Wales election 2021: Who should I vote for? Compare party policies
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Political parties in Wales have begun their campaigns ahead of the election on 6 May.
To help you decide who you might vote for, use this policy guide to compare where the parties stand on the key issues.
What are the parties promising you?
Select an issue and a party to see their policies
Covid-19
Including future containment measures and the rollout of vaccines.
Economy
Covering infrastructure investment, business taxes, and support for industry.
Education
Covering school and university funding, salaries, school testing and inspection, and university tuition fees.
NHS and care
Covering hospitals, GPs, dentists, funding, staffing, waiting times, mental health and social care.
EU relations
Including trade and our future relationship with Europe.
Environment
Covering climate change, emissions targets, renewable energy, plastic use, recycling, energy efficiency and air pollution.
Work and benefits
Including childcare, tackling poverty and council tax benefit.
Housing
Including house building, home ownership, social housing, homelessness and tenants rights.
Transport
Covering rail ownership and franchising, bus services, and road upgrades.
Democracy
Including the future of devolution in Wales.
Welsh Labour
Welsh Labour
Leader
Mark Drakeford
Main policies
- A new Young Persons' Guarantee of a place in work, education, training or self-employment for everyone in Wales under the age of 25, including creating 125,000 new apprenticeships
- Guarantee the Real Living Wage for all social care staff and keep the cap on non-residential care fees and maintain the £50,000 capital limit
- Invest £800m in new trains to ensure that by 2023, 95% of journeys on our rail network will be on new trains
Covid-19
- Continue to work with NHS staff, armed forces and volunteers to get people vaccinated
- Further support Welsh workers and businesses with what it says is the most generous financial support in the UK
- Launch programme of catch-up support for public services, including employing over 1,800 additional tutoring staff in schools and a new medical school in North Wales
Economy
- Continue business rates holiday for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses for a further 12 months, in combination with the Small Business Rates Relief scheme will mean more than 70,000 businesses will pay no rates at all in 2021-22
- Establish a new Young Persons' Guarantee of a place in work, education, training or self-employment for everyone in Wales under the age of 25, including creating 125,000 new apprenticeships
Education
- New curriculum for Wales starting in 2022, focusing on higher standards of literacy and numeracy, ensuring our young people are more digitally and bilingually competent, and supporting pupils' mental and emotional health
- Continue to protect the Educational Maintenance Allowance
- Support for families to cover uniform and school equipment costs, and guaranteed free school meals through the holidays during the pandemic
NHS and care
- Free prescriptions and free hospital car parking will remain protected
- Guarantee the Real Living Wage for all social care staff and keep the cap on non-residential care fees and maintain the £50,000 capital limit
EU relations
- Stress the importance of our economic, political and social links with the EU allowing businesses to trade Welsh goods across Europe
- Continue with the implementation of the International Strategy which seeks to raise Wales' profile, grow the economy and establish Wales as a globally responsible nation
Environment
- Create jobs across Wales with green energy, environmental protections and tourism
- Abolish the use of the most littered single-use plastics, protecting the seas and countryside
- Create a National Forest for Wales, for the benefits of equality and mental health as well as the environment
Work and benefits
- Put the social partnership approach into law, and make Wales a genuinely Fair Work Nation
- Continue to push the UK government to support Welsh families in areas it is responsible for and withdraw planned cuts to Universal Credit
Housing
- Build thousands of new low-carbon, affordable homes for rent and with it, create thousands of new jobs
Transport
- Deliver high-quality, sustainable public transport system for Wales
- Keep the Wales and the Borders rail franchise in public ownership
- Invest £800m in new trains to ensure that by 2023, 95% of journeys on our rail network will be on new trains
- Re-regulate the bus network, meaning easier access to local bus services
- Invest in communities and infrastructure to help ensure more and more journeys are taken by foot or by bike
Democracy
- Believe that the United Kingdom is a voluntary association of four nations, where power should be dispersed and not centralised, and where as much as possible decisions are made as close to people as they can be taken
- Support a constitutional convention to develop a new settlement for the United Kingdom
