PLAID CYMRU LEAD CANDIDATE SAYS WITHYBUSH AND BRONGLAIS MUST BE PROTECTED

PLAID CYMRU lead candidate Elin Jones has said West Wales needs a fairer deal from Cardiff Bay, as she pledged to fight for Withybush and Bronglais hospitals during a 30-minute interview at The Herald offices.

NEW CONSTITUENCY BATTLE

Jones, who is standing in the new Ceredigion Penfro constituency, sat down with Herald editor Tom Sinclair in Milford Haven as part of The Herald’s election interview series.

She said the election was unlike any she had fought before, with Labour and the Conservatives “very low down in the polls” and Plaid Cymru and Reform locked in a close contest.

Jones said: “There is far more jeopardy in this election. Every vote will count in a different way, because the election system is different as well.”

FAIRER DEAL FOR WEST WALES

She said Plaid Cymru’s central message was that Wales needed new leadership after 27 years of Labour-led government.

Jones said: “I think over the last 27 years Labour hasn’t got it right in Wales. They have concentrated too much on the M4 corridor, on those areas of South Wales, and not enough for West Wales and possibly even North Wales.”

She added that Plaid would seek to provide “a fairer representation of all parts of Wales and a fairer allocation of resources”.

CARDIFF BAY ESTABLISHMENT

Asked whether Plaid Cymru now looked like part of the Cardiff Bay establishment, Jones rejected the suggestion.

She said: “We’re certainly an alternative to Labour because we focus entirely on Wales. We have no leader elsewhere in the UK who tells us what to do.

“We have no Nigel Farage or Keir Starmer to decide what Plaid Cymru’s policies and priorities are.”

HOSPITALS TOP PRIORITY

Jones said she accepted that many people in Pembrokeshire felt decisions were made elsewhere.

She said: “People in Ceredigion will tell me that they feel the end of the road. There’s a lot of similarities in the issues both counties face.”

She said the clearest example was healthcare, particularly the future of Withybush Hospital in Haverfordwest and Bronglais Hospital in Aberystwyth.

Jones said: “I’ve absolutely no doubt in answering that question. It is to make sure that both Withybush and Bronglais retain their status and the services that they need to be full district general hospitals.

“We can’t allow these two big rural areas served by those two hospitals to have to travel for the services that they are meant to provide.”

NHS UNDER PRESSURE

On the NHS, Jones said waiting times, GP access, ambulance pressures and dentistry were among the biggest issues being raised on the doorstep.

She said Plaid Cymru would seek to reduce waiting lists through surgical hubs and would employ an additional 100 salaried GPs over the next four years.

Jones also said Wales needed to train more dentists, particularly for rural areas.

She said: “One of the commitments in the Plaid Cymru manifesto is to have a new dental school for rural Wales.

“We have to provide more dentists into the system to enable a better balance and more access to NHS dentistry, particularly and especially with children’s dentistry, which is particularly problematic and worrying.”

NEW HOSPITAL ROW

Jones criticised Labour for putting the idea of a new hospital between Carmarthen and Pembrokeshire back on the agenda shortly before the election.

She said: “I don’t know what the motivation of Labour was to put this back on the agenda so swiftly, just before the election. It certainly confused the picture again.

“What it does is throw into question again whether you invest in the hospitals you have or whether you really go for planning the next new hospital.”

Jones said there needed to be an early decision after the election.

She said: “We’ve got to settle this. I thought it had been settled for now last year by the decision by the health board, but Eluned Morgan and the Labour Party have just thrown it back up in the air.”

BATTLE WITH FIRST MINISTER

Asked why voters should choose her over Labour First Minister Eluned Morgan, who is also standing in the seat, Jones said she had spent years fighting to protect services at Bronglais.

She said: “I have spent the last 20 years in my area, originally Ceredigion, fighting for Bronglais Hospital and against the centralisation of services.

“I want to bring the same enthusiasm, and also an in-principle support for services needing to be retained locally.”

She added: “That should be the first point of any decision that a health board makes. It’s why keep it locally, not why centralise services.”

DIGITAL HEALTHCARE

Jones said she accepted that some specialist services would always require travel, but said routine care and life-saving services should be available locally.

She also called for more use of digital healthcare, saying patients in rural areas should be able to speak to specialists in Swansea, Cardiff or Morriston by video from local hospitals.

PLAID AND LABOUR

On Plaid Cymru’s previous co-operation with Labour, Jones said her party had tried to improve policies from opposition but was not responsible for Labour’s record in government.

She said: “We are not responsible for the decisions of the government, and we have not been, other than the time of coalition between 2007 and 2011.

“We have sought to make some things better at different times.”

Jones said Plaid’s ambition was to lead the next Welsh Government, ideally as a minority government.

She said: “Plaid’s ambition in this election is to form a government, to lead the government, to ultimately elect Rhun ap Iorwerth as the First Minister.”

REFORM CHALLENGE

Asked about the rise of Reform UK, Jones said some voters were angry with politics, but she believed many people in Wales did not want Nigel Farage to be able to claim victory after the election.

She said: “I’m absolutely convinced that there are more people in Wales, and in the door-knocking I’m doing in Pembrokeshire, who do not want to see Farage win this election.”

FARMING FRUSTRATION

On farming, Jones said the sector had faced major uncertainty since Brexit and criticised Labour’s handling of the Sustainable Farming Scheme.

She said farmers in Pembrokeshire were particularly concerned about bovine TB.

Jones said: “Farmers are desperate to see a government that is serious about tackling TB, because it has got a serious hold over farming.

“We need to bring a little bit more common sense into how we have regulations and rules around farming.”

She also criticised what she described as “farming by calendar”, saying farmers should be able to make decisions based on weather and conditions rather than fixed dates.

FAMILY FARMS

Jones, who was brought up on a family farm near Lampeter, said family farms were vital to rural Wales.

She said: “The countryside that we all love looks as great as it does because farmers and family farms continue to be the bedrock of rural areas.”

YOUNG PEOPLE LEAVING

On young people leaving West Wales, Jones said the area needed more housing, better-paid jobs, and stronger support for key local sectors including agriculture, tourism and renewable energy.

She said Milford Haven and the wider Pembrokeshire coast had major opportunities in offshore renewable energy.

On transport, Jones said rail and bus links in West Wales needed improvement.

She said: “We need to make rail investment in West Wales, whether that is the railway into Aberystwyth or the railway that links from Carmarthen into Pembrokeshire.

TRANSPORT LINKS

“We need to modernise those services and make them more frequent.”

RETURN TO PARTY POLITICS

Jones, who has served as Llywydd of the Senedd, said she felt “excited and invigorated” to return fully to party politics.

She said canvassing in Pembrokeshire had been “enlightening”, adding that the new constituency was “all to play for”.

PLAID FIRST MINISTER

Asked what she still wanted to achieve after almost three decades in Welsh politics, Jones said: “I want to achieve a Plaid Cymru First Minister.

“It is only when a party takes the role of the First Minister, the First Minister’s office, the First Minister’s leadership of government, that you can truly make the change that your party wants to see.”