Author: montgomeryshirelabour

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, and John Healey, Shadow Housing Secretary, have criticised the Conservatives for being “directly responsible” for people living and dying on the country’s streets, and pledged a national “moral mission” to save lives this winter and end rough sleeping.

As part of major new plans to fulfil the Labour Party’s manifesto pledge to end rough sleeping within five years, Labour has announced:

• A £600m Modern Hostels Fund for good quality homeless accommodation with 5,000 additional bed spaces to take people off the streets and help them rebuild their lives.
• £200m Hostels Transformation Fund to turn existing hostels into places where homeless people can turn their lives around
• A new £100m a year scheme for emergency winter shelter and support to save lives, starting this winter, and get people off the streets in the cold weather
• 4,000 additional ‘Housing First’ homes – a pioneering scheme to get some rough sleepers straight off the streets and into permanent housing, and 4,000 new permanent ‘move-on’ homes, ring-fenced for rough sleepers moving out of hostel accommodation

This package will be backed up with an additional £1 billion a year earmarked from council budgets to pay for staffing and support, and funding to re-link local housing allowance with local rents – major new pledges to tackle homelessness contained in the Labour manifesto. Together, Labour’s plans add up to the biggest package of help for the homeless in at least 20 years.

Rough sleeping has more than doubled since 2010, and the number of people dying homeless has risen by 50 per cent in the last five years, totalling 726 people last year.

Since 2010, the Conservatives have cut £1bn out of local homelessness services so there are almost 9,000 fewer hostel beds, slashed funding for social housing so the number of Government-funded homes for social rent has fallen by 90 per cent and dramatically reduced housing benefit entitlements, which the National Audit Office says has directly led to higher homelessness.

At least 135,000 children will be homeless and living in temporary accommodation across Britain this Christmas.

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, said:

“One person sleeping rough is one too many.

“No one wants to live in a society where thousands of homeless people are left out in the cold on the streets.

“Labour will save lives this winter and end rough sleeping within five years. That’s real change.”

John Healey, Labour’s Shadow Housing Secretary, said:

“Rising homelessness shames us all in a country as well-off as ours.

“It shames the Conservative Party most of all because it is Conservative decisions to slash funding for hostels, housing benefit, homelessness services and new homes that are directly responsible for this increase in people living and dying on our streets.

“With Labour this will change. We need a new moral mission to save lives this winter and end rough sleeping within five years.”

…a list of achievements showing the difference a successive Welsh Labour Government has made. 

Education 

• Free school breakfasts.
• ‘The Foundation Phase’ has changed the way children learn.
• 21^st Century Schools – the biggest investment in new school buildings since the 1960s. The first wave of funding provided though the Programme will see investment of more than £1.4 billion over the five year period ending 2019. This will support the rebuild and refurbishment of over 150 schools and colleges across Wales. More than 100 schools have already been built or refurbished and a further 63 schemes are under construction or approved to proceed. A second phase of the programme began in 2019, bringing total investment to over £3.8bn. 
• Investing to reduce infant class sizes. 
• 30 hours – Welsh Labour funded early education and childcare for working parents of three and four year olds, for up to 48 weeks of the year. This is the most generous childcare offer anywhere in the UK. 
• Introduced the Welsh Baccalaureate which gives broader experiences than traditional learning programmes, to suit the diverse needs of students. 
• Wales is consulting on new guidance for Relationships and Sexuality Education – It will better support schools in engaging with a range of important topic, including healthy relationships, domestic violence and LGBT issues. 
• Flying Start – provides services to children under the age of four in some of Wales’ most deprived postcode areas. 
• Children’s commissioner, first in the UK.
• Made the UNCRC law in Wales. This law is called the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011. 
• Introduced a Bill to remove the defence of reasonable punishment 
• Allocating an additional £12m to ensure that more young people will be in receipt of free school meals. 
• The most generous package of support for students anywhere in the UK. Listening to the voices of students and the NUS. 
• Schools to get free sanitary products. 

