Election 2016 – The Manifestos: Labour

Together for Wales – English (pdf); Cymraeg (pdf)

• Introduce a New Treatment Fund to pay for advanced treatments for cancer and other serious diseases.
• Invest more money per head than England on health and social care.
• Create a single inspectorate for health and social care.
• Reduce waiting times by eliminating unnecessary hospital attendances and GP appointments by investing in community pharmacies to treat minor illnesses.
• “Make it easier” to get GP appointments.
• Consider a statutory duty for candour within the Welsh NHS to promote openness.
• Invest in integrated health and social care centres.
• Tackle stigma associated with mental illness and improve access to therapies.
• Introduce a “Wellbeing Bond” to invest in the best groups and activities which address sedentary lifestyles.
• Take action to eliminate zero hours contracts in the care sector.
• Double the capital allowance people can keep when entering residential care to £50,000.
• Military compensation payments will be disregarded from care cost calculations.
• Increase training and awareness of autism.

• Invest £2billion in new school and college buildings.
• An extra £100million to drive up school standards.
• Legislate to grant communities access to school buildings all week round.
• Establish a task force to look at improving school behaviour.
• Pilot “lunch and fun” clubs at schools during summer holidays.
• Create 100,000 all-age apprenticeships.
• All-age support for employability skills.
• Overhaul work experience and create a stronger youth work service.
• Provide 30 hours of free childcare per week (48 weeks in total) for working parents of 3 and 4 year olds.
• Will wait for the recommendations of the Diamond Review before changing tuition fee policies, but whatever it is, the package will be “better”that that offered to English students.
• Will create a new higher education funding body.
• Set a target of 95% of people getting digital skills necessary for the 21^st century.
• Supports lowering the voting age to 16.

• A business accelerator support scheme to support investment, marketing, advertising and networking.
• Support City Deals and work to make them a success; support Swansea Bay city deal bid.
• Create a Welsh Development Bank.
• Work with the UK Government to save the steel industry.
• Will not reorganise business support.
• Use regulatory powers on procurement to improve the prospects of Welsh businesses.
• Will promote the Mersey-Dee Alliance.

• Ensure every property has access to fast, reliable broadband.
• Demand 4G reception across 95% of Welsh customers by 2017.
• Support roll out of electrification of the north and south Wales mainlines.
• Support South Wales and North Wales metros.
• Supports some sort of M4 Newport bypass and will “deliver improvements” to other trunk roads.
• Establish a not-for-profit company to run the Wales & Borders rail franchise from 2018.
• Press for the devolution of Air Passenger Duty.
• Introduce “seamless ticketing” for public transport.
• Call for the UK Government to either devolve or scrap Severn crossing tolls.
• Will create a “more efficient” bus network once powers are devolved.

• Will offer “a tax cut” to all small businesses, which will help up to 70,000 businesses.
• Won’t increase income tax over the next Assembly term.

• Stretch carbon emission and landfill targets to ensure the Welsh Government becomes carbon neutral by 2020.
• Continue investment in flood defences.
• Support renewable energy projects, including tidal schemes.
• Review animal welfare legislation.
• Supports a science-led approach to bovine TB.
• Continue to deliver the existing Rural Development Plan.

• “Introduce measures” to prevent unnecessary closures of public facilities (i.e. libraries) and assist community ownership.
• Will press ahead with local government reorganisation to create “stronger, larger” local authorities, in addition to more powerful community councils.

• Deliver an extra 20,000 affordable homes over the next term.
• End “right-to-buy”.
• Repeal sections of the UK Government’s Trade Unions Bill which cover devolved areas.
• “Take further action” on the living wage and zero hour contracts.
• “Take action” to improve the diversity of public boards and local government.
• Improve the reach and capacity of credit unions.

• Continue to support the expansion of Welsh-medium education.
• Create a Music Endowment Fund to increase access to music education.
• Explore the possibility of an all-Wales Commonwealth Games bid in 2026.
• Aim for one million people to speak Welsh by 2050; establish as Language Usage Fund to help businesses invest in Welsh language services.
• Press for fair funding for both English and Welsh language broadcasting in Wales; explore options for supporting online and print media.

• Opposes devolving Attendance Allowance.

Major Faults :

• No costings – one of the first arguments they throw at other parties, yet they don’t do it themselves. *Shakes head*. This election was supposed to mark a growing up phase for devolution with tax and borrowing powers on the way. With the exception of the Lib Dems (and to a much lesser extent Plaid Cymru) the parties have been found wanting on the most basic issue facing them – paying for their policies. I’m not angry, just disappointed and for the establishment party to neglect it speaks volumes.
• A 24-page manifesto, with 12 pages of that being pictures, graphics, Carwyn’s foreword and a pointless addition from Nia Griffith. Let that sink in : Labour’s plan for the next five years is under 3,000 words long. For a governing party this is incredibly vague. I was genuinely shocked at how thin it is.
• The back-of-a-fag packet map for their proposed North Wales metro (which wasn’t officially part of the manifesto, admittedly) has already been derided.

• There’s far too much focus on what they did in the previous term, not what they want to do in the next one.
• Unnecessary hospital attendances and GP appointments – how will you determine what’s unnecessary or not?
• I don’t get the “lunch and fun” proposal. Isn’t that just like summer play schemes?
• Their Bovine TB proposals neither rule in or rule out a possible badger cull.
• Take further action on zero hours contracts – what action?
• Save the steel industry – how? What will you actually do?
• Will “introduce measures” to prevent unnecessary closures of public facilities – whatmeasures?
• “Make it easier” to get GP appointments – how?
• Take further action to improve diversity in public boards – what action?
• “Deliver improvements” to trunk roads – what improvements?
• ….again there are so many half-addressed policies – several on every page – I’ll have to leave it there. Though for some inexplicable reason, Labour have more detailed policies outlined in subject specific manifestos, particularly education.