£4bn NHS investment, £2 bus fares and 100,000 new homes: Welsh Labour’s manifesto summarised

First Minister Eluned Morgan has promised a “new chapter” for Wales with a “new generation of Labour politicians” as she unveiled Welsh Labour’s election manifesto.

While acknowledging the frustration some voters feel with politics, Morgan said Welsh Labour’s vision is “full of hope for tomorrow” and pledged to deliver “progress people can actually feel”.

The manifesto set out five key pledges:

• Tackling the cost of living through cheaper bus fares, lower energy bills and expanding childcare
• Jobs for the future with an energy independent Wales, and a new lifelong retraining guarantee
• A new deal for the NHS with £4 billion to build new hospitals, same-day mental health support and a new focus on women’s health
• Protecting the planet by cleaning up our rivers and seas, growing our National Forest and cracking down on fly-tipping
• A fairer future ending homelessness, a pay rise for the lowest paid workers and raising school standards

Morgan said: “This manifesto sets out a serious plan. It builds on everything Wales has achieved through devolution and looks ahead to the next chapter.

“The country I know and love has always been at its best when we combine ambition with fairness, when we invest in people and communities, when we work together to build something better.

“That is the Wales I believe in. A Wales that offers opportunities to every community and every generation, where there is fairness you can feel – and with your support, that is the Wales we will build together.”

The manifesto covers policies from the health service and social care to culture and the Welsh language. LabourList has gone through the manifesto to highlight the key policies in each section.

Economy and skills

• Publish a new industrial strategy for Wales in our first year, focused on the huge opportunities in clean energy, advanced manufacturing, the creative industries, the digital economy and life sciences
• Create a National Jobs Council, chaired by the First Minister, to drive job creation under the industrial strategy for Wales
• Boost productivity and reduce inequality through the Local Growth Fund, investing more than £500 million
• Introduce a new lifelong retraining guarantee to make sure workers can access the training they need in their career, responding to major economic transitions
• Deliver 100,000 all-age apprenticeships over the next Senedd term, targeted at sectors such as construction and renewable energy

Health

• Invest £4 billion in a Hospitals of the Future Fund to build state-of-the-art new hospitals, including replacing Wrexham Maelor Hospital and University Hospital Wales, and a major hospital development in West Wales
• Recruit, train and retain the staff our NHS needs through a long-term workforce plan
• Improve access to the NHS dentistry by making more appointments available through the new contract, train the dental workforce Wales needs and back plans for a new dental school
• Continue to cut long waits and meet the 26-week waiting time target over the course of the next Senedd by supporting the NHS to provide more appointments, tests and operations
• Transform mental healthcare to provide easy-to-access, same-day services so everyone can get the right support when they need it

Social Care

• Take the next steps as part of our phased plan to create a National Care and Support Service for Wales
• Guarantee all social care workers are fairly rewarded by introducing legally enforceable fair pay agreements for people working in both adult and children’s social care
• Create a Social Care Academy to help train the care workforce
• Deliver 45,000 home adaptations a year, helping people to continue living independently and improving their quality of life
• Increase support for unpaid carers and provide 16,000 short breaks for unpaid carers each year

Education

• Boost standards in our schools through a relentless focus on excellence in literacy and numeracy as the building blocks of all learning
• Deliver a fairer deal for school support staff by setting up a new statutory School Support Staff Negotiating Body, with year-round pay and access to professional learning as its first priorities
• Establish an annual fund for the most urgent school repairs while continuing our transformational school and college building programme
• Further improve access to school counselling services and further embed a Whole School Approach to mental health and well-being
• Extend free school meals in secondary school at least to all households receiving Universal Credit and make school meals healthier and more nutritious

Children and young people

• Use all our devolved powers to tackle child poverty under the Child Poverty Strategy for Wales
• Phase-in funded childcare to babies aged nine-months-old and make childcare easier to access over the course of the next Senedd, creating 20,000 new funded childcare spaces
• Introduce a new Right to Read and Play for every child in Wales, with automatic library membership at birth, a network of 100 toy libraries and a new Children’s Reading and Play Fund to get more toys into libraries and more children’s books into libraries and schools
• Make dentistry and optometry services free for care leavers up to the age of 25
• Pilot a new mentorship scheme to help build young people’s skills and confidence

Digital

• Make Wales a world leader in ethical AI – with a Responsible AI Charter committing Welsh public services to safe, ethical, transparent AI, always in social partnership
• Capitalise on the new AI Growth Zones, building the digital infrastructure Wales needs to support more tech-based businesses and high-skilled jobs
• Launch a new national AI curriculum so everyone can access basic AI skills for the workplace through bitesize course
• Appoint a Minister for Digital to strengthen leadership in digital transformation and co-ordinate a fair digital transition
• Connect at least 10,000 more households to high-speed broadband, especially in rural Wales

