Welsh election 2021: Who should I vote for? Compare party policies - BBC News
Compare where the parties stand on key issues - from Covid-19 and the NHS to education and the environment.
Political parties in Wales are campaigning ahead of the election on 6 May.

To help you decide who you might vote for, use this policy guide to compare where the parties stand on the key issues.

What are the parties promising you? Select an issue and a party to see their policies Including future containment measures and the rollout of vaccines. Covering school and university funding, salaries, school testing and inspection, and university tuition fees. Including trade and our future relationship with Europe. Including the future of devolution in Wales.
• A new Young Persons' Guarantee of a place in work, education, training or self-employment for everyone in Wales under the age of 25, including creating 125,000 new apprenticeships
• Guarantee the Real Living Wage for all social care staff and keep the cap on non-residential care fees and maintain the £50,000 capital limit
• Invest £800m in new trains to ensure that by 2023, 95% of journeys on our rail network will be on new trains
• Continue to work with NHS staff, armed forces and volunteers to get people vaccinated
• Further support Welsh workers and businesses with what it says is the most generous financial support in the UK
• Launch programme of catch-up support for public services, including employing over 1,800 additional tutoring staff in schools and a new medical school in North Wales
• Continue business rates holiday for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses for a further 12 months, in combination with the Small Business Rates Relief scheme will mean more than 70,000 businesses will pay no rates at all in 2021-22
• Establish a new Young Persons' Guarantee of a place in work, education, training or self-employment for everyone in Wales under the age of 25, including creating 125,000 new apprenticeships
• New curriculum for Wales starting in 2022, focusing on higher standards of literacy and numeracy, ensuring our young people are more digitally and bilingually competent, and supporting pupils' mental and emotional health
• Support for families to cover uniform and school equipment costs, and guaranteed free school meals through the holidays during the pandemic
• Guarantee the Real Living Wage for all social care staff and keep the cap on non-residential care fees and maintain the £50,000 capital limit
• Stress the importance of our economic, political and social links with the EU allowing businesses to trade Welsh goods across Europe
• Continue with the implementation of the International Strategy which seeks to raise Wales' profile, grow the economy and establish Wales as a globally responsible nation
• Create jobs across Wales with green energy, environmental protections and tourism
• Abolish the use of the most littered single-use plastics, protecting the seas and countryside
• Create a National Forest for Wales, for the benefits of equality and mental health as well as the environment
• Put the social partnership approach into law, and make Wales a genuinely Fair Work Nation
• Continue to push the UK government to support Welsh families in areas it is responsible for and withdraw planned cuts to Universal Credit
• Build thousands of new low-carbon, affordable homes for rent and with it, create thousands of new jobs
• Keep the Wales and the Borders rail franchise in public ownership
• Invest £800m in new trains to ensure that by 2023, 95% of journeys on our rail network will be on new trains
• Invest in communities and infrastructure to help ensure more and more journeys are taken by foot or by bike
• Believe that the United Kingdom is a voluntary association of four nations, where power should be dispersed and not centralised, and where as much as possible decisions are made as close to people as they can be taken
• Support a constitutional convention to develop a new settlement for the United Kingdom
• Build the M4 Relief Road, upgrade the A55 in North Wales to reduce pinch points and the A40 to boost the economy of West Wales
• No new powers for the Welsh Government
• Build 100,000 houses over the next decade, including 40,000 social homes, with all new homes carbon neutral by 2026
• Appoint a dedicated Covid-19 Recovery Minister in the Welsh government to oversee all areas of coronavirus recovery, including the vaccine rollout across Wales with every adult offered both doses by the end of October, and delivery of any booster shots
• Establish routes to support for people suffering with mental health problems due to the pandemic, especially NHS staff, care workers and families who have experienced trauma due to patients being alone at the time of their death
• Review and open funding for businesses on a needs basis, ending the first come first serve nature of current support for Welsh businesses by the Welsh government