Welsh Conservative Party
Welsh Conservative Party
Leader
Andrew RT Davies
Main policies
- Build the M4 Relief Road, upgrade the A55 in North Wales to reduce pinch points and the A40 to boost the economy of West Wales
- No new powers for the Welsh Government
- Build 100,000 houses over the next decade, including 40,000 social homes, with all new homes carbon neutral by 2026
Covid-19
- Appoint a dedicated Covid-19 Recovery Minister to oversee all areas of coronavirus recovery including the vaccine rollout across Wales
- Establish routes to support for people suffering with mental health problems due to the pandemic, especially NHS staff and care workers who provided palliative care and those suffering bereavement who weren't able to say goodbye to loved ones
- Review and open funding for businesses on a needs basis, ending the first come first serve nature of current support for Welsh businesses by the Welsh Government
Economy
- Create a one stop shop for businesses in Wales by bringing together the Development Bank of Wales, Business Wales and recreating the best aspect of the Welsh Development Agency
- Deliver a tax cut for small businesses by scrapping business rates
- Introduce a comeback package for tourism towns to recover from the pandemic, enabling communities to improve their local area
Education
- End the underfunding of our young people by introducing a National School Funding Formula to level-up per pupil funding across Wales
- Fully scrap the Welsh Baccalaureate to allow pupils to focus on GCSEs, A-levels and vocational courses
- Introduce different routes to excellence with the expansion of apprenticeships, including degree apprenticeships
NHS and care
- Implement a recovery plan to enable the Welsh NHS to clear the waiting list backlog that doubled before the pandemic and has grown during it
- Deliver more doctors, more nurses and other healthcare professionals through a "Retain, recruit and train" programme
- Transform mental health services by treating it with the same priority as physical health
EU relations
- Support businesses to access new opportunities following Brexit using a one stop shop to access investment
- Work with schools and universities to ensure that the most disadvantaged in our society are able to access the new Turing Scheme
- Ensure that the Welsh Government, with the UK Government, liaises closely with the Republic of Ireland to ensure smooth imports and exports
Environment
- Introduce a Clean Air Act to cut pollution and reduce the incidence of respiratory disease
- Ban single-use plastics for non-medical use such as plastic wet wipes, straws, stirrers, disposable cups and cotton buds, as well as creating a drinks deposit return scheme
- Tackle climate change by ensuring Wales meets our net-zero carbon emissions target by 2040
Work and benefits
- Establish a single point of access for benefits and support scheme administered in Wales, exploring the possibility of automatically passporting Universal Credit claimants to this
- Introduce a ‘housing first' model for supporting people who are homeless
- Support our older communities by maintaining free prescriptions, free bus travel and promote free entry to CADW sites and pilot free frail travel for the over 75s
Housing
- Cut Land Transaction Tax to encourage aspiration by scrapping LTT for first time buyers and raising the threshold to £250,000
- Restore a reformed right to buy so more people can benefit from the security of owning their own home
- Build 100,000 houses over the next decade, including 40,000 social homes, with all new homes carbon neutral by 2026
Transport
- Build the M4 Relief Road, upgrade the A55 in North Wales to reduce pinch points and the A40 to boost the economy of West Wales
- Create a fast-charging network so that everyone is within 30 miles of an electric car charging station
- Free bus travel for 16-24 year olds to access training and employment
Democracy
- No increase in the number of Members of the Senedd in the next five years without support of the public
- No new powers for the Welsh Government. The Welsh Government needs to get on and use the power it has rather than push for more
- Work together with the UK Government, not against it, to level-up the whole of Wales
Plaid Cymru
Plaid Cymru
Leader
Adam Price
Main policies
- 2,000 extra teachers and 2,000 extra support staff in schools across Wales
- A guaranteed job, on at least a Real Living Wage, or high-quality training for every 16–24-year-old
- Hold an independence referendum by 2026
Covid-19
- Build the best National Health and Care Service by reducing waiting lists, building new cancer diagnostic centres and raising the hourly wage of care workers to at least £10
- Create a £6bn Green Economic Stimulus, which, together with investments in healthcare, education, and the local economy, will generate 60,000 jobs over the next Senedd year term
- Prioritising educational and wellbeing recovery by recruiting 2,000 extra teachers and 2,000 extra support staff in schools across Wales
Economy
