Who should I vote for at the Senedd election? - Manifesto Comparison

Universities and funding

Choose up to 3 sets of policies you like the most.

- Work with UK Government to cut interest rate on student debt
- Refund tuition fees of medical and teaching students who work in NHS Wales or Welsh schools for five years
- Pilot £1,000 tuition fee reduction for STEM subjects
- Create a Wales-only student loan plan with fairer repayment terms
- Maintain Wales’ current system of higher maintenance grants for students from poorer backgrounds
- Extend the Reaching Wider programme to increase access for underrepresented students
- Maintain Wales’ current system of higher maintenance grants for students from poorer backgrounds
- Reintroduce maintenance grants for English students studying at Welsh universities
- Increase access to university-level education
- Increase maintenance support for students in Wales
- Independent review of university funding and student support, including a pathway to sustainably lowering tuition fees
- Negotiate with UK Government for a student finance partial cancellation scheme
- Keep Welsh tuition fees the same as in England (£9,790 a year from 2026/27)
- Ensure content of university courses sufficiently equips graduates for the workplace
- Increase funded training places for doctors, dentists and nurses
- Independent review of higher education and how it is funded in Wales
- Reform the Seren programme to better support students to apply to Welsh universities
- Maximise opportunities for Welsh students to live, study and work in Europe

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Colleges, Apprenticeships and Skills

Choose up to 3 sets of policies you like the most.

- 125,000 apprenticeships over the next Senedd term
- Expand degree apprenticeships and access to higher education courses in colleges
- Create entitlements for people to learn, upskill and retrain throughout their working lives
- Extend the Young Person’s Guarantee so all 14 to 16-year-olds can access vocational and academic training
- Introduce a new Lifelong Retraining Guarantee so workers can access training throughout their career
- 100,000 apprenticeships over the next Senedd term targeted at areas such as construction and renewable energy
- Increase funding per college student above the rate of inflation each year
- Guaranteed offer of education, training or employment within three months of leaving school
- Invest in high-quality apprenticeships and expand degree apprenticeships
- Improve financial support for further education students to help them with the cost of living
- Independent review of further education and long-term investment to expand course availability
- Invest in training and apprenticeships in retrofitting to develop skills in insulation, heat pump installation and sustainable construction
- Expand technical education, vocational courses and apprenticeships available to young people
- Develop nursing degree apprenticeships
- Create a national rural Wales apprenticeship scheme
- Champion the rollout of VCSEs and junior apprenticeships
- Protect the Educational Maintenance Allowance at £40 a week for 16-18 year olds
- Improve careers advice and guidance to increase awareness of post-school education and training options

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International students and migration

Choose up to 3 sets of policies you like the most.

- Scrap the Nation of Sanctuary policy
- Work with the UK government to stop illegal immigration
- Stop spending on non-devolved matters, including immigration
- Avoid a new levy on international student fees, as has been introduced in England
- Protect Wales’ status as a Nation of Sanctuary
- Give all care workers the same basic rights at work with the Migrant Care Workers Charter
- Reverse the international student levy in Wales
- Return to the Erasmus programme and continue investing in Taith for study abroad opportunities
- Push for a new Customs Union with the EU
- Protect and expand Wales’ Nation of Sanctuary programme
- Strengthen support for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, including access to housing and healthcare
- Support the Taith programme and advocate for youth mobility scheme with the EU
- End the Nation of Sanctuary scheme
- Change planning law to prevent conversion of hotels into migrant hostels
- Scrap all spending on foreign aid projects
- Oppose student visa restrictions and encourage more international students to study in Wales
- Strategy to support migrants and sanctuary seekers who cannot access public funds
- Combat mis- and disinformation about asylum seekers, refugees and migrants

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Cost of Living, Employment and the Economy

Choose up to 3 sets of policies you like the most.