Health, public health and social care 

• Free prescriptions – removing barriers to treatment for people with long-term conditions and addressing a source of health inequalities. 
• Free hospital car parking.
• Opt-out model for organ donation – saving lives.
• Opened brand new hospitals.
• New Treatments Fund will give even greater chances to those who need them. 
• Smoking ban first in the UK.
• Protected funding for Community Pharmacy.
• Minimum Unit pricing.
• Food hygiene ratings.
• Record investment in social services has helped prevent the crisis seen in England. 
• Spending on health per head of the population is higher in Wales than England and our health spending is increasing at a faster rate. 
• Delayed transfers of care are the lowest on record. 
• Raised the capital threshold for residential care to £50,000 enabling people to keep more of their savings without having to use it to pay for their care. It means that, by some distance, Wales has the most generous capital limit for residential care in the UK. 
• More people surviving cancer than ever before. 
• Overall cancer survival continues to increase in Wales and premature death from cancer for people aged under 75 has fallen by 21.4 per cent since 2001. 
• World’s first Autism strategy.
• Investing more in health than ever before and making cutting-edge treatment more accessible. In 2016-17, Welsh Labour spent 8 per cent more per person on health and social services combined than England, giving patients the right treatment, at the right time, and in the right place. Welsh Labour are spending over 14 per cent more per person on health and social services than Welsh Labour did in 2009-10. 
• More people are starting the treatment they need within the target time. Almost 90 per cent of patients had been waiting less than 26 weeks for treatment in July 2018, the highest for 5 years. Welsh Labour are leading the way internationally with the Welsh ambulance clinical response model. Ambulance services in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, Australia and Canada have now replicated the clinical response model pioneered in Wales. 
• NHS staffing is at record levels with over 90,000 employees, including consultants, midwives, nurses and health visitors. 

Economy and transport 

• 100,000 all-age apprenticeships in Wales – a Fair Deal for all people looking for good work. Since 2011 the Welsh Labour Government has supported over 185,000 high quality jobs in Wales.
• Wales has helped generate one of the highest rates of foreign direct investment in the world.
• More than 31,000 jobs have been supported across the whole of Wales in the last year and over 190,000 in the last five years of government. 
• Launch of the new Development Bank for Wales which is supporting 1,400 businesses and creating and safeguarding more than 20,000 jobs. 
• Secured steel jobs and steel making in Wales for a generation. 
• 19,000 fewer young people (16 to 24) not in education, employment or training. 
• 18,000 people finding opportunities through our Jobs Growth Wales programme. 
• 20% increase in new jobs created in Wales by overseas companies. 
• Rail Infrastructure, despite infrastructure not being devolved Welsh Labour have invested heavily. 
• Plans to invest in major infrastructure projects over the coming years including £738m in the first phase of the South Wales Metro.
• Active travel – By law local authorities must encourage walking and cycling. They achieve this by doing things like improving cycle routes in all road developments. 
• Every train on the Wales and Borders franchise will be equipped with free wifi by September 2019. 
• The Welsh Labour Government has delivered tax cuts for small businesses right across Wales. In April 2018 it introduced a permanent SBRR scheme in to provide certainty and security for small businesses in Wales. This provides more than £100m of relief in 2018-19, supporting more than 70,000 ratepayers across Wales – more than half pay no rates at all as a result. 
• A considerably smaller proportion of small businesses receive support from the UK Government’s small business rates relief scheme in England, for example. 
• Free bus pass for older people through the Concessionary bus pass scheme.
• Free weekend travel on Welsh Labour Government’s long distance TrawsCymru service. 
• The new Wales and Borders rail franchise commenced on the 14^th October 2018. The contract awarded by the Welsh Government to Keolis Amey will transform Welsh rail with new trains, more services and better stations. 
• Transport white paper to re-regulate the bus industry. Ensure bus routes serve people rather than profit. 
• Saved Cardiff Airport and ensured Cardiff Airport grows as an international gateway to south Wales. 
• Committed to social partnership with employers and trade unions in promoting fair work practices and in building a Fair Work Nation. Drawing on established social partnership structures, the Welsh Labour Government has established a Fair Work Commission which is exploring how it can support fair work outcomes from public spending and procurement practice in Wales. 
• Trade Union (Wales) Act 2017 and Agricultural Sector (Wales) Act 2014 Wales now has the highest availability of superfast broadband among the devolved nations. 