- A guaranteed job, on at least a Real Living Wage, or high-quality training for every 16–24-year-old
- Zero interest loans to support small businesses to bounce back post-Covid
- Create Prosperity Wales, a dynamic new economic development agency, dedicated to growing small and medium-sized Welsh firms, boosting exports and creating jobs in every community
Education
- £35 per child weekly top-up payment to families living below the poverty line
- Provide a lifelong learning entitlement for retraining worth £5,000 for everyone over 25
- Pilot a Universal Basic Income in Wales
NHS and care
- Provide free school meals for all children in families receiving universal credit, extending to all primary school children by the end of the first term
- Establish world-class early years education and childcare, offering 30 hours a week, free for all children from 24 months to school age
- Reduce the maximum tuition fee chargeable to Welsh-domiciled students at Welsh universities to £7,500
EU relations
- Build a National Health and Care Service where personal care is free at the point of need
- Provide 6,000 extra healthcare professionals for Wales - 4,000 nurses, 1,000 doctors and 1,000 allied health professionals
- Make improving mental health a central goal, and establish a network of Youth Wellbeing Centres for mental and physical health support for young people throughout Wales
Environment
- Investigate ways for Wales to continue to participate in the EU Erasmus programme
- Develop a new export strategy for Welsh business, focused on EU regions and nations like Ireland and Basque Country where there are already established relationships
- Start planning for an independent Wales to join the European Free Trade Association
Work and benefits
- Set a Wales-wide mission to generate 100% of electricity and reach zero emissions by 2035
- Introduce a Nature Act with statutory targets to restore biodiversity by 2050
- Commit to providing good quality and safe green space within a five-minute walk of all Welsh households
Housing
- Launch the most ambitious public homes programme since the 1970s, creating 50,000 genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy over the next five years
- Permanently end rough sleeping on our streets through a rapid re-housing policy
- End no-fault evictions and create a new system of fair rents for people in private rental accommodation
- Cut the bills of average Council Tax payers, and use planning and tax powers to tackle the second homes crisis
Transport
- Aim to halve the proportion of journeys made by car by 2030
- Allocate at least 50 per cent of all capital transport spend on improving bus and train services
- Create a new west coast rail line, connecting the north and south
- Build a Valleys CrossRail, linking east and west
Democracy
- Give the people of Wales a say on their future by holding an independence referendum by 2026
- Create a statutory National Commission to oversee the process leading to the referendum, including drafting a Welsh Constitution, involving widespread consultation
- Seek the immediate devolution of power over currently reserved matters, including policing and criminal justice, rail, welfare, broadcasting, large energy projects, and the Crown Estate
Reform Party UK
Reform Party UK
Leader
Caroline Jones
Main policies
- Support local businesses to open in high street premises so that they can establish themselves
- No religious education in the school curriculum, and no sexual education in primary schools
- Raise the threshold of income tax to £20,000
Covid-19
- No policy specified before manifesto launch
Economy
- Grow Welsh exports while increasing inward investment
- Nurture growing businesses but continue to provide comprehensive support to enhance established businesses
- Stop those intent on blocking Welsh business development, including, but not limited to, local councils and planning departments that utilise excessive ‘permission' time frames that hinder economic growth
- Support local businesses to open in high street premises so that they can establish themselves, maintain economic investment and grow their presence
Education
- Teach morals, values, caring, charity and adventure as an essential part of the Welsh education system
- Teach critical thinking, freedom of thought and freedom of speech
- No curriculum should teach forced religious education, neither should it contain any form of sexual education in primary schools
NHS and care
- A comprehensive healthcare plan for the people of Wales must be created with utmost urgency
EU relations
- No policy specified before manifesto launch
Environment
- No policy specified before manifesto launch
Work and benefits
- Raise the threshold of income tax to £20,000
- Simplify the tax system
Housing
- No policy specified before manifesto launch
Transport
- No policy specified before manifesto launch
Democracy
- No policy specified before manifesto launch
Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party
Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party
Leader
Richard Suchorzewski
Main policies
