Welsh Liberal Democrats' Kirsty Williams Ask the Leader

It's about your lives, your families, your Wales. People in

Aberystwyth are ready to ask the leader.

Well, Wales votes in just three weeks and we are alive at the

National library in Aberystwyth for the third in our Ask The Leader

debates. The audience is a mixture of undecided voters and party

supporters. Join the debate, #Wales 2016. Welcome the leader of the

Welsh Liberal Democrats, Kirsty Williams.

APPLAUSE Our first question tonight comes

from Doctor Sue Fish. I'm a doctor working in the local area. Doctor

and nurse recruitment is becoming increasingly difficult, particularly

in areas like this with many posts unfilled. There is also a move to

centralise hospital services to the urban centres. What are you going to

do to ensure that there is a high-quality role health service in

Wales? That's a great question and one that is of personal interest to

me and my family because we too live in a rural area. What do we need to

do? Winnie to make sure the Welsh NHS is an attractive place for

doctors, nurses, physios and occupational therapists to come and

do their work and we do that by making sure it is well resourced.

That is why we want to ensure that money that has been promised by

Westminster will be spent on the health service in Wales. We also

know that many people leave the service because they find they are

working in circumstances that make it impossible for them to do their

job, and often they would rather leave than give substandard care.

That's why I'm absolutely committed and over the last five years I have

campaigned tirelessly to make sure that we have changed the law to

ensure there is enough nurses in our hospital wards.

APPLAUSE We know from international

experience where countries have done that it has brought nurses back into

our hospitals. We want to do that further in the next term, we want to

do it in our community, in mental health wards and maternity wards.

With doctors we need to look at ensuring that we get the best use

out of that precious, precious resource. That means really focusing

on primary care. If we can get primary care right we know that that

will take pressure off our hospitals. So incentives for newly

qualified GPs to command work on some of our difficult to recruit

areas, allowing GPs to develop a specialism so they can work in

general practice but also do their mitts on in a strict General

hospitals. There is so much to do, so much potential but making the

Welsh NHS an attractive place for people to come and work is

absolutely crucial. And recruitment is the thrust of this question. You

said incentives. What incentives would the Lib Dems offer to get GPs

to mid-Wales, for example? When GPs are training many of them at

undergraduate level do not get exposure to general practice. They

certainly do not get exposure to the challenge of doing general practice

in a rural area. You would know better than me that being a GP in a

rural area, when you cannot sensibly to a hospital, is ever a extensive

range of practice and exposing somebody like that and seeing what

it is like in a rural area but we don't do enough of that. A question

from the gentleman up their. You mentioned working in the community,

are you talking about community support nurses that work in the

local community. I'd like to know how you will combat the

centralisation? What we need to do, to be honest with people about what

can be done locally and what does need to be done at a specialist

centre. There are some services where we know that patients do

better if services are centralised. If you think in South Wales they

have recently centralised the upper gastrointestinal service and

outcomes for cancer patients are improving all the time. But there is

no reason why people in rural areas should travel many miles, for

instance, for chemotherapy. We could be delivering chemotherapy...

APPLAUSE We could deliver chemotherapy on the

network of community hospitals, we could be delivering chemotherapy in

people's homes but to do that we need to have the right number of

nurses in the community. The gentleman in the spectacles. Hello.

In Aberystwyth, though waiting time for counselling services on the NHS

currently is about three or four months. I know from some people that

they have had to wait up to nine months. For somebody who's life is

starting to fall apart and on the verge of breakdown that's completely

unacceptable to them. APPLAUSE

It is unacceptable to me too. We all need to remember that one in four of

us in any one year will suffer a mental health problem. It is no

respect of class, gender and what you do for a living, one in four of

us. Yet too many people find themselves in a position of not

getting the help they need. That is why my party is committed to

ensuring that we have in law parity between physical and mental health

and setting real targets for access to talking therapies. Kirsty

Williams, if I could come in here, because you've criticised for a very

long time the Labour government and yet as a party you have all is

backed them in terms of getting their budget through, especially

recently. You have not had many compromises on health specifically.

Yes, on education but you do bang on about health but it hasn't been at

the top of your list in terms of negotiation with the Labour Party.

