A candidate’s view: Child poverty in Cymru remains at levels that should shame us

Sarah Rees

It’s been a packed week with Plaid Cymru conference, canvassing, and our first hustings.

Campaign life moves fast. The highs, like celebrating local victories, are energising, while the lows come from the news. Seeing the far right testing democracy elsewhere, watching freedom and fairness threatened, makes you realise just how much is at stake here in Wales.

One of the real highs for me this week was a cwtch to congratulate our new community Councillor, Alison Vyas. Another hard-fought local win. When people organise, speak to their neighbours, and put in the work, change happens. Local democracy still matters and it still works.

Another highlight was watching Hannah Spencer from the Green Party win in Gorton and Denton. It was a strong campaign and a sign that voters across the UK are looking for something different.

But elections are not all the same. Systems matter. Context matters. And what works in one place does not automatically work in another.

There is constant fear from many people on the doorstep, fear of Wales being ripped apart if the far right win and undermine our Senedd democracy. They want to keep that out, but with so little understanding, many assume that a vote for the Greens here in Wales is a good idea after Hannah’s deserved success.

What they are very likely to do, based on the 5–9% of Welsh Green votes, is simply open the door for more Reform Senedd Members. And given that the Reform candidate in Gorton and Denton had floated the idea that women without children should pay higher taxes—a policy previously implemented by Joseph Stalin—the Handmaid’s Tale vibes make the importance of this Senedd election vote clearer than ever.

Being at Plaid Cymru conference, amongst so many passionate and brilliant people, reminded me what it feels like to campaign for hope. On a visit to Bridgend College I spoke to students about the various campaigns I have been part of over the years, from Pregnant Then Screwed to Repeal the 8th to Flex Appeal.

The policy wins matter, but the friendships made along the way build community, ordinary people bound together by a refusal to accept that injustice is inevitable.

At a Merched Plaid fringe session, Alison Vyas’ words struck a chord with all: there are countless reasons not to stand for election. You only need one to do it.

Mine is poverty. Child poverty in Cymru remains at levels that should shame us. My mission, should I get elected, is to get to grips with the disgusting levels of poverty blighting our nation. I pause after sharing that more than three in ten children in Wales live in poverty. I know what that feels like, and so do many in Plaid, because we are a party of grassroots activists, impatient for change driven by lived experience.

Child poverty shapes confidence long before it shapes opportunity. I hid my free school meals ticket up my sleeve at school to avoid stigma. I dreaded my period, not because of inconvenience, but because it meant seeing my mum struggle for money. That constant anxiety shapes every decision.

After twenty-five years of devolution, progress has not been fast enough or deep enough. That promise to end child poverty by 2020? Failed. Families are still waiting.

Welsh Labour promised to roll out funded childcare for all two-year-olds during this Senedd term. So far, only one local authority, Merthyr Tydfil, has seen this expansion.

For the families there, it is welcome, but out of 22 local authorities in Wales, this is hardly a national success. When children across Wales are growing up in poverty, glacial progress is pushing desperate families to the right.

Plaid Cymru is proposing a serious plan to tackle child poverty at its roots, with a universal, properly funded childcare offer that would expand free childcare for young children to match the real scale of the need. I have spent a decade working on childcare and employment policy. I would not be standing if I did not believe we can do better than incrementalism.

From the young children I’ve met to the parents worrying about bills, the impact of poverty is real, and it makes understanding how this Senedd vote works feel personal.

How Your Vote Works

Another thing that struck me this week is how much confusion remains about the new Senedd voting system. During the same visit to Bridgend College, the students were engaged ‘Changemakers,’ but I still had to go back to basics: maps of new constituency boundaries and the difference between council, Westminster, and Senedd elections.

Later, at the Llantwit Major hustings, residents were still surprised that a single vote now elects six Senedd Members in each constituency.

With weeks to go, that lack of clarity matters. Under this system, you need a significant share of the vote to win one of the six seats. Parties polling in the mid-single digits are unlikely to reach that level.

At the moment, the Welsh Greens are polling at around five to nine per cent in many areas. In practical terms, that is unlikely to return a Green Senedd Member. What it will do in tight contests is affect who wins the final seat, and in several constituencies, the party competing for that last place is Reform UK.

That is not tribalism, it’s maths. This is not a Westminster protest vote. It is one ballot paper deciding six Senedd Members. In many parts of Wales, the real contest for that final seat is between Plaid Cymru and Reform.

If voters who want a fairer Wales split their support in ways that do not convert into seats, we risk handing additional representation to a party built on grievance and scapegoating.

Alison’s latest success for Plaid Cymru in Caerphilly showed that when people come together with clarity, they win. As Lindsay Whittle said at conference, it was the people of Caerphilly who beat hate locally. I believe the people of Wales can do so nationally too.

Democracy is not self-executing. It requires participation, clarity, and courage. The choice is clear: strengthen a party whose raison d’etre is to stand up for all who call Wales home, or make it easier for Reform to break through.

On 7 May, we choose not just who represents us, but what kind of country we want to be.