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
Covid-19
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
Economy
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
Education
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
NHS and care
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
EU relations
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
Environment
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
Work and benefits
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
Housing
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
Transport
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
Democracy
- Policies were not available at the time of publication
Welsh Liberal Democrats
Welsh Liberal Democrats
Leader
Jane Dodds
Main policies
- Expand Personal Learning Accounts to ensure a right to lifelong learning, allowing people to upskill and retrain
- Pay social care workers a Real Living Wage
- Introduce a fairer voting system for the Senedd and local government
Covid-19
- Continue to provide opportunities for children to re-engage with learning and reconnect with their friends, including targeted support for the most disadvantaged pupils
- A roadmap for the return of businesses and ensuring that support for businesses is not ended too soon
- Put recovery first, ensuring that as we move out of the pandemic and rebuild no one is left behind
Economy
- Expand Personal Learning Accounts to realise a right to lifelong learning, allowing people to upskill and retrain
- Make it easier and quicker to install fibre broadband connections by changing planning rules and using the latest methods to ensure quick installation with minimal disruption
- Introduce a long-term plan for the economy
Education
- Implement the new Curriculum for Wales and ensure it has the resources needed to make it a success
- Improve opportunities for disadvantaged learners to learn over school holidays and ensure they get a good meal
- End digital exclusion at all levels of education, investing in devices and digital skills
NHS and care
- Invest in social care, by paying social care workers a Real Living Wage
- Create a step change in mental health services, delivering a 24/7 mental health care service and improved access and choice in psychological therapies
- Make it easier to book and access appointments by supporting online booking across all GPs
EU relations
- Push for tariff free trade as part of the Single Market and Customs Union
- Promote and facilitate opportunities for international collaboration in research and education
- Ensure Wales does not lose a penny of investment through the new Shared Prosperity Fund
Environment
- Tackle pollution and clean up the air we breathe with a Clean Air Act in the first 100 days
- Reward farming schemes that reduce carbon emissions and increase carbon retention through a new sustainable payment system
- Reform planning to promote the idea of 20-minute communities, reducing the use of cars and ensuring that all communities have access to biodiverse green spaces
Work and benefits
- Take meaningful steps towards becoming a Living Wage and Living Hours nation
- Deliver universal access to free childcare from the age of 9 months, including wrap-around care for children in school
- Pilot a trial of Universal Basic Income in Wales to provide a minimum standard of living for everyone
Housing
- Introduce a right to adequate housing
- End homelessness, investing in Housing First models and better linking up services
- Reform planning to improve energy efficiency and reduce consumption, saving the average household £600 per year
Transport
- Invest in safe routes to walk and cycle, allocating 10% of the transport budget in this area, to reduce pollution and encourage healthier habits
- Extend the fairer fares scheme and provide free transport for young people so that they can access work and educational opportunities
- Make sure public transport works for everyone, ensuring that bus routes meet community needs, ticket fares are affordable and flexible, that timetables meet different needs, and bus stops and train stations are accessible
Democracy
- Ensure decisions are made closest to the people they affect within a Federal UK based on mutual respect and trust
- Devolve justice and policing, whilst abolishing Wales' four Police and Crime Commissioners. Move towards a separate Welsh legal jurisdiction to allow Wales to move towards a more just and accountable system that prioritises effective rehabilitation
- Introduce a fairer voting system for the Senedd and all councils, ensuring that every vote matters
UKIP Wales
UKIP Wales
Leader
Neil Hamilton
Main policies
- End lockdown measures immediately
- Scrap the Welsh Baccalaureate and ensure parent choice on local English and Welsh stream schools
- A referendum on scrapping the Senedd and Welsh Government
Covid-19
- End lockdowns immediately, enabling all businesses to re-open, and individual freedom and travel to return
- Immediately halt ‘Vaccine Passport' proposals and reviews, which seek to make vaccination mandatory under the threat of marginalisation from society
