WalesCan be - Smart. Green.Healthy

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WalesCan besmarter. greener. healthier

Ideas for the First

Welsh P

arliament

Issue 1:E

ducation, health and

the environment

WalesCanbe—Smart. Green.Healthy.

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© Plaid Cymru The Party of WalesISBN 0-905077-84-9

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This is a consultative discussion paper inviting you to have your say. Your views are important to us. Please send your comments to Plaid Cymru’s Policy Development Unit: [email protected] Published by: The Policy Development UnitPlaid CymruTy Gwynfor, Anson CourtMarine Chambers, Atlantic WharfCardiff, CF10 4AL

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“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.”

Abraham Lincoln, 1862

Ideas for the First

Welsh P

arliament

Issue 1:E

ducation, health and

the environment

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Wales in 2010, as every other nation on our planet, is reeling in the wake of the crisis of our times. A crisis, which began in property, fuelled a credit crunch that caused a world-wide recession and a ballooning public debt which has ended in the most savage cuts in public services seen since the 1930s.

All this beneath the gathering storm of potentially cataclysmic man-made climate change.

Surprising and even more serious, given the circumstances, is the intellectual climate crisis: the dearth of new thinking. The prevailing ideas of our time are the products of the systems and institutions of the last century. They are simply ill-equipped to produce the solutions necessary for the problems of today.

All of the above is creating a sense of powerlessness and an impasse in human history. So a world characterised by insecurity about the present and paralysis about the future finds its expression in a rising tide of uncertainty.

It is into this vacuum that we must inject new hope in a new world and a new humanity, and in our context at home, a new Wales. A Wales increasingly confident in its status as a nation and its place in the wider world.

Four years ago, we boldly said that another Wales was possible. And over the last three years we have shown how new thinking can indeed make a difference. We promised to create a new Welsh agenda and we did.

We did it by:

Ensuring a referendum to give Wales a proper Parliament and a review of how our nation is funded.

Protecting our hospitals and investing in their future. Cutting red tape by reducing the number of health boards from 22 to 7.

Protecting thousands of jobs during the recession and delivering a brand new economic strategy to support our home-grown businesses in every part of the country.

Promoting sustainable transport and improving North-South & East-West links through our national transport plan.

Securing a brighter future for rural communities by developing the Young Entrants’ Scheme to help new farmers and working with rural communities to create the best possible agri-environment schemes.

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Creating new affordable housing, investing in broadband links and changing planning guidance to support communities.

Delivering a historic new Welsh Language Measure, a new innovative Welsh-language news service and the first ever Welsh-Medium education strategy.

But we want to do more. Wales needs leadership - to transform public services not manage them, to map out a wide arc of the possible and not set in bold the limits of our abilities in spite of reducing budgets.

Our vision, as always, is informed by our fundamental values:

That it is the people of Wales who should be responsible for shaping their own destiny and the shape of the nation.

That improving the life chances of the poorest is the prime measure of social and economic progress.

That the quality of our relationships, not material wealth, is the sign of a good society.

That every child should be given the same opportunity to live a happy and fulfilled life empowered by knowledge, ideas and information.

What we promise is nothing less than a new vision for Wales. A vision based on ambition, mutual respect and collective responsibility. A new vision for a new Wales.

This is the first in a short series of discussion papers which outlines this new vision.

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WalesCan/be a creative country

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WalesCan besmarter. greener.healthier

Virtually every country in the world at the moment is reforming its education system, trying to equip the next generation to cope with the demands of globalisation and the pace of technological change. But reform is not enough. We need a revolution.

We are all born with natural talents and an innate curiosity about the world in which we live. Our children, regardless of their background or family income, should have the same opportunities whilst recognising poverty as debilitating. All too often our children’s talents are stifled, their interests dampened and their ambition suppressed. Too many teachers have been demotivated, robbing Wales and the world of our most precious asset: our creativity.

The roots of this disastrous waste of talent are deep and numerous:

a narrow emphasis on academic subjects and qualifications at the expense of the practical, the vocational and the development of confident, happy and rounded individuals.

a dry approach to the teaching of maths and the sciences.

the erosion of interest, in school and after, in physical education, humanities, languages and the arts.

the idea of education as a race with winners and losers, rather than an equal chance for everyone to grow in skill and capacity.