Housing and communities and local Government 

• Ended the right to buy.
• Council house building across Wales.
• Welsh Housing standard of 20,000 new affordable many of which are social housing.
• Vibrant and Viable Places, invested over £124 million of capital funding for regeneration schemes in 18 communities across Wales between 2014 and 2017. It also levered in an additional £300 million from other sources of funding. 
• CFAP Grant, funded a huge number of community facilities across Wales. 
• Welsh Labour have put 500 Community Support Officers on our streets. 
• Landmark legislation to tackle domestic violence – Wales has led the way in the UK by passing the Violence against Women, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Act. 
• Exempted care leavers who are under 25 from paying council tax. 
• Older persons commissioner. 
• Moved to end imprisonment for Council Tax debts. 

Environment and Sustainability 

• Since devolution, our municipal recycling rate has increased from 5% to 63%. 
• Introduced the pioneering Future Generations ACT.
• Carrier bag charge, which was introduced in Wales first. 
• Prosperity for All: A Low Carbon Wales, setting out more than 100 policies and proposals to help to ensure a fairer, healthier and more equal society as Welsh Labour transition to a low carbon economy. 
• In 2018, Welsh Labour generated almost half of the electricity consumed in Wales from renewable sources. The Welsh Government has set a target to generate 70% of our electricity from renewable sources by 2030. 
• Over the course of this Assembly term, Welsh Labour will invest more than £350m in flood and coastal erosion risk management in Wales. The Coastal Risk Management Programme allocates funding for schemes to reduce risk to more than 18,000 properties through projects to repair, replace and create new coastal defence systems. 
• The Action Plan for Pollinators in Wales sets out our plan to provide diverse and connected flower- rich habitats for pollinators and raise awareness of their importance. 
• Making Wales a refill nation; to pioneer the use of deposit return schemes. 

Labour will announce the biggest ever cuts to rail fares in England tomorrow (Monday) after we learnt over the weekend that rail fares are set to rise again by an average of 2.7% next year.  

Labour’s plans for an integrated railway under public ownership will:

• Cut regulated rail fares by 33% from January 2020, saving the average commuter £1097 a year
• Guarantee fair fares for part-time workers
• Deliver a simple, London-style ticketing system across the nation
• Make rail travel free for those 16 years old and under

Most commuter fares including peak time fares and season tickets are regulated fares, which make up almost half of all tickets sold, and will be reduced by 33%, the biggest ever reduction in rail fares, to tackle the crisis of unaffordability on the railway and give relief to millions of rail commuters from years of excessive price rises.

Labour will guarantee fair fares for part time workers by ensuring that workers who commute fewer than 5 days a week pay no more per journey than full-time workers who use weekly season tickets – meaning part-time workers will see their fares cut by more than a third.

Labour will also deliver wholesale reform of fares and ticketing, replacing the current system with a simple, London-style ticketing system across the nation, delivering contactless payments and creating zonal rail fares that will apply across all modes of public transport.

Rail travel will be made free for those age 16 years old and younger to encourage young people to use public transport, tackle generational inequality and make family holidays more affordable.

Labour’s plan for an integrated railway under public ownership will deliver easy and affordable access to sustainable public transport to boost economic growth and reduce road traffic to tackle congestion, air pollution and climate emissions.

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, said:

“Travelling by train is my favourite way of getting around the country but for too long a fragmented and privatised rail system has ripped-off passengers.

“Taking back control of our railways is the only way to bring down fares and create a railway network that is fit for the future.

“Labour will bring about real change on the railways because we are on the side of passengers.”

Andy McDonald, Labour’s Shadow Transport Secretary, said:

“Privatisation has created one of the most complex, exploitative and expensive ticketing systems in the world. Labour will scrap the bewildering and outdated fares and ticketing system that discriminates against part-time workers, discourages rail travel and excludes the young and low paid.

