

“Seize that moment and there is nothing that is impossible.”