- Restore civil liberties, such as freedom of travel, freedom of association and freedom to attend events that have been taken away from us during the pandemic
Economy
- Cut alcohol prices to reinvigorate the vital Welsh hospitality sector by cutting alcohol duty in licensed premises by 10%
- Stimulate the tourism industry by providing a £100m recovery and refurbishment fund for Welsh tourist attractions and hotels/guest houses
- Attract enterprise and investment into Wales by supporting the designation of Welsh free ports and other tax-free zones along new road constructions and in coastal areas
Education
- Scrap the Welsh Baccalaureate and make the teaching of Welsh optional through the whole curriculum
- Dismantle the four schools improvement consortia in Wales and redirect their annual £150m budget directly to schools
- Scrap tuition fees for students studying degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at university provided that, after graduation, they stay in the UK and work in those fields during part of their student loan repayment period
- Put power back into the hands of parents by restoring and respecting their right to remove their children from relationship and sex education lessons and will remove such lessons from primary schools altogether
NHS and care
- Introduce locally elected health boards, putting patients and families at the heart of NHS decision-making
- Secure more frontline NHS staff training places for British nationals
- Aim to detect cancer within 28 days of referral
- Improve ambulance times and mental health provision
- Reunite families with loved ones in care homes without delay
- Ensure that those who have paid sufficient tax and NI will not be forced to use their savings and home to pay for social care
EU relations
- Build on the untapped potential of the fishing industry in Wales by campaigning to take back full control of our waters
- Deport bogus asylum seekers who currently cannot currently be removed as a result of loopholes in the European Convention on Human Rights
- Defend the togetherness and integrity of the United Kingdom by ditching the border in the Irish Sea and the damaging Northern Ireland Protocol
Environment
- Oppose any new taxes on everyday human activity such as petrol and diesel vehicle usage, travel, farming and other industrial activity
- Scrap all subsidies for so-called "green" energy projects which transfer money from taxpayers to already rich environmental chancers
- Oppose all wind and solar farms as these desecrate the Welsh landscape and are costly and unreliable
- Continue to champion the growth of British farming, fishing, food safety and animal welfare standards
- Push ahead with a post-Brexit ban of live animal exports for slaughter
Work and benefits
- Seek to minimise the use of zero-hour contracts except where they are to the mutual benefit of employee and employer, and to ensure that everyone can earn a living wage
- Oppose the devolution of any further benefits to the Welsh Parliament.
- Free prescriptions, Council Tax and Discretionary (Social) assistance benefits will remain under UKIP
- End job discrimination and ensure applicants obtain roles based on merit, not on their ability to speak Welsh
Housing
- Bring housing demand under control by implementing firm and fair immigration control
- Give local people a greater say on major planning decisions in their communities through legally binding local referenda
- Where possible, incentivise local development by British companies to bring brownfield sites and derelict homes back into use, so that they can be released as affordable housing to local people
Transport
- Support the building of the M4 relief road
- Sell Cardiff airport immediately to mitigate any further loss to Welsh taxpayers, so that a new owner can operate it on a proper commercial basis
- Re-open train stations and railway lines to improve connectivity across Wales, where appropriate, by reviewing the Beeching Cuts
Democracy
- Deliver a long overdue referendum on scrapping the Senedd and Welsh Government at the earliest opportunity
- Campaign to scrap the Senedd and oppose any increases to the number of Senedd Members
- Repeal Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru's granting of votes to foreigners
- Ensure that the voting age in Wales and the UK is 18
Propel
Propel
Leader
Neil McEvoy
Main policies
- Create eight co-operative community banks, with a primary focus on investing in existing and new small and medium-sized local businesses
- Introduce a new Right to Buy scheme for social housing tenants
- Upgrade Wales' strategic road network to expressway standard, including a North-South National Expressway
Covid-19
- Establish an independent and transparent enquiry into the Welsh government's response to the coronavirus pandemic
- Introduce a Coronavirus Recovery Act to end all lockdowns in Wales, repeal all "draconian" policing powers, tackle coronavirus through social distancing measures and shielding the vulnerable, reclassify gyms as essential services and will stay open, as will schools, and a policy of full transparency of all data and decisions taken