“Labour is on the side of passengers which is why we will introduce a simpler, fairer and more affordable system for all, integrated with other forms of public transport. Rail passengers who want to save hundreds or thousands of pounds next year need to vote Labour on 12th December. Labour will deliver a railway in public ownership for the many, not the few.”

• 33% cut to regulated rail fares

From January 2019, regulated rail fares will be 40% higher than in 2010 having risen at more than twice the rate of wages.

Around 45% of fares on National Rail are subject to regulation (by the Secretary of State in England, Welsh Minister in Wales and Scottish Ministers in Scotland); the remainder are unregulated. Regulated fares tend to be on commuter routes where commuters have few practical alternatives to rail. Regulated fare types include season tickets and a proportion of Anytime Day, Off-Peak and Super Off-Peak fares. – House of Commons Library Briefing on Rail Fares, 30 November 2018

Decisions on whether to fund rail fare reductions in Scotland and Wales are a matter for the devolved governments. This policy clears the way for Scotland and Wales to follow suit if they wish. In the meantime the fare reduction will apply to rail journeys wholly or partly within England.

• Ticketing and fares reform

The privatised railway has created an expensive, bafflingly complex range of 55 million rail fares. “There are now around 55 million different fares” https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/about-us/priorities/fares-reform-proposals.html 

Labour will create rail fares that are simple, fair, affordable and transparent. The fragmented nature of the privatised railway frustrates the coordinated reform required to implement reform of fares and ticketing and integration across public transport.

The next Labour government will work with local transport authorities to define ‘islands’ within which zonal rail fares apply across all modes of public transport, with an affordable daily price cap so travelers can Pay-As-You-Go using bank cards or mobile phones

Longer distance rail journeys will form ‘bridges’ between the islands, for trips where passengers need to know the price in advance to judge whether to flex their journey time to get off-peak rates. Fares for these journeys will become simple and transparent, with mainly distance-related, ‘single-leg’ pricing, where the return price is always the combined outward and return leg prices. Apart from higher ‘peak’ prices other complexities will be wiped out.

• Fair fares for part time workers

Labour will guarantee fair rail fares for part-time workers by ensuring they don’t pay more per trip than holders of weekly season tickets.

The current system of rail fares disadvantage part time workers who commute or would like to commute by rail. A person who commutes by rail fewer than 5 days a week must either buy a whole week season ticket or purchase individual tickets, meaning the per journey cost is higher than for a person who commutes 5 days a week using a season ticket.

This practice disadvantages part-time workers by making them pay over the odds or by pricing them off the railway altogether.

Labour will reduce the cost of single peak fares to 1/10th the cost of a whole week season ticket, so part-time workers will no longer incur higher per journey costs than full-time workers.

• Free travel for those aged 16 and under

Free rail travel for under 16s will reduce generational inequality, encourage lifelong use of public transport, increase educational and leisure opportunities and make holidays more affordable for families.

• Funding

Labour forecasts indicate that £1.5 billion per year will be spent on this policy, based on regulated fare revenue data from Office of Rail and Road and single/weekly season price ratios from the National Fares Manual. This funding will come from existing DfT budgets, drawn from Vehicle Excise Duty (VED). VED is forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility to raise £6.5 bn in the 2019-20 financial year and is due to be hypothecated by the Conservative government to major new road-building projects from 2020, whilst excluding repair of potholes and other road maintenance.

Vehicle excise duty

The next Labour government will expand this hypothecation of VED to form a sustainable transport fund for rail and other sustainable modes of travel and to address the pothole backlog. If this money were to be spent on road building it would increase traffic, congestion and carbon emissions, the opposite of what is needed to reach the UK’s commitment to climate targets and to clean up polluted air.

The present regulated rail fare income is £3.3 bn/yr and total rail fare income from all types of fares is £9.8 bn/yr.)

(ORR 2019 UK Rail Industry Financial Information 2017-18 Figure 1.4, p.2 and Figure 1)

• Under the Tories, based on the current rate of inflation, from January 2020 the average commuter would be paying £3,064 for their season ticket, £870 or 40% more than in 2010. http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rail-fares-rise-by-up-to-a-fifth-as-overcrowding-and-delays-worsen-5n5mzrwhd
• Labour will cut season tickets by a third and bring franchises into public ownership. This will save the average commuter £1,097.

