General Election : What are the concerns of the young Welsh voters
First time voter Camille Valere finds out what are the parties offering to the young voters?
There has been a big push in the general election campaigns to get younger people to come out and vote on polling day.
The Electoral Commission has revealed that just 20% of the people under the age of 34 are actually registered to vote.
Camille Valere, a first time voter and student from Cardiff University, found out what are the parties offering to the young voters in Wales.
She spoke to Welsh Secretary David TC Davies who was representing the Conservatives, along with Labour's Shadow Welsh Secretary Jo Stevens and Plaid Cymru's Liz Saville Roberts.
High interest rates on the property ladder
Camille asked the candidates about when she graduates how on earth are young people like her going to get jobs or get on the property ladder with interest rates still so high and mortgages so hard to get?
David TC Davies said: " I would expect mortgage rates to start falling because inflation has come down from over 11% to about 2% and the Bank of England use higher interest rates to try and bring inflation down, so now that interest rates are down we would expect mortgage rates to follow. The second thing is that it is hard for the young people to get on the housing ladder at the moment, we fully accept that which is why brought in a scheme that would help young people to make their first purchase on houses upto £450,000, which should cover most of them.
Jo Stevens said: "I completely understand the situation. One of my children has just graduated from University as well. What Labour's going to do is stabilise the economy and that we bring down interest rates and mortgage rates and inflation. We will also make sure that fiscal rules govern all the financial decisions we make. We're going to build 1.5 million homes because we desperately need new homes. We're going to reform the planning system because it takes too long to build things."
Liz Saville Roberts said: "It really is a frightening time. I mean we know the mortgages have gone up so much and we know there are few houses. We know that the cost of housing has gone up....Of course, we have to find a way for interest rates to come down. Also, people can get a job in Wales that is worth not just getting a house for but also staying here for."
Climate change
Camille also asked the politicians, that their generation will bear the brunt of climate change as they get older. What promises can the party make to tackle it?
David TC Davies said:" We've been very clear that we need to tackle climate change. We're looking to become net zero by 2050. We don't think we can rush this because Braitain produces around 1% of the world's carbon emissions. So the trick is to ensure we can reduce carbon emissions without impacting the living standards of everyone without impacting young people and without impacting people's ability to finding work. We've put together a plan that would reduce CO2 emissions in a rational fashion between now and 2050."
Jo Stevens said: "We want clean energy in the UK by 2030. It's a very challenging net zero target but we are determined to do it. And the big part of that would be setting up a publicly owned energy company called GB Energy that will bring down bills for everybody forever and it will give us energy security but most of all it would be based on renewable energy so that we are having a mix of nuclear offshore wind, onshore wind and to make sure we have clean electricity in place by 2030... in Wales we are building 20,000 new social houses a year which are carbon neutral and that's the future."
Liz Saville Roberts added: "We have to recognise how serious this is. At the same time there are people out there in politics that deny climate change is an issue. My party believes that Wales should be carbon neutral by 2035. Also because we need to be producing more energy and that the cost of energy for people living here actually affordable as well. Alongside that the energy is the hard craft of it. We've got to look at natural diversity and how we maintain habitats as best as we can."
Brexit policy
Camille then asked that in a recent ITV poll, 87 per cent of the young people say they want to rejoin the EU. How will the parties going to convince them that you can make Britain a success after Brexit?
David TC Davies responded:" I think Britain has already been a success after Brexit. We saw the benefits during Covid when we were able to roll out a vaccine faster than any other country in the EU. We got through the bureaucracy so quickly and we saved so many lives because of it. We've had the joined fasted growth of the G7 countries. Britain and Canada are the joint fastest growing countries this quarter. We've seen inflation come down and we've seen unemployment at a historic low level. We've got trade deals signed across the world and not just Europe. So, we think there are huge opportunities as a result of coming out of the European Union."
Jo Stevens added:" Brexit has happened and there's no appetite for us to return in the country I think to that kind of divide and political paralysis that we had for so many years. We've got to look to the future now and we've got to rebuild our reputation with Europe. We've got to rebuild our relationship with Europe and next year there will be a chance to make those changes and review the Brexit agreement which is a terrible agreemnet that Boris Johnson put through to the Parliament. But we need to breakdown the barriers that are stopping trade."
Liz Saville Roberts said: "My party campaigns to remain in the EU and we are campaigning now for what seems to be a common sense solution at the very least we go back to the single market in the customs union. It appals me that we have reduced young people's opportunities to go abroad to work and these are our nearest neighbours. We're next door to Ireland and we're not that far from France, why have we done this? and it is deeply disappointing that both Tories and Labour are saying that they can't count on others and we've got to face the real problems that are facing our economy but also our community as a whole."
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