Elections 2021: Plaid Cymru pledges free meals to all primary pupils

Plaid Cymru promises a big expansion of free school meals and 60,000 new green jobs if it wins May's Senedd election.

Launching Plaid's campaign, in Cardiff Bay, leader Adam Price pledged to offer free meals to all primary school pupils by the end of the next Senedd term.

The party has already committed to funding school lunches for all children whose families get Universal Credit.

Mr Price promised an "ambitious but fully costed" government programme with "social justice at its heart".

The policies include:

The party has also promised to offer a referendum on Welsh independence if it forms the next government and gets the backing of a majority of Senedd members.

Speaking at the campaign launch outside Plaid Cymru HQ, Mr Price said an expansion of the party's free school meals policy was the "best investment that we can make as a nation."

"You can't learn if you're hungry," he said.

"We've got at the moment 70,000 of our children living in poverty and they're not eligible for free school meals so we have to change that immediately.

"Ultimately, the only way that you can actually end child hunger is by having an universal free school meals policy."

The Plaid leader said it would cost £42m in the first year to deliver free school meals to all children whose parents are in receipt of Universal Credit, rising to £140m by the end of the Senedd term as the policy expands to include all primary school children.

Analysis by the Welsh government calculated it would cost around £91m in 2021 to provide free school meals to all primary school children in Wales.

Asked about recent polling suggesting Labour and the Conservatives were ahead of Plaid Cymru, Mr Price said: "People are looking for something different.

"We've been on this same old path, haven't we, decade after decade, with the same old results and I think coming out of this pandemic people want to be inspired by hope."

"People want to create a new Wales and that's what they're going to see at the heart of our programme is the opportunity for us to open a new chapter.

"The first step is electing a new government with new ideas and new leadership.

"You're not going to get that from the Conservatives, they're in power in Westminster already. They're part of the problem.

"You're not going to get that from re-electing a Labour government that is in power decade after decade.

"The only way we're going to put ourselves on a new path is with a new government with Plaid Cymru."

Plaid enters the campaign as the third-largest party in the Welsh Parliament with 10 seats.

It won 12 seats in the 2016 election, but two members left the group during the course of the Senedd term.

The party's best-ever set of results was in the first poll in 1999 when it took 17 seats.

The Senedd election takes place on 6 May.

"We are at a crossroads", Adam Price said of his party in 2018.

He said Plaid Cymru was parked at the junction, deciding whether to stick with Leanne Wood at the wheel or change driver.

Plaid members gave the keys decisively to Adam Price.

It is Wales that is now "at a crossroads", he said today.

But early polling at the start of this election campaign suggests the wider public isn't currently convinced that Adam Price is the right man to guide Wales forward.

Plaid sources suggest it's early days, with people more focused on Covid-19 and lockdown restrictions, unlikely to turn their full attention to the election until the last few weeks of the campaign.

The party is convinced the public is ready to change course.

But will they see Adam Price as the leader best placed to plot the way forward?