Plaid Cymru conference: Party pledges new economic agency for Wales

Wales needs a new agency to develop the country's economy, Plaid Cymru has said.

The party has pledged to set up a new organisation called Prosperity Wales if it wins the Senedd election in May.

Economy spokeswoman Helen Mary Jones said it would draw on expertise from the business world, as well as specialists in tackling inequality and decarbonisation.

The Welsh Development Agency (WDA) was scrapped in 2006.

Ms Jones' comments come on the second day of her party's virtual conference.

The announcement means both main opposition parties are going into the election promising to establish economic development agencies.

The Conservatives say they will bring back the WDA, which had responsibility for encouraging business growth in Wales until it was abolished.

Its functions were absorbed by the Welsh Government, led at the time by Labour's Rhodri Morgan.

Ms Jones said Prosperity Wales would have "an emphasis on addressing historical patterns of discrimination that have led to chronic injustice and inequality in the way our economy has functioned".

"Come the election in May, Labour will have had 21 years in which they have failed to deliver the transformation that Wales so desperately needs.

"A third of our children are in poverty, our valleys still bear the scars of the ravages of Thatcherism and our rural communities remain fragile."

She added only her party would have "the vision, ambition and passion to build the fair, green and prosperous nation - an equal nation - that we all want to live in".

Plaid said the agency would be focused on nurturing local businesses, helping firms to innovate, and would put its attention where it was needed most.

Helen Mary Jones laid out the party's economic ambitions in her conference speech, promising to invest £6 billion and create 60,000 new jobs in the short term.

"Projects will include building thousands of new social homes, retrofitting 100,000 homes to the highest environmental standards," she said.

"We cannot afford to let a whole generation of young people fall behind, as has happened in previous economic crises, so we will guarantee a job to every 16 to 24 year old not in education, training, paying the real living wage."

"There is no doubt that our plan for our economy is ambitious, but it is one that can be achieved," she added. "We will call for further borrowing powers from the UK government, but if they do not agree, we will find other ways to fund this necessary investment."

In the conference broadcast Delyth Jewell, Plaid Member of the Senedd for South Wales East, said the country stood "at a cross-roads".

"A stark choice faces our nation. To move forwards and progress as a proudly independent state - or to stand still cowering and shrinking in the shadow of our easterly neighbour."She said the Labour Party had "presided over poverty and neglect", adding: "If Wales instead chooses the Labour status quo, we will actually be dragged backwards."

Plaid's Westminster leader Liz Saville Roberts closed the day's proceedings by criticising Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer.

"With a leader who can't bring himself to criticise the most destructive government in living memory, not on Covid or on Brexit, the official opposition has abdicated its responsibility in the name of political convenience," she said.