When you have backed them. Out of our budget negotiations what is

important is we were able to secure direct investment to rebuild some

community hospitals in mid-Wales, we were able to prioritise the

intimidation of integrated care fund. For those people that work in

the service they know that often hospital beds are taken up by

patients who have ended up in hospital because there was not a

care in the community to stop them going into hospital or getting home

when they are well. We have done that and we have also persuaded the

Welsh government to introduce a health technologies fund because we

knew that Welsh patients were not having access to the top forms of

radiotherapy and those machines are going into our hospitals, Welsh

patients can get what they would get if they were in England. A couple of

points on health before we move on, the gentleman at the back and then

the lady at the front. On the health theme with regard to Aberystwyth,

I'm a local councillor in Aberystwyth. The Welsh government is

able to oversee local government, county council level, with regard to

statutory and non-statutory requirement, with regard to care in

the community the statutory requirement is all well and good but

the statutory falls into attacking the vulnerable and elderly. Two

things have taken place, the day centre has been destroyed and now

they are attacking homes with regards to that requirement. The

Welsh government oversees this. What would you do in the next term if you

were elected with regards to that point, to make these particular

issues statutory requirements was Mac before you take that, Kirsty,

this lady on the front and then we must move on. Thinking about

psychological therapies in Wales, in feathery 2016 400 people were survey

in Wales who were quested psychological therapies in the last

three years and some of the findings were really shocking. Almost half of

those people, 48%, had to request psychological therapies rather than

being offered therapy. 70% of people were not offered any choice at all

in the type of therapy they received. What exactly do you intend

to do to ensure that all people in Wales experiencing these problems

are offered the full range of psychological therapies in a timely

fashion within 28 days. As quickly as I can, we would introduce a law

so that people suffering from mental health would be treated in the same

way as many suffering from a physical health problem. We know

because we survey every single GP in the last six months in Wales and

many reported that they want extra training in the issue of mental

health. I'd like to give budgets to GP surgeries to employ their own

counsellors within their GP surgery because many problems they are

dealing with are in the mental health nature so we need to do that

and make sure those talking therapies are available, not just

prescription drugs, which is often what GPs feel they can give. With

regard to the services for the elderly, I'm very worried that the

new social services act that came into being this month will make it

harder to actually maintain those kind of services in the first place.

We need to recognise that health and social care go together, and we need

to treat that holistically. If we skip on those support services in

the community that keep people well, keep people talking to their

neighbours, keep them in their own homes, they will only end up having

to go to a District General Hospital which costs more. Investing in those

services saves money on the 1-run. Thank you very much.

APPLAUSE It is a huge topic and I'm sorry we

have to move on to question two, which comes from Greg Thomas. If the

Liberal Democrats would be part of the next Welsh government, what

would they do to ensure a strong rural economy and ensure that

spending doesn't just go to south Wales?

APPLAUSE Greg, I share your frustration as

someone who campaigned for the creation of the National Assembly, I

thought that bringing decision-making from London to

Cardiff would mean we would get better decisions for the whole of

Wales. But for many people living in a rare area Cardiff is equally as

remote and non-understanding of their problems as London ever was.

APPLAUSE Kirsty Williams, you've been in

power in a coalition, not for long but you've been there, you have been

an AM, what have you delivered for mid-Wales? When we were in the

coalition for instance we introduced the small schools grant to be able

to put additional money into rural schools so that we could keep them

open. What we would do in terms of finance is we would reform the local

government formula, egging into better consideration the costs of

delivering services in a rural area. If we are going to get the rural

economy really working we need to make sure their job opportunities

for people which comes from building up small businesses which are the

backbone of the river at the colony, we need to get farming up off its

knees, and farmers getting a decent price for their stock and

infrastructure. Recently I sat in the gym of a high school and watched

people talk to Tim Peake in the space station. If I had stepped

outside I could barely have got a mobile phone signal. I'm sure many

of you can relate to that problem. We need the in rural areas to allow

businesses to thrive. The gentleman wants to speak. Any points on what

you feel are the rural issues, the problems and frustrations. It has

got to be seen in the context of the fact you've been an Assembly Member

of a rule area for 17 years and got into bed with the Labour Party and

given us budgets that have betrayed rural areas. We have school

closures, high council tax levels and poor services. That is the

legacy of 17 years of the Labour Party with the Liberal Democrat

representation in mid-Wales. Kirsty Williams, before you come in... Yes.

My party believes in changing the local government funding formula so

it's not just based on government... I'm not in the government, I believe

absolutely we need a fairer deal for rural Wales and when the latest

local government settlement came out and county councils set me the

challenge of getting more resources for them we went back to Cardiff, we

argued the case, we got more money. APPLAUSE

We got more money for Palace -- Powys. The point he made was you

have not been in power but enabled the Labour government to do some of

these cuts because you backed the budgets. What we have done is had to

deal with a very serious situation with a shrinking Welsh government

budget and had to set ourselves priorities. In helping Labour as

those budgets we have delivered an additional 260,000 for education for

our poorest children and I'm proud of that. Is about time people in

Wales realised what coalition is all about who are attacking Kirsty now.

