Plaid promises free childcare if it wins Senedd election

Families who have children aged nine months to four years old will get free childcare if Plaid Cymru wins the next Welsh Parliament election, its leader has said.

Rhun ap Iorwerth made the pledge as he told conference delegates he was ready to lead the country “right now”, replacing Labour as the party of government.

Labour has led Wales since the start of devolution in 1999, and has dominated Welsh politics for a century. The next Senedd election takes place in May.

He said the “transformative” policy, offering at least 20 hours for 48 weeks a year by 2031, would be a “helping hand with the things that matter the most”.

He told the conference in Swansea that “Labour’s time is up” and that Reform wanted to treat the Senedd as a “plaything” to gain an “electoral foothold”.

Ap Iorwerth called on voters who wanted to stop Reform to back his party, accusing Nigel Farage of spurring a summer of “simmering hatred”.

On Friday he said the 2026 vote will not be an independence election – but said it would “kick-start” the debate about whether Wales should go it alone.

Currently help with childcare costs is only available to families whose parents are in work, education or training, or to very young children who live in a Flying Start area.

Families whose parents are in work, training or education who has less than £100,000 a year in income would still get 30 hours a week for three to four-year-olds, as they do now.

Some eligible two-year-olds qualify for 12.5 hours of care a week under Flying Start, but it is not available nationally.

Plaid’s plan would also allow ineligible families to claim 20 hours a week for three to four-year-olds for 48 weeks of the year, and all families 20 hours for nine-month-olds to two years.

The party says the policy would be worth £32,500 to families for the first four years of their child’s life.

Ap Iorwerth told BBC Wales: “This can make a huge difference. It’s a very, very important step in terms of helping families with the cost of living.

“This is universal, which marks it out from the system in England.”

The Welsh government has been under pressure to match childcare provision in England, where children between nine months and two years of working parents receive free child care.

The Bevan Foundation has said that high costs were pushing more families into poverty and out of work.

Plaid’s plan would be in three stages. It is proposing to keep the existing 30 hour offer for three to four-year-olds, while extending the roll out of 12.5 hours a week for two-year-olds.

The next step would be to give 20 hours to parents of three and four-year-olds who are not currently eligible for any help.

The party would then try each year to increase the number of hours offered to children under the age of two.

It would be rolled out over the life of the next Welsh Parliament, with the policy fully implemented in the 2030/31 financial year.

The party says that by the end of the five-year roll out it will spend roughly an extra £500m a year on childcare – bringing the total cost to £800m.

It says it can find the cash from the Welsh government’s budget, with about £400m thought to be available in the next budget if other services increase by inflation.

Ap Iorwerth said it was “money that we know we can afford”.

Party sources, asked why parents whose incomes are above £100,000 should get free childcare, said services that are delivered universally are better, and that households across demographics are struggling.

Plaid says it would be the most generous childcare care offer in the UK.

Ap Iorwerth, a former BBC Wales broadcaster, announced the policy in a speech where he set his party stall as a government-in-waiting.

He called on his party to seize the “historic opportunity ahead” and turn it into “reality”.

Plaid Cymru has played a key role during the life of devolution, being an occasional supporter of Labour governments since 1999.

It has been unable to beat Labour in an election – but recent opinion polling has suggested Plaid is vying with the party to win, as is Reform.

The Member of the Senedd for Ynys Môn told the conference hall that Labour had forgotten “where it came from who it was there to serve”.

He said the UK had faced a summer of “simmering hatred”, spurred on, he said, by Nigel Farage.

“Farage and his followers drive the deliberate fragmentation of society, giving life to the bogeyman without whom they are nothing.”

He said Reform UK wanted to treat the Senedd as a “plaything” to gain “an electoral foothold”.

Ap Iorwerth said Plaid was ready to govern “right now”, promising to “usher in an age of new leadership that will set Wales on a different path.”

“We are not here as Labour’s conscious, we are not here to repair Labour, we are here to replace them,” he said.

The party leader promised an “immediate cash injection” into the NHS to prioritise the longest waits.

He warned that Reform threatened the health service with “US-style bills”, and vowed to keep the NHS free at point of need.

Ap Iorwerth was greeted with cheers and applause throughout the speech, and was given a standing ovation after he called on those who have “never voted for Plaid Cymru before, the time is now”.

“The time is now to stop Reform and elect a government more radical, more ambitious, more impatient to bring about positive change.”

He said his government would be on the side of “young and old, urban and rural, north and south, Welsh speaker, non Welsh-speaker”.

The party has traditionally been stronger in its Welsh-speaking heartlands of north and west Wales.

Plaid Cymru promised a referendum on independence at the last election in 2021 – but is not now.

Earlier Ap Iorwerth told Radio Wales Breakfast the 2026 election would not be about independence for Plaid.

“There’s no referendum… in the next few years,” he said.

But in his speech he said the party “will kick start the national debate on independence”, building on the work of the previous commission on Wales’ constitutional future by setting up a permanent commission.

“It’s not just about aspiration, it’s about creating the best chance to build a modern nation of good health, opportunity, prosperity, and fairness,” he said.

Rhun ap Iorwerth is hoping to be Wales’ first non-Labour first minister – judging by the reaction in the hall, his members think he can.

Plaid Cymru conferences can be business like affairs but there was a definite change in the atmosphere in Swansea – not a city in the party’s usual heartland of north and west Wales – with a speech that was well received in Brangwyn Hall.

It is not proposing wholescale shake up of public services – the party leader thinks that’s too risky in the current climate – but says it offers “radical” plans such as a payment to tackle child poverty.

Labour’s woes have given the party the best chance it has ever had to lead Wales but Plaid faces some challenges.

If Plaid came first it is possible they would have to work with Labour or other parties in some form, with no party having ever won a majority in the Senedd.

It is also hoping to bring people who have never voted for Plaid into the fold, in the hope they are motivated by wanting to stop Reform.

The party has to convince voters they are the best option to do that, while the Greens, the Lib Dems and Labour say similar things.

They also face a Reform party that has Wales set in its sights – a party with greater resources, something Plaid has struggled with in the past.