Preseli Pembrokeshire’s Plaid Cymru candidate welcomes party manifesto launch (From Western Telegraph)

Preseli Pembrokeshire’s Plaid Cymru candidate welcomes party manifesto launch

12:57pm Thursday 15th April 2010

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Plaid Cymru’s candidate in Preseli Pembrokeshire has welcomed the launch of his party’s election manifesto on Tuesday.

Henry Jones-Davies said: “I am delighted to see that we are fighting this election with policies designed to help people, support communities and to protect services and jobs in Wales.

“One of our main priorities is to ensure that the National Assembly budget is protected so that key areas such as health and education are not hit by the sort of savage cuts being discussed by the London-based parties. We did not fight so hard to protect Withybush hospital in 2007 just to see it lost now to pay for the errors of the city bankers.

“Other candidates will have to explain how they can protect public services in Wales and support their parties plans to inflict deep cuts on public expenditure. Plaid alone is calling for more funding for Wales, not less as it has been shown that we are consistently short changed to the tune of £300 million a year against what we need

“It is small and local business that will grow us out of this recession and as such we want to see investment in broadband and rail links to help support its growth in Wales, as well as an Action Plan created to help develop green industries for the future. There is too much talk and not enough serious action on the green economy at present, but this is a sector that can offer much to Pembrokeshire.

“We are also calling for a rise in the basic state pension to ensure that all of our pensioners have a decent standard of living to provide dignity in old age. Another of our priorities is to see better care and services made available to armed-service veterans, who are all too often left to fend for themselves after experiencing traumatising events whilst on active service.

“Our proposals are people-centred and about creating a caring and sustainable society which does not sacrifice what is important for the sake of pandering to big business and the banks. Even in today's difficult times, we must defend those who are vulnerable and make sure that the public services they depend on are still available to them.

“In the event of a hung parliament, these policies will be the price that any party seeking to form a new government will have to pay for our support and, if elected, my support on behalf of the people of Pembrokeshire.”