• Create a one-stop shop for businesses in Wales by bringing together the Development Bank of Wales, Business Wales and recreating the best aspects of the Welsh Development Agency
• Establish Innovate Wales, based in north Wales, a one-stop shop for firms to support new enterprises, and encourage existing businesses to grow and export
• Introduce a comeback package for seaside and market towns to level up with a Tourism Towns Fund, enabling communities to improve their local economy by attracting new visitors with free WiFi or improved transport links
• Establish a National Mission to grow the Welsh economy, with a clear target to create 65,000 new jobs. Once achieved, we will cut the basic rate of income tax to support hardworking families
• End the underfunding of our young people and guarantee that more funding directly reaches the classroom
• Fully scrap the Welsh Baccalaureate to allow pupils to focus on GCSEs, A-levels and vocational courses
• Introduce different routes to excellence with the expansion of apprenticeships, including degree apprenticeships
• Develop a clear plan to enable the Welsh NHS to clear the waiting list backlog that has further deteriorated during the pandemic, utilising cross-border and independent facilities to speed up treatment
• Ensure that no one should wait more than one year for treatment in the NHS with our Patient Guarantee
• Deliver 1,200 more doctors, 3,000 more nurses and other professionals through our ‘Retain, recruit and train' programme
• Transform mental health services by treating it with the same priority as physical health
• Support businesses to access new opportunities following Brexit using our one-stop shop to access investment
• Work with schools and universities to ensure that the most disadvantaged in our society are able to access the new Turing Scheme
• Ensure that the Welsh government, with the UK government, liaises closely with the Republic of Ireland to ensure smooth imports and exports
• Introduce a Clean Air Act to cut pollution and reduce the incidence of respiratory disease
• Ban single-use plastics for non-medical use such as plastic wet wipes, straws, stirrers, disposable cups and cotton buds, as well as creating a drinks deposit return scheme
• Tackle climate change by ensuring Wales meets our net-zero carbon emissions target by 2050
• Establish a single point of access for benefits and support scheme administered in Wales, exploring the possibility of automatically passporting Universal Credit claimants to this
• Introduce a ‘housing first' model for supporting people who are homeless
• Support our older communities by maintaining free prescriptions, free bus travel and promote free entry to Cadw sites and pilot free rail travel for the over 75s
• Encourage aspiration by scrapping Land Transaction Tax for first-time buyers and raising the threshold to £250,000
• Restore a reformed right to buy so more people can benefit from the security of owning their own home
• Build 100,000 houses over the next decade, including 40,000 social homes, with all new homes carbon neutral by 2026
• Build the M4 Relief Road, upgrade the A55 in north Wales to reduce pinch points and the A40 to boost the economy of west Wales
• Help young people access education, training and employment with free bus travel and discounted rail travel for 16-24 year olds
• No increase in the number of Members of the Senedd in the next five years and without support of the public
• No new powers for the Welsh government - it needs to get on and use the power it has rather than push for more
• Work together with the UK government - not against it - to level-up the whole of Wales
• A guaranteed job, on at least a Real Living Wage, or high-quality training for every 16–24-year-old
• Build the best National Health and Care Service by reducing waiting lists, building new cancer diagnostic centres and raising the hourly wage of care workers to at least £10
• Create a £6bn Green Economic Stimulus, which, together with investments in healthcare, education, and the local economy, will generate 60,000 jobs over the next Senedd year term
• Prioritising educational and wellbeing recovery by recruiting 2,000 extra teachers and 2,000 extra support staff in schools across Wales
• A guaranteed job, on at least a Real Living Wage, or high-quality training for every 16–24-year-old
• Zero interest loans to support small businesses to bounce back post-Covid
• Create Prosperity Wales, a dynamic new economic development agency, dedicated to growing small and medium-sized Welsh firms, boosting exports and creating jobs in every community
• Investing in 4,500 extra teachers and support staff, reducing class sizes, and valuing the teaching profession
• Establish world-class early years education and childcare, offering 30 hours a week, free for all children from 24 months to school age
• Reduce the maximum tuition fee chargeable to Welsh-domiciled students at Welsh universities to £7,500