With wages in Wales £201.50 lower than in London, and 50000 workers in Wales on a zero-hours contract, Labour vows to challenge the “tax and wage cheat” culture of multinational companies

Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn and Shadow Employment Rights Secretary Laura Pidcock will call out the “tax and wage cheat” culture of some multinationals, who “use their power and our weak laws to rip off both the taxpayer and their workers” at an event in Yorkshire tomorrow (Saturday).

Corbyn and Pidcock will make the intervention outside an Amazon depot, as Labour launches its Fair Tax Programme to make the City, big business and tax dodgers pay more of a fair share.

Real terms pay is still lower than before the financial crisis while dividends paid to shareholders have risen 85%. 14.3 million people live in relative poverty in the UK, while the wealth of the richest 1000 people have increased their wealth by £253 billion in the last five years. In Wales, media weekly wages are £535.00, £201.50 less than in London and across Wales 50000 workers are on a zero-hours contract.

The next Labour government deliver real change by taking on the bad bosses and the tax dodgers.

Labour will act against tax dodging by introducing unitary taxation of multinationals to stop tax avoiding profit shifting. This measure is expected to bring in £6.3 billion in 2023-24.

Labour will introduce a package of further measures to deal with tax dodging through a Fair Tax Programme that will return £6.2 billion to the public purse in 2023/24 to help fund Labour’s real change manifesto by:

• Clamping down on the enablers of tax dodging
• Increasing HMRC’s targeted audits
• Establishing an inquiry into the finance sector
• Introducing a 20% Offshore Company Property Levy, on top of existing stamp duties and surcharges
• Scrapping non-dom status
• Requiring greater scrutiny of MPs’ tax affairs

Labour will deliver real change for workers and their families by:

• Ending in-work poverty in our first term
• Introducing a Real Living Wage of at least £10 per hour for all workers aged 16 and over
• Giving workers a stake in the companies they work for – and a share of the profits they help create – by requiring large companies to set up Inclusive Ownership Funds
• Giving every worker full rights from day one on the job
• Banning zero-hour contracts and strengthening the law so that those who work regular hours for more than 12 weeks will have a right to a regular contract, reflecting those hours
• Strengthening trade union rights, including rights to access for recruitment

Kait Duerden, Montgomeryshire Labour candidate said:

“Wages in Wales are being held down by bad bosses and the tax dodgers.

“No Tory or Lib Dem politician is going to confront them and make them pay their way. The Conservatives have received donations from a third of the country’s billionaires, and the Lib Dems have a leader who backed austerity and zero hours contracts.

“We need real change: a £10 real living wage right now, for everyone. An end to zero hours contracts and in-work poverty. That’s what we mean when we say Labour’s got your back.”

Ahead of the visit to Yorkshire, Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Labour Party, said:

“The next Labour government will deliver real change because we aren’t afraid to take on the corporate giants and the elite few, who are hoarding wealth and power. 

“Huge multinational companies often act as if the rules we all live by don’t apply to them. They use loopholes to claim they don’t owe tax and cynically push their workers to the limit.

“I don’t want to live in a country of a few billionaires and millions of stressed people, worried about making ends meet every month.

“The next Labour government will challenge head on the tax and wage cheat culture of so many multinational companies, who use their power and our weak laws to rip off both the taxpayer and their workers. That’s real change.”

Announcing Labour’s Fair Tax Programme, Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, said:

“This will be the most ambitious and detailed plan for tackling tax avoidance and evasion ever enacted in government.

“The Tories have run down the law and resources we have to achieve tax justice.

“Under this Fair Tax Programme a Labour Government will end the scourge of tax avoidance and evasion, and raise essential revenue for our public services.”

Ahead of the visit, Laura Pidcock, Labour’s Shadow Employment Rights Secretary, said:

“Britain’s workers need a government that’s on their side. Bosses are paying too many workers too little to live on.