Energy

• Work towards our vision for an energy independent Wales built on clean and homegrown energy, helping to protect Wales from unstable global energy markets
• Stick to clear underpinning principles to keep people’s energy bills as low as possible, create new, well-paid jobs in the energy sector and make sure local communities feel the benefits from renewable energy projects
• Make the case for the devolution of powers over the Crown Estate
• Create a new Welsh Wealth Fund for Future Generations, using income from renewable energy on public land to invest in infrastructure
• Make heat pumps a viable option for more homes by rolling out our new regulations abolishing the 3m rule and training the skilled workforce we need to install them

Transport

• Introduce a £2 cap on adult bus fares
• Roll out more than 100 new bus routes and an unprecedented increase in bus services
• Deliver a pipeline of new stations, upgraded rail lines and improved train services as part of the £14 billion plan for Wales and the Borders rail in partnership with the UK Labour government
• Take the next steps to deliver the South Wales Metro, including more frequent services on the Coryton line
• Continue to develop Network North Wales and a metro for the Swansea Bay Region

 Homes and Communities

• End homelessness by 2034, with a milestone to have no children placed in bed and breakfast accommodation by 2030
• Unlock a new decade of housebuilding to deliver 100,000 homes over the next ten years, including a minimum of 40,000 warm, low carbon homes for rent in the social sector
• Establish a new National Housing Taskforce to reform the planning system and contracting and drive faster adoption of modern methods of construction
• Strike a fairer deal for private renters, including a guarantor scheme to enable more people to secure a rental property
• Give greater powers to local authorities to prevent the over-saturation of certain businesses like vape shops, barbers, betting shops and fast-food outlets on our high streets

A greener Wales

• Cut carbon emissions to meet the current carbon budget and the next, working towards our ambition for a net zero public sector by 2030
• Protect 30 percent of our lands and seas for nature by 2030 and set new, robust and legally binding targets for restoring nature
• Grow the National Forest for Wales and create the first ever National Forest Trail from North Wales to South Wales, planting more trees than ever before and increasing their protections
• Maintain record funding for flood defences to protect homes and businesses
• Make more than 400 disused coal tips safer, setting up the Disused Tips Authority in Merthyr Tydfil and harnessing new technologies in coal tip safety

Culture

• Continue to boost support for arts, culture and creative organisations by investing in the Priorities for Culture
• Safeguard the future of nationally and regionally significant cultural venues like Venue Cymru and the National Museum of Wales with capital investment
• Launch a Welsh Year of Music to celebrate grassroots music, including launching a Blue Plaque programme to mark iconic music venues
• Support major events coming to Wales as a showcase for our nation, including hosting the Tour de France in 2026 and the Euros in 2028, and ensure venues in Wales are included in a bid to host the 2040 Olympics
• Support Wrexham’s bid for UK City of Culture 2029 and promote Aberystwyth’s status as a UNESCO City of Literature

Cymraeg (Welsh language)

• Expand provision of free Welsh lessons both in person and online, including for parents whose children are in Welsh-medium education
• Strengthen consideration of the Welsh language across policy areas and work to extend Welsh language standards to UK government bodies
• Support more people to use Welsh at work, strengthen Welsh language use and rights in work and boost the number of apprenticeships delivered in Welsh
• Open more opportunities for children and young people to learn through the medium of Welsh by implementing the Welsh Language and Education Act
• Always use Welsh language place names in government-funded housing developments

A more equal Wales

• Tackle poverty by putting our Welsh Benefits Charter into law, making sure everyone in Wales can access their full entitlement to financial support
• Work to eliminate the gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps by 2050, and set a target to achieve this earlier in the devolved public sector
• Act to ensure all women in Wales feel respected, valued and safe by making the next four-year VAWDASVB Strategy the most ambitious ever, to include creating a Fund to Leave to support people fleeing domestic violence and guaranteed paid leave for domestic abuse survivors employed in the public sector
• Work in close partnership with policing and other partners to reduce anti-social behaviour and support victims and survivors of crime, including shopworkers
• Protect Wales’ status as a Nation of Sanctuary to support those who arrive here to rebuild their lives after fleeing persecution and war, assisting them to integrate into Welsh life and bring positive contributions to our nation

The next chapter of devolution

• Make the case for a Constitutional Reform Act to protect devolution and strengthen Wales’ status within the UK
• Continue to call for the repeal of the UK Internal Market Act introduced by the Tory government
• Continue to pursue more powers for Wales, including devolution of the Crown Estate, and youth justice and probation as a first step towards devolution of justice and policing
• Commit not to raise Welsh rates of income tax over the next Senedd term and carefully explore the case for expanding Wales’ income tax powers
• Make council tax fairer and explore expansion of the council tax debt rescue scheme piloted in Merthyr Tydfil, Blaenau Gwent and Newport

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