• Build a National Health and Care Service where personal care is free at the point of need
• Make improving mental health a central goal, and establish a network of Youth Wellbeing Centres for mental and physical health support for young people throughout Wales
• Investigate ways for Wales to continue to participate in the EU Erasmus programme
• Develop a new export strategy for Welsh business, focused on EU regions and nations like Ireland and Basque Country where there are already established relationships
• Start planning for an independent Wales to join the European Free Trade Association
• Set a Wales-wide mission to generate 100% of electricity and reach zero emissions by 2035
• Introduce a Nature Act with statutory targets to restore biodiversity by 2050
• Commit to providing good quality and safe green space within a five-minute walk of all Welsh households
• £35 per child weekly top-up payment to families living below the poverty line
• Provide a lifelong learning entitlement for retraining worth £5,000 for everyone over 25
• Launch the most ambitious public homes programme since the 1970s, creating 50,000 genuinely affordable homes to rent and buy over the next five years
• Permanently end rough sleeping on our streets through a rapid re-housing policy
• End no-fault evictions and create a new system of fair rents for people in private rental accommodation
• Cut the bills of average Council Tax payers, and use planning and tax powers to tackle the second homes crisis
• Aim to halve the proportion of journeys made by car by 2030
• Allocate at least 50 per cent of all capital transport spend on improving bus and train services
• Create a new west coast rail line, connecting the north and south
• Give the people of Wales a say on their future by holding an independence referendum by 2026
• Create a statutory National Commission to oversee the process leading to the referendum, including drafting a Welsh Constitution, involving widespread consultation
• Seek the immediate devolution of power over currently reserved matters, including policing and criminal justice, rail, welfare, broadcasting, large energy projects, and the Crown Estate
• Give parents the right to take their children on holiday for up to ten days
• Never have a full scale lockdown for Wales or any part of Wales
• Establish expert advisery group looking at wider impact of policy on health system and economy
• Never introduce vaccine passports and remove guidance for wearing masks in class
• Free up 1.2m small businesses and self-employed from paying coporation tax
• Create an internet sales tax and scrap business rates in Wales
• Make financial education a mandatory subject for all school children at GCSE level
• Allow parents to have the flexibility to take children out of the classroom for up to 10 days for those not in their GCSE years
• Invest to clear the backlog of NHS waiting times over the next four years
• Invest in community services to ensure everyone gets the support they need on mental health and normalise mental illness with powerful health promotion campaigns
• Develop a medical model that focuses on prevention, recovery and co-production as well as cure
• Develop a workforce policy that ensures adequate numbers of high quality and motivated staff are kept and recruited
• Work with our EU partners as well as the Rest of the World to develop trade deals that benefit both parties
• Support and invest in tidal energy to make Wales a world leader in this technology
• Work with Local Authorities to create an Electric Vehicle charging network model that funds public services
• Create a National Forest for Wales with open access to all citizens
• Oppose Wales introducing higher rates of income tax than other parts of the UK
• Nationally would reduce the number of people paying income tax by increasing the minimum threshold to £20,000, from £12,500 per annum
• Keep the current legislation that allows local authorities to charge up to 100% extra on empty and second homes, but introduce a policy to ensure the money raised goes directly back to the communities affected
• Introduce planning permission for home owners that wish to seek a change of purpose for that home to a holiday let business
• Make it easier for local people to build a home in their local village or town
• Build new rail infrastructure in South Wales, including SE Wales Transport Commission recommendation for six new train stations and Valley line upgrades
• We will actively campaign to remain a firm member of the United Kingdom
• Oppose any increase in the number of Senedd members
• Hold a seperate election for the first minister
• Seek to devolve some powers of Welsh government to councils
• A UK-led response rather than a fragmented four nation approach
• Powers over economic development should be devolved from Cardiff Bay to local area across Wales in Local enterprise partnerships.