Until the grasp what Coalition Government is about we are going to

get Coalition Government because that is the way it is, we will have

to make compromises so these attacks are unfair. Let's go back to the

rural affairs use. Where will people live? Burrell economy has been

decimated. There is a meeting tonight to talk about how people can

afford it. The least affordable county in Wales for first-time

buyers. It has decimated rural housing, no small properties, your

Coalition Government in the UK bedroom tax destroyed this local

economy. The evidence is all there! Let me answer the question, you are

absolutely right to say that we have a high -- housing crisis in Wales.

Instead of spending ?1 billion, all of the borrowing power the Welsh

government will have on future come on building a small section of road,

we will prioritise building additional affordable homes, giving

housing associations a social housing grant to build those homes,

and additional 20,000. The bedroom tax has caused more than what you

have created. Let's take a point from this gentleman who has waited

patiently. I don't have the power to change the bedroom tax, if I'm part

of an assembly government I have the power to build more affordable homes

and I have committed to doing that. In addition to the problems aired

here, some areas are only open for four or five months of the year and

we are -- haemorrhaging young people to other parts. What would you do to

remedy that? Your analysis is correct, we jobs for people,

stimulate the rural economy by helping small businesses and taking

extra people on. We need to be able to then have affordable places for

people to live in the economy. We need to be able to have the

infrastructure I talked about, with broadband, good mobile telephony,

and we need to have the ability for communities to gain some power back,

the community right to bid, to save their village shop, or their village

pub, so that the infrastructure, the fabric of our rural lives are

maintained. Those laws and those programmes are what I'm committed to

delivering should I have the chance to in the next five years. A point

from the front. One of the biggest problems for the

rural economy is in mid Wales, a lot of the money that seems to come

seems to go just to the south-east, then any extra goes to the north,

but there is a big area in the middle of Wales called mid Wales,

and on the map I am sure is written here be dragons, and we are the

dragons of mid Wales. To be quite frank, nothing seems to happen here.

All the services seem to be decanting from it. Jobs, when you

talk about doctors, the reason doctors will not come is because

most doctors tends to have partners. If they are female doctors they have

male partners who need a job and vice versa. If they are a male

doctor their female partner needs a job. If you could just finish on

this point please? I could not agree with you more. The jobs are

absolutely crucial in the rural area. We know many companies in

rural areas are small businesses. We need to create a small business

Administration that combines financial support and advice for

businesses, helps to develop new markets for those businesses, and

helps to ensure that there are skills and training available to be

able to grow that economy. We also need be in the structure around

that. That means homes. Thank you, let's move on. I am sorry, we must

move on. Question three. Stefanie Stratton. How do you intend to make

higher education more accessible for individuals from poorer backgrounds?

That is a really good question. There are two aspects to that which

we need to tackle. First of all, we do know that pupils from a poorer

background tend not to achieve as well as their richer counterparts in

GCSE and A-level. We need to make sure that those pupils from poorer

backgrounds are getting the grades they need so they can get onto

higher education. That is why in the last five years my party has

persuaded the Welsh Government to introduce the pupil depravation

grant. Why did you scrap tuition fees at the UK level? I knew I would

not be able to get out of here without talking about tuition fees.

We have invested in poorer children's' education and it is

working. For the first time ever, it has been reported that the gap

between rich and poor is closing. On to higher education, we want to

ensure that people have an opportunity to get on, having

listened very carefully to the pressures student or under and to

the NUS, we recognise it as the upfront living costs which are often

the barrier to people to go into university. That is why if we have

the opportunity, my party will introduce student living grant of

?2500 a year, given to that student to spend on whatever they need,

rent... That is a big cut from what they are getting now. Let's be

honest. That is a big cut from what the Conservatives are offering.

Let's be absolutely honest and tell the students here, it would be a big

cut. It is a different situation to the student support we have now.

What they will have is upfront some resources to help them go to

university now which does mean they will be paying later on for their

tuition. We are the only party in this election which is emitted to

ring-fencing the higher education budget. We want to give ?2500 do you

want to know how much you would get? Is any young person or student in

Wales going to believe any claim you make about protecting education

after what happened? You are right to raise that question. I cannot get

away from the terrible mistake my party made in the coalition in

Westminster. We made a promise which we could not keep and that let

people down. It did not matter that Labour had introduced fees, they

raised them, Plaid Cymru raised them in the assembly. Our wrong did not

make those wrongs right. We can do now is the very clear and upfront

about what is affordable. I can stand here and say that is fine, we

can carry on paying these student fee grants for years and years and

years, when the reality is, I cannot make that promise. I do things

differently in my party in Wales. I do not want to make those same

states. We are offering a policy which we believe is affordable. It

would be a huge cut. It is a different system. People go into

university here would be about ?2000 worse off here. At the moment most

didn't get that support upfront. ... What we know is Welsh institutions,

and here in Aberystwyth, you would know that better than anything. We

need a balance between supporting individual students going to

university and making sure the universities here are first class

and at the moment we are slashing the teaching budgets, we are

slashing investment and that is not good for Wells or our economy. You

said the UK party made a mistake, would you rule out working with the

Tories in Wales? What I am ruling out is going into a situation where

I cannot deliver on the promises I made. My party has had to learn...