The industrial revolution of the 19th century led to an industrial model of schooling - training a mass workforce for a production-led economy driven by a narrow attitude to discipline and work ethic, and a narrow elite to administer it.

Education needs to leave behind the traditional model - linear, mechanical and standardised - and become more rounded - nurturing talent, sowing seeds, developing skills not solely about learning facts, creating the conditions for our children to flourish organically, dynamically, everyone in their own unique way.

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“Education should be based around the child”

The introduction of the Foundation Phase for the very youngest children is an enormous step in the right direction.

Education should be about passion, energy and excitement. All too often the system of industrial education detaches young people from their own interests, their natural talents and creativity. We need to move away from a rigid system of learning to personalised and customised education, tailored to the needs of each child - using new technology of self-directed but connected learning to help us achieve this. As mentioned, the introduction of the Foundation Phase for the very youngest children is an enormous step in the right direction but this innovation and creativity in education cannot stop at seven.

We must expand the concept of education beyond the school to create for each child a virtual learning environment - using sources of learning, learning networks, learning technologies and learning methods that complement the traditional school institution.

We need to free up students to learn and teachers to teach, with equality, and greater linkages, between subjects. Teachers need to be given the tools and the encouragement to teach in a way that excites and motivates themselves and their students.

Education should be based around the child, their talents and their interests, turning a national curriculum into a personal curriculum within a framework of external support - because people do their best when what they do is what they love.

In a wider context we need to move away from a system in which knowledge is hoarded either behind real walls or indeed the firewalls of intellectual property to a new world in which all knowledge and culture is available for sharing and collaborative work.

To create the Learning Nation we want to create a 21st-century National Library Service enabling every citizen to loan any published book through the post, paying only the cost of postage - moving to an e-mail delivery system for those who would prefer it, incorporating film and audio where the current system of copyright allows.

The growth of bilingualism is one of the success stories of modern Wales. We are determined that Welsh-medium education provision now and in future should meet demand. We must also build on that success by becoming a tri-lingual nation within a generation - with an increasing proportion of our school, further education and university students spending


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periods of study in other countries in Europe and beyond, as well as studying other subjects through the medium of their third language. We want to begin by introducing a third language from the age of 7.

In higher education there needs to be a renewed emphasis on innovation, creativity and entrepreneurship with new start-up and development capital

for spin-out firms especially in the creative industries, design-based manufacturing and green technology. The proposals in the Economic Renewal Programme can deliver this agenda in view of the increasing collaboration between the higher education sector and business.


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WalesCan/be an active country

The scale of the health challenge we face as a nation is clear. Epidemics of chronic disease have become a feature of Welsh communities: obesity, heart disease, cancer and diabetes are all too common. Our excellent NHS has a crucial role to play but the focus on treating these conditions should not divert attention from their root causes.

With the mounting costs of chronic ill health and the age wave about to hit us hard, this approach is no longer sustainable. Efforts in recent years have focused on redesigning the NHS based on patient need, improving people’s experience of healthcare and measuring success through patient satisfaction.

We now need a cross-government approach which focuses on lifelong wellbeing and on prevention rather than cure and promotes a holistic model of human health, treating the whole person, body and mind, to create genuine health and happiness. Taking health from the hospital and into the home.

The big idea, the idea that can make a difference to all our lives

- in technical parlance - is co-production: patients and health professionals working together to produce healthy outcomes together - improved diet, better exercise, stress management and smoking cessation.

To achieve this vision we want to turn our national health service into a public and personal health service, with patient-centred systems, and through our local health boards, ensure the integration of health and social care and a great role for social enterprises in healthcare delivery. Overall we want to ensure that more emphasis is placed on public health and prevention by the end of this decade. We want to give people access to their own electronic medical records and use broadband and telemedicine to cut down on travelling time, helping them to monitor their own nutrition and general wellbeing and give improved access to specialist advice when it’s needed.

Every person in Wales should be entitled to a personal health plan covering exercise, diet and specialist care.

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“we need to help people to take control of their own health”

Above all we need to help people to take control of their own health as far as possible, supporting and encouraging them to live healthier lives, stay out of hospital and feel good by helping them to become more knowledgeable, engaged and proactive in relation to their own health and happiness. To combat health inequalities we want to further incentivise newly-qualified doctors into disadvantaged areas through a sponsorship scheme by, for instance, repaying their student loans.