• Councils should then work in partnership with business and employers, who know their areas, in Local Enterprise Partnerships.
• Lower council tax could help poor areas more than third sector grants
• Restore consistency of exams and grading with England
• Devolve matter of whether Welsh should be compulsory in non-Welsh medium schools to councils
• Put doctors on same pay scales as counterparts in England
• Keep free prescriptions for the less well off, children, pregnant women and retirees, but use money paid for prescriptions by others for tackling the huge waiting lists in NHS following the Covid crisis
• Support Brexit on the basis determined by UK government following the vote by Wales and aim to leave EU
• Support transition to new technologies in agriculture that could reduce adverse environmental impacts
• Oppose the devolution of benefit administration to avoid putting at risk the circa 15% of GDP fiscal transfer from rest of UK to Wales
• Build the M4 Relief Road as supported by Public Inquiry and working with Newport city council supported by UK government
• Give tax powers back to Westminster as per statement on ballot paper in 2011 referendum that "the Assembly cannot make laws on ... tax whatever the result of this vote"
• £500m to help our high streets, town and city centres, and support small businesses to thrive and adapt
• An investment of £1bn per year to fight the climate emergency, create new green jobs, and cut household energy bills
• Create a 24/7 crisis mental health service to ensure that people can recieve care when they need it
• £500m to help our high streets, town and city centres, and support small businesses to thrive and adapt
• Freeze business rates for the next 5 years and create an investment relief fund to enable businesses to invest.
• Work towards re-joining the Single Market and Customs Union, as part of the scheduled renegotiation with the EU in 2025, or earlier should the opportunity arise
• Tackle holiday hunger by providing free school meals throughout the school holidays for the next 5 years and investing in Food and Fun programmes during school summer holidays
• Expand degree apprenticeships, including at postgraduate level, diversifying the subject areas available, and creating more routes into employment
• Personal Learning Accounts to realise a right to lifelong learning, allowing people to upskill and retrain
• Implement the new Curriculum for Wales and ensure it has the resources needed to make it a success
• Improve opportunities for disadvantaged learners to learn over school holidays and ensure they get a good meal
• End digital exclusion at all levels of education, investing in devices and digital skills
• Create a 24/7 crisis mental health service to ensure that people can recieve care when they need it
• Support our carers by paying all social care workers the Real Living Wage
• Putting in place properly funded catch-up plans for our health and care services so health workers and patients have certainty about their care, for example cancer and stroke services
• Push for tariff free trade as part of the Single Market and Customs Union
• Promote and facilitate opportunities for international collaboration in research and education
• Ensure Wales does not lose a penny of investment through the new Shared Prosperity Fund
• An investment of £1bn per year to fight the climate emergency, create new green jobs, and cut household energy bills
• Pass a Green Homes Act to create a new green standard for Welsh homes and cut average household bills by up to £500 per year
• Tackle pollution and clean up the air we breathe with a Clean Air Act in the first 100 days
• Take meaningful steps towards becoming a Living Wage and Living Hours nation
• Deliver universal access to free childcare from the age of 9 months, including wrap-around care for children in school
• Pilot a trial of Universal Basic Income in Wales to provide a minimum standard of living for everyone
• Build 30,000 new social homes for rent over the next 5 years to ensure everyone has access to a safe place to call home
• Introduce a plan to end homelessness and invest in services to help prevent people being pushed into homeless and help to maintain a home
• Continue to invest in the Rent to Own scheme that has helped people to own their own home for the first time
• Introduce free bus transport for every young person under the age of 25 by 2025
• Invest in safe routes to walk and cycle, allocating 10% of the transport budget in this area, to reduce pollution and encourage healthier habits
• Make sure public transport works for everyone. Our Bus Bill will ensure that bus routes meet community needs, ticket fares are affordable and flexible, timetables meet different needs, and bus stops and train stations are accessible.