- Cut basic rate of income tax by 1%
- Cap council tax increases at 5%
- Scrap business rates for small businesses and introduce business rate-free periods for new retail businesses
- Commit to not increasing Welsh rates of income tax
- Reduce energy bills through energy efficiency upgrades to more than 100,000 homes
- Ensure businesses receiving government support pay the Real Living Wage
- Raise income tax by 1p to invest in social care if UK Government does not increase funding for Wales
- 30 hours free childcare for every child aged nine months to four years old, 48 weeks of the year
- Cut energy bills by investing in renewable energy and improving energy trading with EU
- Replace council tax with land value tax to cut average bills and ensure wealthier property owners pay more
- Free childcare for children aged nine months to four years, without requiring parents to work a minimum number of hours
- Replace business rates with land value-based system so small businesses pay less
- Cut the rate of income tax by 1% for every band
- No new Welsh-controlled taxes or levies
- Referendums for council tax rises above 4.99%
- 20 hours free childcare for every child aged nine months to four years old
- Work to make council tax fairer
- Greater tax powers for Wales to make income tax fairer and more progressive

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The NHS, Health and Wellbeing

Choose up to 3 sets of policies you like the most.

- Declare a health emergency in Wales
- Increase spending on health and social care each year
- Establish 24/7 mental health crisis centres and increase capacity of mental health services for young people
- Invest £4 billion in a Hospitals of the Future Fund
- Guarantee a primary care appointment within 48 hours for urgent needs
- Expand mental health support to ensure same-day access for all
- 5,000 new or refurbished nursing-care placements and train more GPs and healthcare workers to bring down waiting lists
- Guarantee access to an NHS dentist for everyone needing urgent and emergency care
- Improve early access to mental health support
- Tackle workforce shortages and improve pay, job security and career progression
- Increase funding for GP and dental services and reform funding to reflect need of communities
- Implement a Youth Mental Health Plan and expand mental health support in schools
- Launch emergency action plan to increase NHS capacity and reduce waiting times
- Create new Dental School at Bangor for students at Bangor and Aberystwyth universities
- Expand early intervention mental health support
- Reduce NHS waiting lists by hiring 100 new GPs, invest in digital and create 10 new surgical hubs
- Create a Minister for Public Health to put greater emphasis on physical and mental wellbeing
- Support Bangor and Aberystwyth universities’ proposal for new Dental School

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Housing and Renting

Choose up to 3 sets of policies you like the most.

- Expand the Help to Buy scheme to all first-time buyers
- Introduce a Student Accommodation Quality Standard for halls of residence
- Work with UK Government to give young people a £5,000 tax rebate in their first job to help them save for first home
- Build 100,000 new homes over the next ten years and Expand Help to Buy beyond new-build homes
- Introduce a guarantor scheme for renters to help more people secure rental properties
- Explore a scoring scheme for letting agencies
- Build 30,000 new social homes
- Ten-year emergency upgrade programme to make homes warmer and cheaper
- Cross-government plan to end rough sleeping and all forms of homelessness
- One-year rent freeze, followed by rent controls, to keep housing affordable
- Stronger protections against damp, mould and unsafe housing conditions
- Deliver 60,000 affordable homes over 10 years, with the majority being social housing
- Limit Houses of Multiple Occupancy (HMOs) in certain areas and prevent migrant HMOs
- Require 10 years’ residency in Wales to access social housing
- Replace the Help to Buy scheme with targeted incentives
- Link annual rent increases to wage growth, inflation or another benchmark
- Enhance protections for tenants, improve quality of properties and end no-fault evictions
- Restrict rental bidding and limit rent payable in advance

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Transport and Travel

Choose up to 3 sets of policies you like the most.

- Free bus travel and rail cards for all 16-24 year olds
- Free off-peak rail travel for concessionary travel pass holders
- Reverse 20mph default speed limit
- New £2 bus fare cap for adults, continue £1 fares for under-25s and free fares for over-60s
- Explore a new publicly owned, not-for-profit learner travel service
- Create more than 100 new bus routes
- Extend £1 single and £3 day youth bus fares to everyone aged under 25
- Devolve powers over rail services and infrastructure to Wales
- New active travel strategy to create new cycling and walking networks
- Free bus travel for under-22s and £1 single fares for people aged 22-59
- Increase the number of bus routes, railway lines and stations across Wales to improve connections
- Double proportion of journeys made by walking, wheeling, cycling and public transport by 2030
- Scrap the default 20mph speed limit in urban areas and remove 50mph average speed sections on motorways
- Prioritise roadbuilding and upgrades, including the M4 relief road, A55 and A470
- Increase number of train carriages to increase rail capacity
- Continue £1 single bus fares and £3 day tickets for 5-21 year olds
- Expand tap-on, tap-off, pay-as-you-go ticketing and daily fare caps across bus and rail
- Devolve railways and secure Wales what it is owed from HS2 and other England-only rail projects

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Climate, the Environment and Energy

Choose up to 3 sets of policies you like the most.

