Voters in Wales will go to the polls on 7 May to choose members of the Senedd and, ultimately, who runs the devolved administration.
FactCheck looks at the two main areas in which Cardiff has the most power – taxes and the economy, and the NHS.
Labour
On tax and the economy one of Labour’s key manifesto promises is to not raise the rate of income tax over the next term of the Senedd, which will run until 2030.
The NHS is controlled by the devolved governments. Labour wants to invest £4 billion to build “state-of-the-art new hospitals” including a major development in West Wales.
Looking at the manifesto as a whole, the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) think tank says “it is clear that fully delivering on Welsh Labour’s various ambitions for the spending side of the budget would require substantial additional expenditure.” It notes that given the current state of the Welsh finances the party would “almost certainly require cuts to spending on some other services” in order to fund its manifesto commitments.
A spokesperson for the party told FactCheck: “Welsh Labour is the only party to have published full costings for its manifesto, clear for everyone to see. What we’ll spend, what we won’t, and how we’ll pay for it.”
Plaid Cymru
On tax and the economy Plaid is pledging to make council tax “fairer” as well as to “reform and rebalance business rates”. The party says it will look at how the Land Transaction Tax “can be reformed to better support first-time buyers”. Plaid will also be lobbying Westminster to devolve more powers to Cardiff so that it can “introduce a Vacant Land Tax and to set made-in-Wales income tax bands”.
In regard to health and social care Plaid says it “has a costed and targeted plan to cut waiting lists, as a first and necessary step to transforming our health and care services”.
The IFS says in its independent analysis that Plaid Cymru “do[es] not appear to have faced up to the fiscal reality facing the next Welsh Government. And if the party knows how it would afford its pledges, it has omitted to explain how in its manifesto.”
When asked to respond Plaid Cymru told FactCheck: “As confirmed by Professor Gerald Holtham – one of Wales’s foremost economists – our plans are detailed, carefully costed and achievable within the financial envelope we know will be available to the Welsh Government over the next Senedd term.”
Reform UK
Reform UK promises to cut 1p off all bands of income tax by the end of its term in power. The party also pledged to “not introduce any new Welsh controlled tax or levy.” Like the Welsh Conservatives, Reform UK says that if a council wants to increase council tax by more than 4.99 per cent, it will require a referendum.
Reform UK has a 20 point list of what it aims to do with the NHS and health and social care. These range from “implement[ing] a strategy to cut the waiting lists” and a “workforce sustainability strategy” to “dentistry reform” and “remov[ing] ideology from the NHS”.
The IFS says that lower taxes are possible in Wales but “significant efficiencies likely required to maintain services even with existing funding, tax cuts would likely necessitate cuts in at least some services used by households”.
We approached Reform UK for comment.
Greens
The Welsh Greens promise to “scrap council tax” and replace it with a Land Value Tax (LVT). This would mean that the amount of tax a household pays depends on the value of their land. The IFS says: “ Few details are provided on the structure of these taxes, nor whether the Green Party would plan for these taxes to raise less, the same, or more than the current council tax and business rates systems.”
The experts from the IFS say that the Greens’ plans for a “fundamental shift in how health is understood, funded and delivered” would “require big increases in both investment and day-to-day spending, not only in the health service […] at the very least, in the order of hundreds of millions of pounds per year”
On a wider scale the IFS says that the Greens’ plan to pay for an enlarged state is lacking, adding that “in the context of a Welsh budget already under significant strain, paying for these new entitlements would require either substantial tax rises or significant cuts to other areas of Welsh Government spending.”
Responding to the IFS the Greens told us: “We have costed our key manifesto pledges which are marginal in terms of the total Welsh budget”. The spokesperson told FactCheck: “to realise our full ambition for the people of Wales we will need to push strongly and urgently for a fair deal from Westminster.”
Conservatives
The Conservatives’ big pledge on tax and the economy is to “cut the basic rate of income tax by 1p”.
On the NHS and social care the Welsh Conservatives are promising to “Increase spending on health and social care in real terms in each and every year of the next Senedd term”. They also want to set up an NHS Wales “Efficiency Taskforce to drive out waste and deliver better value for money”.
Overall, the IFS concluded that “the proposed combination of tax cuts and spending increases could be paid for without significant cutbacks in at least some Welsh Government services”.
The Welsh Conservatives told FactCheck:“Our proposals are fully funded through a combination of efficiency savings, including a 1.15 per cent drive across most departments”
Liberal Democrats
On the economy the party promises to make it easier to access capital to improve small businesses, invest in renewable energy to cut energy bills and setting up an “a dedicated Welsh Industrial Strategy” to help with entrepreneurship and innovation.
With regards to the NHS and healthcare, the Lib Dems are pledging to “end corridor care”. They want to “introduce a guarantee for 100 per cent of patients to start treatment for cancer within 62 days from urgent referral as part of a National Cancer Plan for Wales”.
The IFS has not written a full analysis of the Welsh Liberal Democrat’s manifesto, however, in a wider piece about the elections in Wales, the think tank wrote: “The Liberal Democrats do raise the possibility of a 1 percentage point increase in income tax rates as an emergency measure to help improve social care services.”
A Welsh Liberal Democrat Spokesperson said: “The cost of doing nothing is written across Wales. Parents pushed out of work, pay packets shrinking, child poverty rising. That is the real bill, and it keeps growing.”
