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Plaid ready to replace Welsh Labour, says Rhun ap Iorwerth Plaid promises universal childcare if it wins Senedd election
(about 1 hour later)
Plaid Cymru is ready to replace Welsh Labour at the next Senedd election, leader Rhun ap Iorwerth will say. Rhun ap Iorwerth made the pledge as he told conference delegates he was ready to lead the country
At their annual conference the party leader will promise that he can deliver a "new government, with new energy and new ideas". Families who have children aged nine months to four years old will get free childcare if Plaid Cymru wins the next Welsh Parliament election, its leader has said.
Labour has led Wales since the start of devolution in 1999, and has dominated Welsh politics for a century. The next election takes place in May. Rhun ap Iorwerth made the pledge as he told conference delegates he was ready to lead the country "right now", replacing Labour as the party of government.
"Change now seems inevitable," he will say , calling on voters to back his party if they want to stop Nigel Farage's Reform UK from winning the election. Labour has led Wales since the start of devolution in 1999, and has dominated Welsh politics for a century. The next Senedd election takes place in May.
Plaid Cymru has played a key role during the life of devolution, being an occasional supporter of Labour governments. He said the "transformative" policy, offering at least 20 hours for 48 weeks a year by 2031, would be a "helping hand with the things that matter the most".
He told the conference that "Labour's time is up" and that Reform wanted to treat the Senedd as a "plaything" to gain an "electoral foothold".
Ap Iorwerth called on voters who wanted to stop Reform to back his party, accusing Nigel Farage of spurring on a summer of "simmering hatred".
Currently help with childcare costs is only available to families whose parents are in work, education or training, or to very young children who live in a Flying Start area.
The party says the policy would be worth £32,500 to families for the first four years of their child's life.
Families whose parents are in work, training or education would still get 30 hours a week for three to four-year-olds.
Plaid Cymru Leaders Speech
Plaid's plan would allow ineligible families to claim 20 hours a week for three to four-year-olds for 48 weeks of the year, and all families 20 hours for nine-month-olds to two years.
The party say that by the end of the five-year roll out it will spend roughly an extra £500m a year on childcare - bringing the total cost to £800m.
It says it can find the cash from the Welsh government's budget, with about £400m thought to be available in the next budget if other services increase by inflation.
The Welsh government has been under pressure to match the provision in England, where children between nine months and two years receive free child care.
The Bevan Foundation said earlier this year that high childcare costs were pushing more families into poverty and out of work.
Currently parents in Wales can apply for up to 30 hours of combined government funded nursery education and childcare a week - parents need to be in work, on maternity, paternity or other statutory leave, or in education or training.
That is only available to three and four-year-olds, and only if parents receive less than £100,000 a year combined.
Some eligible two-year-olds qualify for 12.5 hours of care a week under Flying Start, but it is not available nationally.
Plaid's plan would be in three stages. It is proposing to keep the existing 30 hour offer for three to four-year-olds, while extending the roll out of 12.5 hours a week for two-year-olds.
The next step would be to give 20 hours to parents who are not currently eligible - such as those not in work or training, or those earning more than £100,000 a year.
The party would then seek to increase the number of hours offered to children under the age of two year-on-year.
It would be rolled out over the life of the next Welsh Parliament, with the policy fully implemented in the 2030/31 financial year, under the plans.
Party sources, asked why parents whose incomes are above £100,000 should get free childcare, said services that are delivered universally are better, and that households across demographics are struggling.
Plaid says it would be the most generous childcare care offer in the UK.
Rhun ap Iorwerth told BBC Wales: "This can make a huge difference. It's a very, very important step in terms of helping families with the cost of living.
"This is universal, which marks it out from the system in England."
Ap Iorwerth said it was "money that we know we can afford".
'Plaything'
Plaid Cymru has played a key role during the life of devolution, being an occasional supporter of Labour governments since 1999.
It has been unable to beat Labour in an election - but recent opinion polling has suggested Plaid is vying with the party to win, as is Reform.It has been unable to beat Labour in an election - but recent opinion polling has suggested Plaid is vying with the party to win, as is Reform.
Rhun ap Iorwerth is now trying to position his party as a government-in-waiting.Rhun ap Iorwerth is now trying to position his party as a government-in-waiting.
Even if Plaid came first it is possible they would have to work with Labour or other parties in some form, with no party having ever won a majority in the Senedd.Even if Plaid came first it is possible they would have to work with Labour or other parties in some form, with no party having ever won a majority in the Senedd.
The party leader will tell his conference: "Today, with a historic nation-building opportunity before us, I'm going to set out the choice facing Wales - two very different futures but only one credible option. Rhun ap Iorwerth said Labour had "forgot where it came from who it was there to serve".
"Let's be clear. We're not here to act as Labour's conscience. We are not here to repair Labour. We are here to replace them. He called on his party to seize the "historic opportunity ahead of us" and turn it into "reality".
"We promise a new government, with new energy and new ideas to prove what every person who believes in Wales already knows - that things don't have to be this way." He said the UK had faced a summer of "simmering hatred", spurred on, he said, by Nigel Farage.
With some exceptions, Plaid Cymru has traditionally had more support in the Welsh-speaking heartlands of north and west Wales. "Farage and his followers drive the deliberate fragmentation of society, giving life to the bogeyman without whom they are nothing."
Ap Iorwerth says his government will be on the side of "young and old, urban and rural, north and south, Welsh speaker [and] non-Welsh speaker". He said Reform UK wanted to treat the Senedd as a "plaything" to gain "an electoral foothold".
"The time is now to stop Reform and elect a government more radical, more ambitious, more impatient to bring about positive change than any which has gone before it," he will say.
Plaid Cymru Leaders Speech
Analysis
Plaid Cymru is trying to position itself as the leading anti-Reform party for the next Senedd election - with Rhun ap Iorwerth as Wales' next first minister.
It sees Nigel Farage's party as its main competitor, rather than Labour, reflecting how they feel the UK political climate has changed since the last general election.
Despite being pro-independence, for them the 2026 vote will not be an independence election, and the issue is unlikely to be front and centre of its pitch as it tries to reach beyond its usual base.
So far it is not promising wholesale scrapping and rebuilding of how Wales works - something they think is risky in the current financial climate - although the party stresses it will still offer "radical" policies.
An example of that, the party would argue, is its promise of a payment to tackle child poverty.
Plaid faces a challenge in how they convince voters on the left to switch to them in an election fought with a new voting system designed to give people more choice.
The Greens and the Welsh Lib Dems will be among those hoping to motivate voters who want to put a roadblock in the way of Reform - as is Labour.
It will also be competing with a Reform party with lots of money and wide media coverage - two things Plaid has always struggled with.
On Radio Wales Breakfast, the Plaid leader said his party needed to show "that we will be careful, responsible in moving Wales forward after so many years of stagnation".
"There is absolute a need to build faith and to show people that we will be responsible in government
"But I would push back on the charge that there's no radicalism there."
He added: "We need to show that we will be careful, responsible in moving Wales forward after so many years of stagnation".
Ap Iorwerth said the 2026 election would not be about independence for Plaid.
"There's no referendum... in the next few years," he said.
But he said Plaid would establish a permanent commission on the constitutional future of Wales, taking the "discussion forward" from the independent commission on the issue, which had identified independence as an option for the country's future.