• Ensure decisions are made closest to the people they affect within a Federal UK based on mutual respect and trust
• Devolve justice and policing, whilst abolishing Wales' four Police and Crime Commissioners. Move towards a separate Welsh legal jurisdiction to allow Wales to move towards a more just and accountable system that prioritises effective rehabilitation
• Introduce a fairer voting system for the Senedd and all councils, ensuring that every vote matters
• A referendum on scrapping the Senedd and Welsh Government
• Scrap Welsh government's 'Nation of Sanctuary' policy for asylum seekers and refugees
• End lockdowns immediately, enabling all businesses to re-open, and individual freedom and travel to return
• Immediately halt ‘Vaccine Passport' proposals and reviews, which seek to make vaccination mandatory under the threat of marginalisation from society
• Restore civil liberties, such as freedom of travel, freedom of association and freedom to attend events that have been taken away from us during the pandemic
• Cut alcohol prices to reinvigorate the vital Welsh hospitality sector by cutting VAT on alcohol served in licensed premises.
• Stimulate the Welsh tourism industry by providing a £100m recovery and refurbishment fund for Welsh tourist attractions and hotels/guest houses
• Attract enterprise and investment into Wales by supporting the designation of Welsh free ports and other tax-free zones along new road constructions and in coastal areas
• Scrap the Welsh Baccalaureate and make the teaching of Welsh optional through the whole curriculum
• Dismantle the four schools improvement consortia in Wales and redirect their annual £150m budget directly to schools
• Scrap tuition fees for students studying degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics at university provided that, after graduation, they stay in the UK and work in those fields during part of their student loan repayment period
• Put power back into the hands of parents by restoring and respecting their right to remove their children from relationship and sex education lessons and remove such lessons from primary schools altogether
• Introduce locally elected health boards, putting patients and families at the heart of NHS decision-making
• Dramatically increase the number of training places for British doctors, nurses and paramedics and ensure that the required number of nurses and doctors are trained in Wales and the UK rather than imported from abroad.
• Reunite families with loved ones in care homes without delay
• Ensure that those who have paid sufficient tax and NI will not be forced to use their savings and home to pay for social care
• Build on the untapped potential of the fishing industry in Wales by campaigning to take back full control of our waters
• Deport bogus asylum seekers who currently cannot currently be removed as a result of loopholes in the European Convention on Human Rights
• Defend the togetherness and integrity of the United Kingdom by ditching the border in the Irish Sea and the damaging Northern Ireland Protocol
• Lobby the UK Government to scrap the Climate Change Act (2008)
• Scrap all subsidies for so-called "green" energy projects which transfer money from taxpayers, including the poorest in society, to already rich environmental chancers
• Champion the growth of British farming, fishing, food safety and animal welfare standards
• Push ahead with a post-Brexit ban of live animal exports for slaughter
• Seek to minimise the use of zero-hour contracts except where they are to the mutual benefit of employee and employer, and to ensure that everyone can earn a living wage
• Oppose the devolution of any further benefits to the Welsh Parliament.
• Free prescriptions, Council Tax and Discretionary (Social) assistance benefits will remain under UKIP
• End job discrimination and ensure applicants obtain roles based on merit, not on their ability to speak Welsh
• Bring housing demand under control by implementing firm and fair immigration control
• Give local people a greater say on major planning decisions in their communities through legally binding local referenda
• Where possible, incentivise local development by British companies to bring brownfield sites and derelict homes back into use, so that they can be released as affordable housing to local people
• Support the building of the M4 relief road
• Sell Cardiff airport immediately to mitigate any further loss to Welsh taxpayers, so that a new owner can operate it on a proper commercial basis
• Re-open train stations and railway lines to improve connectivity across Wales, where appropriate, by reviewing the Beeching cuts
• Deliver a long overdue referendum on scrapping the Senedd and Welsh Government at the earliest opportunity
• Campaign to scrap the Senedd and oppose any increases to the number of Senedd Members
• Repeal Welsh Labour and Plaid Cymru's granting of votes to foreigners
• Ensure that the voting age in Wales and the UK is 18
• Formally end all lockdowns, committing not to return to them and to repeal 'draconian' policing powers
• Establish a Welsh national energy company to extract gas reserves in former coal fields to replace use of imported gas.
