POLITICIANS put NHS funding in Wales at the heart of an election debate in Monmouth tonight.

Tory David Davies deplored the state of the health service in the country hit by long waiting lists, the worst ambulance response times in the UK and a lack of cancer drug fund forcing patients to go to England for treatment.

Mr Davies, who has held the Monmouth seat for a decade, acknowledged there had been an eight per cent cut to the NHS in Wales.

But he said: “We support the NHS. We would never ever support the privatisation of the NHS."

Labour candidate Ruth Jones said NHS Wales had suffered a £1.5 billion cut in the last year during the hustings at Monmouth Baptist Church.

Meanwhile Jonathan Clark, of Plaid Cymru, asserted that Wales had the lowest level of doctors in the EU.

His party advocates the recruitment of 1,000 extra doctors for Wales.

Mr Clark said some would come from overseas, for instance New Zealand.

UKIP candidate Gareth Dunn defended the comments his leader Nigel Farage had made on "HIV health tourists".

Mr Farage claimed that immigrants with HIV moved to the UK as “health tourists” as a means of claiming free treatment.

Mr Dunn acknowledged his leader had upset the public but said patients with HIV each cost between £20-25,000 to treat each year or £1.1 to £1.2 trillion overall to the British economy.

He told the audience: “Nigel Farage upsets people but I think he is a breath of fresh air. He says it how it is.”

Chris Were of the Green Party advocated investment in trains and buses in the Monmouth constituency.

He slammed the high speed rail link HS2 between London and the north of England saying it was a "waste of money".

Mr Dunn, of UKIP, agreed with him, saying the stretch between London and Birmingham would cost £30bn and claimed this would be enough to fund five missions to Mars.

However, Mr Davies said millions of pounds was being invested in railway infrastructure benefiting passengers in South Wales.

Ms Jones agreed with him saying railway electrification was an important scheme for the country.

Mr Davies also called for a fair financial settlement for Monmouth, saying it had the lowest one out of 22 local authorities in Wales.

He said it was “disgraceful” and warned council tax could go “through the roof” if the issue was not addressed.

Meanwhile, Mr Were told the audience food bank use in the UK was "unbelievable" with one million users in Britain in the last year.

Debating inequality, Ms Jones said her party would seek to increase the minimum wage to £8 an hour and work towards a living wage.

She said: "Austerity is not necessarily the way forward."

Mr Davies defended the Conservatives’ record in power with the Lib Dems, saying unemployment had fallen by half a million since 2010 and asserted that the country had the best rate of growth in the whole of the developed world.

Mr Davies added that zero hour contracts were better than no jobs at all and that 80 per cent of positions which had been created were in fact full-time posts.