“Labour will stand up for Britain’s workers and their families with more pay and crucially more power. Workers will not only be better paid but have more rights, both individually and collectively through their unions, and more of a say in the running of companies. Work must pay, and it must allow you to live a good life. 

“For too long, multinational corporations have been able to exploit Britain’s workers while the government did nothing. No more. It’s time for real change.”

Mae pleidlais dros LAFUR Cymru yn bleidlais

O blaid Bargen Newydd Werdd

Rydym yn wynebu Argyfwng yr Hinsawdd. Yn yr etholiad hwn, mae’r dewis yn glir. Dyma ein cyfle olaf i weithredu i amddiffyn cenedlaethau’r dyfodol. Bydd Bargen Newydd Werdd Llafur yn cynnwys y targedau mwyaf uchelgeisiol ynghylch yr hinsawdd o blith holl wledydd y byd.

O blaid y Gwasanaeth Iechyd Gwladol

Ganwyd y GIG yng Nghymru a chafodd ei sicrhau gan y Blaid Lafur. Dim ond Llafur fydd yn ariannu ac yn diogelu’r GIG yn llawn; rhoi diwedd ar breifateiddio’r gwasanaethau rydym yn eu defnyddio yn Lloegr a pharhau i amddiffyn gwasanaethau yng Nghymru.

O blaid Tai

Adeiladu cartrefi newydd gwirioneddol fforddiadwy yn Sir Drefaldwyn gan gynnwys y rhaglen adeiladu tai cyngor fwyaf ers cenedlaethau ledled y DU. Cyflwyno hawliau tenantiaid newydd a chap ar renti.

I fuddsoddi yng Nghenedlaethau’r Dyfodol

Yng Nghymru, bydd Llafur yn parhau i ddarparu gofal plant i rieni sy’n gweithio, y rhaglen adeiladu ysgolion fwyaf yn y DU, a chymorth i fyfyrwyr prifysgolion gan gynnwys grantiau a gefnogir gan y llywodraeth.

I roi terfyn ar Gyni

Terfyn ar dlodi ‘mewn gwaith’. Terfyn ar Gredyd Cynhwysol a rhewi budd-daliadau.  Terfyn ar fethiant i ddarparu gofal angenrheidiol i bobl hŷn trwy gyflwyno Gwasanaeth Gofal Gwladol.

Adeiladu economi i’r llawer, nid i’r ychydig

Diddymu’r cap ar gyflogau’r sector cyhoeddus.  Cyflwyno Cyflog Byw go iawn a phecyn cynhwysfawr o hawliau gweithwyr. Bargen newydd ar gyfer y Lluoedd Arfog.

Rhoi’r gair olaf i bobl ynghylch Brexi

Bydd Llafur yn rhoi cyfle arall i’r bobl bleidleisio ynghylch Brexit – a bydd Llafur Cymru yn ymgyrchu dros aros.

Mae’n bryd cael newid go iawn

Mae’r dewis yn glir – Llywodraeth Dorïaidd yn San Steffan er budd yr ychydig bobl freintiedig, neu Llywodraeth Lafur er budd y llawer.  Yr etholiad hwn yw ein cyfle i ddechrau o’r newydd â Llywodraeth Lafur. Yn lle gwlad sy’n cael ei rhedeg er budd cyfoethogion, bydd Llafur yn adeiladu gwlad ble gall pawb ohonom ni fyw bywydau cyfoethocach.

Teyrnas Unedig i’r llawer, nid i’r ychydig / A UK for the many, not the few

Mae’r llygrwyr mawr, y bancwyr a’r sawl sy’n osgoi talu trethi wedi cael mantais annheg ers gormod o amser. Bydd Llafur yn rhoi terfyn ar y toriadau i gyllideb Cymru, â buddsoddiad yn y gwasanaethau cyhoeddus y mae pawb ohonom ni’n dibynnu arnyn nhw

“Pleidlais dros Lafur yn Sir Drefaldwyn yw’r unig ffordd i sicrhau nad yw San Steffan yn anwybyddu ein hanghenion lleol.