- Renegotiate the furlough scheme to pay people impacted by Covid restrictions to work safely, while continuing to support shielding of the vulnerable
Economy
- Establish a Stock Exchange Cymru for listing Welsh companies who wish to publicly trade company shares
- Create a Welsh Sovereign Wealth Fund to develop a long-term, sustainable portfolio of investments, under the Santiago Principles
- Create eight co-operative community banks, with a primary focus on investing in existing and new small and medium-sized local businesses
- Reindustrialise Wales for the 21st Century through emphasis on developing high-tech, sustainable manufacturing for export
- Develop a new public procurement strategy to move towards 100% of public spending being awarded to Welsh companies
Education
- Schools will stay open and will not be locked down
- Pass a new Welsh Medium Education Act to bring together all existing legislative strands to provide unambiguous legal clarity in the future
NHS and care
- Implement Robbie's Law to make a duty of candour legally binding on medical practitioners and across the public sector, meaning they must be truthful in the event of mistakes or negligence
- Establish independent, non-party political and elected Public Services Investigators (PSI) to investigate complaints about public services in Wales
- Launch an independent audit of Welsh Government waste, fraud or corruption. Savings made will be redirected to the NHS.
EU relations
- Respect the results of the EU referendum, in which a majority of Welsh people voted to leave the European Union
Environment
- Establish a Welsh national energy company, majority owned by the Welsh Government and local authorities, for conventional extraction of Wales' known gas reserves to replace use of imported gas
- Cheaper energy supply will be used to support local employment in our key strategic industries, including steel and manufacturing
- Create a Sovereign Wealth Fund with the revenue generated to achieve long-term energy independence through investment in renewable energy
- Utilise Welsh universities to become a world leader in carbon capture and storage technology
- Reject the building of any nuclear reactors and veto any attempts for nuclear material produced outside Wales from being stored or dumped in the country
Work and benefits
- A new public procurement strategy will be adopted to move towards 100% of public spending being awarded to Welsh companies
Housing
- A ‘housing first' policy to end Welsh homelessness and close the second homes loophole, whereby second homes are reclassified as businesses to avoid local taxation
- Bring in an annual service charge cap for leaseholders, linked to the Consumer Price Index
- Not to grant building contracts to existing developers until they have rectified dangerous fire cladding in previous developments
- Introduce a new Right to Buy scheme for social housing tenants, with all revenue directed towards building more quality social housing
- Set compulsory targets for local authorities to bring long-term empty properties back into use
- Outlaw the renaming of Welsh-named properties to protect Welsh culture
- Guarantee that all military veterans who have seen active service will be prioritised for public housing and healthcare
Transport
- Upgrade Wales' strategic road network to expressway standard, including a North-South National Expressway
- Reinstatement of the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen and Afon Wen to Bangor railway lines
- A single ticketing system for public transport journeys
Democracy
- Create a Welsh constitution and bill of rights. The constitution will enact the principle of ‘modern direct democracy', meaning the public will have the right to bring about national and local referenda by collecting signatures
- The proportional Single Transferable Vote system for elections will be adopted for national and local elections
- Wales' twenty-two local authorities will be replaced with eight counties, largely based on Wales' preserved county borders. Each county will have a recognised capital, a directly elected governor and a community co-operative bank. Each county shall be considered to be sovereign, except where law-making power has been reserved to the Welsh parliament
- The Presiding Officer of the Senedd must sit as an independent to prevent political bias
- The Welsh First Minister will be directly elected
- Commission a feasibility study on the creation of an upper house for the Welsh Parliament, to be located in North Wales
- Support citizen journalism to provide a more diverse and accurate picture of politics and current affairs
Wales Green Party
Wales Green Party
Leader
Anthony Slaughter
Main policies
- No fees for first university degrees
- Wales to be carbon net zero by 2030, replacing fossil fuel with onshore and offshore renewable energy
- We will introduce free public transport for local journeys for those aged under 21