We want to require all dentists who receive training through the NHS to provide a minimum proportion of their time under NHS terms.

We should have a root and branch review of out of hours GP provision so that patients can receive quality services in their own communities when they need them instead of the limited status quo.

Opportunities are lacking to encourage children and young people to play and lead active lifestyles outdoors. We want to ensure outdoor experience becomes part of the life of all our young people, by for example introducing and supporting after-school clubs and designated sport half days every week.

We want to create more community gardens and allotments - encouraging community and food security by turning public spaces and under-used land into urban farms, supporting communities to grow and eat local food.

We want to work to create a network of local health and food co-operatives to ensure that healthy, affordable and local food is available through local co-operative and privately owned restaurants, and farmers’ markets.

We want to launch Square Meal, Square Mile - a new Welsh diet and nutrition drive based on the creation of local food systems in every part of Wales.

Finally, alongside the conventional measure of economic performance, Gross Value Added, we want to develop a new measure of wider wellbeing, in conjunction with a growing number of countries across the globe, Net Value Added - which will measure the level of wellbeing in society as a whole.

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The struggle for survival has always been part of our narrative as a nation. Now that narrative assumes a global meaning as we come face to face with the gravity of the environmental challenge of the next decade. Peak oil and the climate crisis threaten to overwhelm the whole of the developed West. We in Wales cannot escape our duty to help, in some small way, to guide the planet to a different and less destructive path. At the same time we must do all we can to prepare and protect our society and our economy from the coming energy and resource crunch. We want to produce a large-scale breakthrough in the retrofitting of Wales’ existing building stock, creating Low Carbon Zones - combating fuel poverty and lowering emissions by bringing poor-quality housing up to higher energy efficiency standards - through a combination of public and private investment and a social enterprise model based on pre-pay to pay-as-you-save - financing home energy efficiency measures at no cost in family homes through capturing future savings on energy bills.

WalesCan/be a greenercountry

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We want to make cycling mainstrem - investing in urban and rural networks of greenways, dedicated cycles routes and building people’s confidence to cycle. New pilots will be introduced in both rural and urban areas, building on the work of the Sustainable Travel Towns Initiatives. We will aim to ensure that 10% of all journeys are by bike.

We want to facilitate the creation of Gwyrdd Cymru, a Glas Cymru for renewable energy generation, a national not-for-profit public company using Wales’ natural resources for the benefit of Wales and the planet, to invest in offshore wind, wave and tidal power and to develop the world’s first tidal lagoon. Wales - with its hundreds of miles of coastline - will become a world-leader in Algae production, using these micro-organisms in a cyclical system to capture carbon and utilise it as a source of renewable energy, fertiliser, fuel oil and chemicals. We will ensure a major initiative to use biomass to generate bio-energy and bio-char, which can be used to enhance agricultural soil’s fertility and its carbon storing capacity.

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“We will make cycling mainstream - investing in urban and rural networks of greenways, dedicated cycles routes and building people’s confidence to cycle. New pilots will be introduced in both rural and urban areas, building on the work of the Sustainable Travel Towns Initiatives. We will aim to ensure that 10% of all journeys are by bike.”


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“what we can do together”.

Beginning in 2012 we want to introduce a national car-free day to help change people’s attitudes to walking, cycling and the use of public transport.

We want to make electric car-charging stations necessary in every new public building from 2016, exploring the potential for road-surface car charging strip technology, and ensuring a fleet of easy-to-rent electric cars are available at every major train station. Taxi operators throughout Wales will be offered grants to convert to electric cars beginning with a pilot project.

We want to launch the Charter Town initiative: a national competition for the first 100% renewable energy reliant community.

Our plan for the future

Next year sees Wales on the threshold of a new chapter in its history with the referendum to create a proper Parliament. But change cannot stop there. Now, more than ever before, a clear vision is needed to transform Wales into the country we want it to be.

Plaid is ready to offer that vision. The people of Wales expect nothing less.

In this discussion document, we have started to outline some of the ideas which form part of that vision.

Over the coming months we will be asking you to help create the Wales we all want to see. The most important question at this election, after all, is not what we as a party can do for you. It is what we can all achieve through thinking and working together, in a nation whose people’s first though is not “what I want”, but “what we can do together”.


Documents

WalesCan be - Smart. Green.Healthy