Payments for children and 100 new GPs in Plaid election manifesto. 16 hours ago. David DeansWales political reporter. Plaid Cymru says it will deliver universal childcare from the age of nine months and surgical hubs to cut waiting lists if it wins the next Senedd election.. Party leader Rhun ap Iorwerth unveiled his party’s election manifesto in Wrexham on Thursday, calling it a “radical and responsible” plan for government.. Plans include a £10 weekly payment for up to 15,000 children up to six years old in low income households, and up to 100 new GPs to provide out of hours care.. And a national commission would be established to lay the “foundations” for a future plans for Welsh independence.. The party has ruled out holding an independence referendum in a first term of a Plaid Cymru government.. Plaid said it will concentrate resources on its “key priorities” of cutting NHS waits, supporting families with the cost of living, creating jobs and raising education standards.. Prominent think tank the Institute for Fiscal Studies warned that Plaid had omitted to explain how it would afford its pledges.. Matthew Horwood. Speaking at the launch of his manifesto at a restaurant in Wrexham, ap Iorwerth said: “The transformational programme set out in this manifesto is radical and responsible.. “Ambitious, yes, but rigorously costed and fully deliverable.”. He said Gerry Holtham, an economist who previously led a review into Wales’ funding by the UK Treasury, had judged that Plaid’s plans were “detailed, careful and crucially achievable”.. The party, in common with all others who have published their manifestos so far, has not published lists of how much individual policies will cost.. Ap Iorwerth accused rivals in Reform of having plans that were “unserious, uncosted and unkind” and accused Labour of “managerlialism and missed opportunities”.. “Our pledge is to govern with hope – to govern with humility, to govern with a kind of urgency and impatience which gets things done,” he said.. “No more bending to Westminster’s will. No more toeing the London party line.”. Ap Iorwerth told BBC Wales he would want no one waiting for more than two years for NHS treatment within the first year of a Plaid Cymru government.. He promised to bring waiting times “down to pre-pandemic levels” within a four year term, which he says would halve the number of treatments in lists currently.. “We’ve identified significant funding in that first year, both capital and resource, to make sure that we inject the necessary funds,” he said.. Plaid suggested it would phase its childcare policy – BBC Wales was told this would be over the course of the next Senedd term which ends in 2030.. The party’s manifesto said it would “build progressively to 20 hours a week for all children aged nine months to four years, for 48 weeks a year”.. It said it would do so “while honouring the existing 30-hour offer for those children aged three and four whose parents are in work, education or tra