• A Modern Democracy Act to create a Welsh constitution and a bill of rights – giving the public the right to call national and local referendums
• Establish an independent and transparent enquiry into the Welsh government's response to the coronavirus pandemic
• Introduce a Coronavirus Recovery Act to end all lockdowns in Wales, repeal all "draconian" policing powers, tackle coronavirus through social distancing measures and shielding the vulnerable, reclassify gyms as essential services and will stay open, as will schools, and a policy of full transparency of all data and decisions taken
• Renegotiate the furlough scheme to pay people impacted by Covid restrictions to work safely, while continuing to support shielding of the vulnerable
• Establish a Stock Exchange Cymru for listing Welsh companies who wish to publicly trade company shares
• Create a Welsh Sovereign Wealth Fund to develop a long-term, sustainable portfolio of investments, under the Santiago Principles
• Create eight co-operative community banks, with a primary focus on investing in existing and new small and medium-sized local businesses
• Reindustrialise Wales for the 21st Century through emphasis on developing high-tech, sustainable manufacturing for export
• Develop a new public procurement strategy to move towards 100% of public spending being awarded to Welsh companies
• Schools will stay open and will not be locked down
• Pass a new Welsh Medium Education Act to bring together all existing legislative strands to provide unambiguous legal clarity in the future
• Implement Robbie's Law to make a duty of candour legally binding on medical practitioners and across the public sector, meaning they must be truthful in the event of mistakes or negligence
• Establish independent, non-party political and elected Public Services Investigators (PSI) to investigate complaints about public services in Wales
• Launch an independent audit of Welsh Government waste, fraud or corruption. Savings made will be redirected to the NHS.
• Respect the results of the EU referendum, in which a majority of Welsh people voted to leave the European Union
• Establish a Welsh national energy company, majority owned by the Welsh Government and local authorities, for conventional extraction of Wales' known gas reserves to replace use of imported gas
• Cheaper energy supply will be used to support local employment in our key strategic industries, including steel and manufacturing
• Create a Sovereign Wealth Fund with the revenue generated to achieve long-term energy independence through investment in renewable energy
• Utilise Welsh universities to become a world leader in carbon capture and storage technology
• Reject the building of any nuclear reactors and veto any attempts for nuclear material produced outside Wales from being stored or dumped in the country
• A new public procurement strategy will be adopted to move towards 100% of public spending being awarded to Welsh companies
• A ‘housing first' policy to end Welsh homelessness and close the second homes loophole, whereby second homes are reclassified as businesses to avoid local taxation
• Bring in an annual service charge cap for leaseholders, linked to the Consumer Price Index
• Not to grant building contracts to existing developers until they have rectified dangerous fire cladding in previous developments
• Introduce a new Right to Buy scheme for social housing tenants, with all revenue directed towards building more quality social housing
• Set compulsory targets for local authorities to bring long-term empty properties back into use
• Outlaw the renaming of Welsh-named properties to protect Welsh culture
• Guarantee that all military veterans who have seen active service will be prioritised for public housing and healthcare
• Reinstatement of the Aberystwyth to Carmarthen and Afon Wen to Bangor railway lines
• Create a Welsh constitution and bill of rights. The constitution will enact the principle of ‘modern direct democracy', meaning the public will have the right to bring about national and local referenda by collecting signatures
• The proportional Single Transferable Vote system for elections will be adopted for national and local elections
• Wales' twenty-two local authorities will be replaced with eight counties, largely based on Wales' preserved county borders. Each county will have a recognised capital, a directly elected governor and a community co-operative bank. Each county shall be considered to be sovereign, except where law-making power has been reserved to the Welsh parliament
• The Presiding Officer of the Senedd must sit as an independent to prevent political bias
• The Welsh First Minister will be directly elected