Would you rule out working with the Tories. That is why you lost votes

in the UK? I do think it is who you do a deal with. What is important is

what you are able to deliver. There may be a coalition and there may

not. What my party has demonstrated is you do not need to be in the

coalition to make a difference. You can deliver for the people in Wales.

We did have a question which was exactly that. I will ask Julie to

bring her question and your thoughts about a future coalition? That was

my question! Would you be prepared to enter a coalition government with

the Welsh Conservatives given what happened in 2010 and the horror I

felt personally at having voted for the Lib Dems, to find I was enabling

a Conservative government in Westminster? As you can imagine,

after our last experience of the last five years, I am not very keen

in rushing into a coalition with anybody after the election, after

the experience my party has been through. What I have learned is you

have to be absolutely clear in going into a coalition is what you are

going to get as a result of it. I have been very clear. I cannot

predict what the people of Wales will do. The people of Wales will

decide the politicians they send to the National Assembly. Would you

rule out working with the Conservative Party? You described

working with them as a terrible mistake. Why not say, I would not

touch them with a barge pole. Tim Farron had something similar. You

would be honest with the voters. As I said, I'm not in a hurry to get

into a formal coalition with anybody, because of the experience.

The bar which was already very high has been set higher. We have to work

with what the people of Wales give us. What I am absolutely clear

about, what I am absolutely clear about is if the Welsh Liberal

Democrats are part of a coalition or the Welsh Liberal Democrats have an

influence on a minority government, the things we will do. We will

ensure that there are more nurseries in Wales... Those are your policies

but please, on the coalition, wherever we go in Wales, people want

clarity, especially given your history. You have cooperated with

Labour in Cardiff Bay, the Conservatives in Westminster, voters

will put a tick by the Lib Dems, they want to know by default would

they be putting one of them in power or would you say no, we won't? Know,

if people put a tick by the Welsh Liberal Democrats, they will be

electing politicians who are absolutely clear about what they

want to achieve for the people of Wales. Those priorities are,

ensuring that we improve access to GPs, cutting class sizes in our

schools, it is about creating an opportunity economy for everybody to

get on in life. If people vote for Liberal Democrats, if we are part of

a coalition or not, we will steadfastly campaign on those issues

because that is what we have done over the last five years. I said

last election we would invest more in schools for poorest pupils and

that is what we have done. Thank you, two points here. Hello. Looking

back on the last election, we didn't have the government, we had to have

a coalition which ever way it went, and by looking at what happened with

the Liberals in London, at least I look at it as an undecided voter,

that they were an anchor, at least they held the Conservative Party

back. They did hold them back. They brought in ?11,000 tax, -- they

brought in the ?11,000 tax allowance, and until we get the

election, we do not know what will happen but all I pray for is we have

had a Labour Party for so many years, and we have seen Wales go

down and down and down, if we have to have a coalition... Do you want:

David-macro clarity that yes, they might go into a coalition... I

cannot be any clearer. Is everything on the table? Ukip? If you are going

to create a coalition you have to have at least an inkling of a shared

goal and I cannot see anything in this election that I could work with

them. A point there. You have been constantly slighted, at least Kirsty

talked to the government, Plaid Cymru did not have a single meeting

with Labour to deliver, they did not meet up at all. Thank you, you can

carry on after the programme. That aside, I still think we have a

problem in understanding that the voting pattern for women's do is not

the voting pattern which exists in Wales. -- the voting pattern for

Westminster. We need to get the mindset changed. Thank you, the

final word to Kirsty Williams. Where do you see yourself in five years'

time? I would love to be sitting down with this gentleman talking

about delivering more houses. I would like to be talking to you

about a renaissance in our community hospitals and bringing services back

to rural areas. Thank you, Kirsty Williams, thank you to our audience.

Tomorrow, we are back here in Aberystwyth when Plaid Cymru leader

Leanne Wood will be here to ask Tony-macro face the questions. Do

join us then. Are goodbye.