- Suspend building of industrial-scale solar and wind farms
- Support nuclear energy projects
- Wales-wide approach to domestic recycling
- All new-build homes to include renewable energy generation and solar panels as standard
- Keep the ban on fracking and oppose fossil fuel extraction
- Protect 30% of Wales’ land and sea for nature by 2030
- Make Wales a world leader in tidal and hydro power
- Oppose any plans to reverse the fracking ban
- Ban raw sewage dumping in waterways and set new ‘blue flag’ standards for rivers, streams and lakes
- Keep the ban on fossil fuel extraction including coal mining, oil and gas drilling, and fracking
- Keep the commitment for 100% of Wales’ electricity demand to be met by renewable energy by 2035
- Require all new homes to meet low- or net-zero carbon standards, including solar panels as standard
- Scrap net zero targets and abolish ministerial position of Minister for Climate Change
- Ban new onshore wind and solar farms
- Multi-year government funding for young farmers’ clubs
- Update the Climate and Nature Action Plan focused on achieving net zero by 2040
- Phase out use of unnecessary single-use plastics
- Introduce a Deposit Return Scheme for plastic and metal drinks containers

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Rights, Equality and Liberation

Choose up to 3 sets of policies you like the most.

- Support withdrawal from the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR)
- Incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into Welsh law
- Require female-only toilets and changing rooms in all public buildings
- Eliminate the gender, ethnicity and disability pay gaps by 2050
- Make Wales an anti-racist nation by 2030 through the Anti-Racist Wales action plan
- Make Wales the best place in Europe to be an LGBTQ+ person through the LGBTQ+ action plan
- Champion the Human Rights Act and uphold commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights
- Incorporate UN Convention on Rights of Persons with Disabilities into Welsh law
- Defends rights of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities, and ensure trans people’s rights are protected
- Defend the UK’s membership of the European Convention on Human Rights
- Establish dedicated gender services for under-17s to access support and therapy
- Long-term Disabled People’s Rights Plan and appoint a Minister for Disabled People
- End Diversity, Equality and Inclusion jobs in the public sector
- Make government policy based on biological sex and remove ‘gender ideology’ from schools and the NHS
- End the use of gender self-ID in women’s sports and for access to single-sex wards
- Create a Human Rights Act for Wales to enshrine rights of women, disabled people, racialised people and children
- Press the UK Government for a full, trans-inclusive ban on ‘conversion therapy’
- Work towards non-medicalised process for gender recognition and support development of Welsh Gender Service

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Society, Democracy and Young People

Choose up to 3 sets of policies you like the most.

- Rule out independence referendum or any referendum on Wales’ constitution
- Reverse the increase in the number of Members of the Senedd from 96 to 60
- Cap the number of Welsh Ministers at 12 and cut ministerial pay by 10%
- More political powers for Wales and argue for Wales to get ‘fair share’ of funding from UK Government
- Give all young people the opportunity to learn about their rights at work
- Citizens’ assemblies to debate the future of social care and improving community cohesion
- Oppose independence to keep Wales a part of the UK
- Devolve more powers to Wales including rail, policing, justice, broadcasting and the Crown Estate
- Change the voting system to single transferable vote (STV) for Senedd elections
- Introduce automatic voter registration across Wales
- Support a gradual shift towards a four-day working week
- Free and accessible Welsh-language learning and cultural opportunities for young people aged 8-25
- Remove the right of qualifying foreign citizens to vote in Welsh elections
- Require government-funded elections communications be in English and Welsh only
- Stop public funding for charities that ‘operate as political campaigning organisations’
- Allow the Senedd to call a referendum on Welsh independence
- Change the voting system to single transferable vote (STV) for Senedd elections
- Strengthen training of political and media literacy in schools

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NUS Vote Matcher - Senedd Election 2026

Universities and funding

Colleges, Apprenticeships and Skills

International students and migration

Cost of Living, Employment and the Economy

The NHS, Health and Wellbeing

Housing and Renting

Transport and Travel

Climate, the Environment and Energy

Rights, Equality and Liberation

Society, Democracy and Young People

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