• Commission a feasibility study on the creation of an upper house for the Welsh Parliament, to be located in North Wales
• Support citizen journalism to provide a more diverse and accurate picture of politics and current affairs
• Applaud work of NHS staff during the pandemic
• Invest in super-fast broadband to encourage more working from home
• Create a Welsh National Economic Development Authority with the power to direct investment of private capital
• Create an alternative assessment system to replace the ‘exam factory'
• Welsh-medium schools and nurseries available in every part of Wales
• Create ‘primary health partnerships' of GPs, councils, residents, housing associations, schools and health professionals to assess the long-term health needs of communities
• A National Care Service with residential and nursing services free at the point of need
• Wales voted to leave the "capitalist big business" EU and Brexit means "new opportunities" for Wales
• Oppose nuclear power "until it can be demonstrated a safe nuclear fusion option is available"
• Free childcare from birth for parents who want to return to work
• Wealth tax to redistribute wealth across nations and regions of Britain
• Wales to be indepdenent in the longer term, with its own currency
• Peak-hour congestion charging along the M4 east of Newport
• Expand Welsh-medium primary and secondary education so that it becomes "the norm in every part of Wales"
• Provide young people in ‘working from home' situations with options where they can find suitable workspaces together with appropriate support and mentoring
• Fast-track planning applications for change of use that involve the conversion of commercial property to residential use
• All publicly funded contracts should include provision for sustainable local content to ensure that money spent by the Welsh Government and local authorities is spent in Wales wherever possible
• Prioritise the needs of businesses whose head offices are located in Wales, ensuring that they have the appropriate support from councils, infrastructure providers, educational institutions and funding bodies
• Expand Welsh-medium primary and secondary education so that it becomes "the norm in every part of Wales"
• Humanities curriculum in schools to prioritise learning of Welsh history, traditions, culture and values
• Student funding only given to students studying in Welsh institutions, other than for subjects not offered within Wales
• Fee reductions for students studying medicine in Wales who undertake to work in Wales for a certain period of time on graduating
• Keep open the option of a ‘re-join' referendum if circumstances change
• Seek to emulate New Zealand in expanding global trade
• Support investment in alternative technologies such as hydrogen technology as a way of storing, transporting and consuming energy generated by renewable methods
• Not anti-nuclear in principle, but oppose large projects such as Wylfa B
• Take all water assets within Wales into public ownership and to place them under the control of existing ‘not-for-profit' Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water
• Welsh Revenue Authority takes responsibility for accurately accounting for all the taxation revenue generated within Wales
• Post-independence - replace the current benefits and taxation system with Citizens' Income and Flat Tax
• Require a licence for owning a second home, with the council charge surcharge set at 500%
• Tenants to have a right of first refusal if a landlord wishes to sell a property
• Peak-hour congestion charging along the M4 east of Newport
• Reinstatement of the Carmarthen-Aberystwyth railway line and the extension of the Cambrian Coast line northwards
• Wales to be indepdenent in the longer term, with its own currency
• Referendum on whether to retain the monarchy
• Single Transferrable Vote (STV) system to be used for elections
• Green Transformation Fund to raise and direct money locally into communities to create 10k jobs in the green economy and homebuilding
• Secure the future of the NHS by joining up health and social care, and investing in much better local health services
• Fix the climate emergency, go carbon zero by 2030 and work to restore nature
• Ensure that Wales' recovery from the pandemic is both fair and green
• Establish a public inquiry into the Welsh government's handling of the pandemic
• Provide further protections against transmission in schools by introducing effective protections to make them safer
• Deliver a sustainable Wales with an ambitious Green New Deal that creates tens of thousands of new jobs
• Ensure low rent and rates for existing small business, creative enterprises, and social and environmental start-ups to fill empty shops and bring back life to our high streets