Mae’r Ceidwadwyr yn credu eu bod wedi’u geni i lywodraethu. Byddan nhw’n gofalu am fuddiannau’r ychydig bobl freintiedig yn unig. Mae record y Democratiaid Rhyddfrydol yn y

A vote for Welsh LABOUR is a vote

For a Green New Deal

We face a Climate Emergency. At this election the choice is clear. This is our last chance to take action to protect future generations. Labour’s Green New Deal will have the most ambitious climate targets of any country in the world.

For the National Health Service

The NHS was born in Wales and it was delivered by Labour. Only Labour will fully fund and safeguard the NHS; end privatisation of the services we use in England and continue to protect those in Wales.

For Housing

Building genuinely affordable new homes in Montgomeryshire including the biggest council house building programme in generations across the UK. Introducing new tenants rights and a rent cap.

To invest in Future Generations

In Wales, Labour will continue to provide childcare for working parents, the biggest school building programme in the UK, and support for university students including government-backed grants.

To end Austerity

An end to ‘in work’ poverty. An end to Universal Credit and the benefit freeze. An end to older people not getting the care they need by introducing a new National Care Service.

Building an economy for the many, not the few

Scrap the public sector pay cap. Introduce a real Living Wage and a comprehensive package of worker’s rights.

Give people the final say on Brexit

Labour will put Brexit back to the people – and Welsh Labour will campaign to remain.

It’s time for real change

The choice is clear – a UK Tory Government for the privileged few, or a Labour Government for the many. This election is our chance for a fresh start with a Labour Government. Instead of a country run for the rich, Labour will build one in which all of us can lead richer lives.

A UK for the many, not the few

The big polluters, bankers and tax-dodgers have had a free ride for too long. UK Labour will end the cuts to the Welsh budget, with investment for the public services we all rely on.

“A vote for Labour in Montgomeryshire is the only way to ensure that our local needs are not ignored by Westminster.

The Conservatives think they’re born to rule. They will only look after the privileged few. The Liberal Democrat’s record in coalition shows they will support them.

Labour sets out mission to connect communities across Britain by delivering free full fibre broadband for all

80.4 percent of households and businesses in Montgomeryshire (24767 premises) will get a stronger, more reliable internet connection.

In a major announcement tomorrow (Friday 15 November), Labour will set out plans to deliver free full fibre broadband for all by bringing parts of BT into public ownership and creating a new British Broadband public service. In Montgomeryshire, (24767 households and businesses (80.4 per cent of all premises) will get a stronger, more reliable internet connection.

The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn will make the announcement in Lancaster, describing the new free public service as central to Labour’s plans to transform our country and economy, “bringing communities together in an inclusive and connected society”.

The next Labour government will undertake a massive upgrade in the UK’s internet infrastructure, delivering fast, secure, reliable internet connections for everyone and putting an end to patchy and slow coverage. This will boost 5G connectivity across the country.

The roll out will begin with communities that have the worst broadband access, including rural and remote communities and some inner city areas, followed by towns and smaller centres, and then by areas that are currently well-served by superfast or ultrafast broadband.

The plan will be paid for through Labour’s Green Transformation fund and taxing multinational corporations such as Amazon, Facebook and Google, and save the average person £30.30 a month.

Only between 8-10 per cent of premises in the UK are connected to full-fibre broadband, compared to 97 per cent in Japan and 98 per cent in South Korea. Almost 80% of adults surveyed said that they have experienced internet reliability problems in the last year.

According to research by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, a full-fibre broadband network could boost productivity by £59 billion by 2025; bring half a million people back into the workforce; and boost rural economies, with an estimated 270,000 people more able to move to rural areas.

The party’s plans could result in 300 million fewer commuting trips, three billion fewer kilometres travelled by car, and 360,000 tonnes fewer carbon dioxide emissions.

The party will also announce plans for a new Charter of Digital Rights – the strongest protection of data and online rights ever enacted. We will consult on its contents, which could include:

• Powers for individuals and collectives to challenge algorithmic injustice (where online algorithms cause disproportionate harms to particular groups);
• Powers for individuals and collectives to prevent the use of digital infrastructure for surveillance;
• Rights for individuals to protect access to and ownership of their data.