FIRST MINISTER Carwyn Jones was in Llanelli on Tuesday (Feb 16) visiting the Carmarthenshire Youth and Children’s Association (CYCA) centre on Queen Victoria Road.
The First Minister unveiled Welsh Labour’s ambitious pledges for Wales ahead of May’s Assembly election including providing 30 free hours of childcare for working parents. The offer covers 48 weeks’ worth of care for 3 and 4 year olds and would be the most generous in the UK providing an important helping hand for families right across Wales. CEO Tracey Pike said she was extremely grateful to the First Minister for taking the time to visit the centre and speak to the staff, children and parents. The pledge along with others was launched at Airbus in Broughton and will form the central part of Welsh Labour’s ambitious policy offer for May’s Assembly election.
Speaking to The Herald about his visit to CYCA he said : “What a fantastic place. It is great to see the enthusiasm here and to see a place like this working with parents asking parents what they need and and giving parents confidence to build their lives in the future. This links in to the long term plan for tackling poverty. We know the best way to take children and adults out of poverty is give them confidence, improve their skills so they can move into work and better paid work. It is through schemes such as this at CYCA that we see that in action. We see parents gaining those skills, gaining those qualifications and gaining that confidence. They can earn themselves more money and lift themselves out of poverty .”
We reminded the First Minister of the new HMRC changes to working tax credits for self employed people and suggested that the Welsh Assembly’s pledge would be affected as self employed parents find it harder to remain in business.
The First Minister said : “We will fight them. We believe that people need help and support in order to improve their lives and to lift communities up after the destruction of the 1980’s. It seems to me that those people who caused the financial crisis are getting away scot free. They are still getting the bonuses. They are still sitting pretty on lots and lots of money The people who are the lowest paid who are being hit the hardest are the lowest paid. One thing my party will never accept is that those people who had nothing to do with the financial crisis are being hit the hardest and that is exactly what the Tories in Westminster believe.”
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