• Call for the immediate introduction of a Universal Basic Income that shares prosperity across society
• Provide access to electronic devices for all children who need to learn from home, and access to structured programmes of work if they are unable to attend school
• Widen access to higher and further education, ensuring that no fees are payable for initial degrees
• Safeguard the NHS as a free at the point of delivery, publicly-funded body
• Ensuring that health boards and local authorities have the funding needed to increase capacity across all areas of health and social care provision
• Ensure neighbourhood access to all treatments that can be made available locally
• Provision of social support for disabled people, older people and their carers will be given early and quickly, enabling all to live fulfilled lives
• Work to strengthen our bonds with our European neighbours and allies at every level, promoting future positive opportunities and tackling the damage caused to Wales by Brexit
• Push for the UK government to seek ways to re-join the EU customs union as a matter of urgency
• Support efforts to re-join the Erasmus+ programme and work with all parties to maximise the educational and cultural opportunities available to our young people across Europe
• Tackle the climate emergency by ensuring that carbon emission reduction targets are met at the scale and pace needed, as demanded by the science
• Deliver a Green vision for net zero by 2030, replacing fossil fuels with onshore and offshore renewable energy and making necessary upgrades to the electricity grid
• Appoint a new Welsh Government Commissioner for Biodiversity and Animal Protection to reverse the decline of biodiversity in Wales
• Propose a bill to ban single-use plastic and legislation to progressively reduce all non-recyclable packaging waste, with a goal for an overall reduction on packaging
• Advocate for a four-day week to share work opportunities and respond to the greater automation and digitisation of manufacturing and services
• Bring unions into local economy planning and provide workers with support for social and environmental business start-ups
• Improve wages and working conditions for front-line workers, partly through UBI, but also through improved public service and care workers pay settlements, workers' rights in collective bargaining, employment rights and health and safety
• End the ‘gig' economy in Wales and exploitative zero-hours contracts through UBI and the extension of worker's rights
• Build 12,000 new homes every year, built to the highest environmental and energy efficiency standards
• Ensure sufficient, ongoing investment to enable the retrofitting of existing housing stock to the highest energy efficient standards, lifting thousands out of fuel poverty
• Provide greater security for tenants by phasing out Assured Shorthold Tenancies in the private sector and provide those struggling with mortgage arrears with security of tenure through a ‘Right to Rent' scheme
• Create better, affordable, cleaner transport options for all, including access to better walking, cycling and other active travel options and affordable public transport
• Introduce a national transport strategy that responds to the climate emergency by reducing traffic and carbon emissions, while improving health, wellbeing and air quality
• Introduce free public transport for local journeys for those aged under 21 to engender the use of public transport
• Resist any attempts to reopen the proposals for the cancelled M4 relief road
• Support the aspiration for an independent and fully democratic Wales, bringing decision making to those people most affected by those decisions
• Campaign for Wales to secede from the United Kingdom in any future referendum
• Strengthen local democracy by increasing citizen engagement through citizen's juries, people's assemblies, and similar bodies

This guide is a concise summary of the main policies being put forward by each party.

The policy areas featured in the guide were selected using polling data on what the public consider to be the most important issues facing the country.

More information on how the issues and parties were selected is in our methodology.

A full list of parties standing at the election is available here.

A modern browser with JavaScript and a stable internet connection is required to view this interactive. More information about these elections Who won in my area? Enter your postcode, or the name of your English council or Scottish or Welsh constituency to find out. Eg 'W1A 1AA' or 'Westminster' A really simple guide to the 2021 elections