Covid-19
- Ensure that Wales' recovery from the pandemic is both fair and green
- Establish a public inquiry into the Welsh government's handling of the pandemic
- Provide further protections against transmission in schools by introducing effective protections to make them safer
Economy
- Deliver a sustainable Wales with an ambitious Green New Deal that creates tens of thousands of new jobs
- Ensure low rent and rates for existing small business, creative enterprises, and social and environmental start-ups to fill empty shops and bring back life to our high streets
- Call for the immediate introduction of a Universal Basic Income that shares prosperity across society
Education
- Stop the ongoing closure of small rural schools
- Provide access to electronic devices for all children who need to learn from home, and access to structured programmes of work if they are unable to attend school
- Widen access to higher and further education, ensuring that no fees are payable for initial degrees
NHS and care
- Safeguard the NHS as a free at the point of delivery, publicly-funded body
- Ensuring that health boards and local authorities have the funding needed to increase capacity across all areas of health and social care provision
- Ensure neighbourhood access to all treatments that can be made available locally
- Provision of social support for disabled people, older people and their carers will be given early and quickly, enabling all to live fulfilled lives
EU relations
- Work to strengthen our bonds with our European neighbours and allies at every level, promoting future positive opportunities and tackling the damage caused to Wales by Brexit
- Push for the UK government to seek ways to re-join the EU customs union as a matter of urgency
- Support efforts to re-join the Erasmus+ programme and work with all parties to maximise the educational and cultural opportunities available to our young people across Europe
Environment
- Tackle the climate emergency by ensuring that carbon emission reduction targets are met at the scale and pace needed, as demanded by the science
- Deliver a Green vision for net zero by 2030, replacing fossil fuels with onshore and offshore renewable energy and making necessary upgrades to the electricity grid
- Appoint a new Welsh Government Commissioner for Biodiversity and Animal Protection to reverse the decline of biodiversity in Wales
- Propose a bill to ban single-use plastic and legislation to progressively reduce all non-recyclable packaging waste, with a goal for an overall reduction on packaging
Work and benefits
- Advocate for a four-day week to share work opportunities and respond to the greater automation and digitisation of manufacturing and services
- Bring unions into local economy planning and provide workers with support for social and environmental business start-ups
- Improve wages and working conditions for front-line workers, partly through UBI, but also through improved public service and care workers pay settlements, workers' rights in collective bargaining, employment rights and health and safety
- End the ‘gig' economy in Wales and exploitative zero-hours contracts through UBI and the extension of worker's rights
Housing
- Build 12,000 new homes every year, built to the highest environmental and energy efficiency standards
- Ensure sufficient, ongoing investment to enable the retrofitting of existing housing stock to the highest energy efficient standards, lifting thousands out of fuel poverty
- Provide greater security for tenants by phasing out Assured Shorthold Tenancies in the private sector and provide those struggling with mortgage arrears with security of tenure through a ‘Right to Rent' scheme
Transport
- Create better, affordable, cleaner transport options for all, including access to better walking, cycling and other active travel options and affordable public transport
- Introduce a national transport strategy that responds to the climate emergency by reducing traffic and carbon emissions, while improving health, wellbeing and air quality
- Introduce free public transport for local journeys for those aged under 21 to engender the use of public transport
- Resist any attempts to reopen the proposals for the cancelled M4 relief road
Democracy
- Support the aspiration for an independent and fully democratic Wales, bringing decision making to those people most affected by those decisions
- Campaign for Wales to secede from the United Kingdom in any future referendum
- Strengthen local democracy by increasing citizen engagement through citizen's juries, people's assemblies, and similar bodies
This guide is a concise summary of the main policies being put forward by each party.
The policy areas featured in the guide were selected using polling data on what the public consider to be the most important issues facing the country.
More information on how the issues and parties were selected is in our methodology.
A full list of parties standing at the election will be published after nominations have closed.