Meet your candidates: Blaenau Gwent

Roger Thomas, UK Independence Party

I AM 39-years-old, have been married for 12 years and have two children. I have worked in the rail industry for the past 18 years and I am a member of the RMT Union.

Six years ago the Welsh people voted in a referendum asking them if they wanted a Welsh Assembly. Only one quarter of the electorate voted in favour. In the four years that the Assembly has existed, it has proved itself to be expensive and inefficient.

The idea that the Assembly would bring government closer to the people of Wales is clearly not true. The Assembly was set up as part of the European Union's plan to divide the UK into regions governed not from Westminster but from Brussels.

The Welsh Assembly is nothing more than the Cardiff office of the EU. Official EU maps of Europe show that Wales will be known as Region UKL.

I don't believe that it is in the interests of the Welsh people to employ an extra 2400 civil servants in the last four years, to open 'embassies' in New York, San Francisco, Brussels, Singapore, Tokyo and Australia, to construct a new assembly building costing upwards of £47m, or to double Council Tax bills in four years. The £80m that is wasted on the Assembly every year could be better spent on hospitals and schools.

The UK Independence Party believe that the Assembly is an unnecessary extra tier of government. UKIP would replace it with a Welsh Council comprised of existing elected representatives.

Other parties will offer the electorate all sorts of promises from free prescriptions for under 25s, to free breakfasts for primary school children. UKIP offers just one election promise: To implement legislation to abolish the Assembly. This can only be done from within the Assembly itself. Please vote UKIP on May 1.

*Also standing in South Wales East Region

Peter Law, Labour

AS the Labour and Co-operative Candidate for Blaenau Gwent, I am pleased to look back on the last four years since the inception of the National Assembly.

From the outset I have campaigned for social justice. I felt it was impossible for me to support the building of a new debating chamber at a probable cost of £40 million with £55 million of public money going to the building of a Millennium Centre Concert Hall when there are so many areas in need of support and could make a major difference to lives.

In Blaenau Gwent, where we have the worst deprivation and exclusion, with the highest unemployment and worst health statistics, much needs to be done.

I was pleased to embark upon a radical programme of infrastructure improvements that will mean we are putting down firm foundations for today's and future generations. I am proud to say I been part of the delivery of the £26 million Cwm by-pass scheme, the redevelopment of the former Semtex site at Brynmawr, at a cost of £36 million, and the recently started £10 million Llanhilleth regeneration scheme.

Communications will imp-rove further with the on-going dualling of the Heads of the Valleys road, the first phase of which began at Tredegar at a cost of £36 million. The re-opening of the Ebbw Valley passenger railway service, terminating at Ebbw Vale, is a major achievement and I am hopeful this £30 million scheme, scheduled to open late 2005, will be followed by a spur link to Abertillery a couple of years later.

Following 15 years of waiting I was delighted when the National Assembly Health Minister announced the £30 million Blaenau Gwent Community hospital will be built in the Ebbw Vale area.

We look forward to the redevelopment of the Ebbw Vale steelworks site. Our pensioners and disabled have new levels of mobility due to the free bus travel scheme brought in by Labour as promised in 1999.

I look forward to the next term when a Labour Government has made a strong pledge to abolish prescription charges and to make sure University top-up fees do not apply at Universities in Wales.

I am proud of the contribution the Labour Party has made, particularly as I believe in Blaenau Gwent and its people.

Contact: Joanne Thomas, Personal Assistant to Peter Law, Cardiff 02920 898136, fax 02920 898532; Ebbw Vale 01495 304569, fax 01495 306908; e-mail: peter.law@wales.gov.uk

*Also standing in South Wales East Region

Steve Bard, Welsh Liberal Democrats

Welsh Liberal Democrats have played a key role in the Partnership Government since it was formed in October 2000.

We have used the Assembly's powers to the full, recruiting 500 more doctors and nurses, bringing back free school milk, and student grants.

Those are real achievements but there is much more we could do if the Assembly has the powers.

We will seek the power and funding to abolish up-front tuition fees for students. In Scotland, we have already abolished up-front tuition fees. Liberal Democrat influence on student policy in both Scotland and Wales has shown that reducing student poverty increases educational participation and opportunity.

We will press for a fair voting system for elections to local councils. Much of local government in Wales currently presides over poverty, denies citizen opportunity and ignores community opinion. By introducing fair votes in council elections, government will be more representative and responsive to the communities it represents, leading to a better quality of government itself.

We will press for the Assembly to be reconstituted as a Senedd with law-making and tax-varying powers.

The National Assembly does not have the powers it needs to tackle the poverty, create the opportunity and build the communities with the effectiveness needed.

Welsh Liberal Democrats have always believed that Wales needs a Parliament, or Senedd, with powers comparable to those of the Scottish Parliament.

We will step up our pressure for such a Parliament and, in this manifesto, we set out what we will achieve with additional powers, as well as what we will deliver within the current limits.

Steve Bard returned to the Six Bells area of Abertillery in 1971 with his parents, to help look after their parents.

He attended Six Bells and Bryngwyn primary schools then Roseheyworth and Nantyglo comprehensives.

He later went to Salford College and on to Bath College where he gained his teaching certificate.

He has a masters degree in education from the Open University. He has also been a member of Abertillery Orpheus Male Choir since 1976. In 1991 he became the assistant musical director and then musical director.

Barrie O'Keefe, Conservative

Barrie O'Keefe Conservative candidate for Blaenau Gwent in the Welsh Assembly elections on May 1.

Personal: Barrie was born in Merthyr Tydfil in 1949 and attended the local grammar school. For the past 20 years he has lived at Gilwern outside Abergavenny.

Barrie has been married to Lynda, a part-time lecturer at Coleg Gwent for 30 years.They have twins Helen and Stephen, aged 24. Helen is a nurse at Bristol Children's Hospital, Stephen is doing research at Bristol University.

Career: Barrie has owned and operated various chip shops for over 20 years including one in Blaina from 1980-1994 and at Abergavenny for the past eight years.

Political: Barrie contested the Llanelli Parish by-election for the Conservatives in 2002 and is currently chairman of the Gilwern branch of the Monmouth Conservative Association.

Welsh Assembly policies: Barrie is against the spending of £50 million (at least) on a new debating chamber at Cardiff Bay and supports the initiative to divert the funds into a dedicated Children's Hospital for Wales If the ruling Lib/Lab pact must have a grandiose new building why don't they place it at the old Corus site in Ebbw Vale - at one stroke rehabilitating a disadvantaged area.

He will campaign for guaranteed waiting times for Welsh NHS patients. The current situation of 76,000 people waiting to see a consultant in Wales is unacceptable and should not be tolerated.

He welcomes the Assembly's decision to make funds available for a new Rail link between Ebbw Vale and Cardiff and Newport.

He will fight for maximum effort to be expended to regenerate the Valleys' communities and create jobs.

Blaenau Gwent: Barrie is concerned about the apparently unstoppable proliferation of drug abuse in the Valleys, there have been several recent deaths of young drug-takers in the constituency. He will call for a zero tolerance on the drug dealers, and a stepping up of the rehabilitation programme offered to young addicts.

Barrie will campaign to bring employment to the Valleys. Being self-employed himself he is specially keen to encourage entrepreneurial activity among people wanting to set up micro businesses.

Barrie promises to support the Conservative promise to 'ring fence' school budgets to make certain local authorities cannot divert money for schools to other areas. He firmly believes the education system, including further education colleges, are a vital tool in the battle to produce a vibrant and successful Blaenau Gwent * Also standing in South Wales East Region.

Rhys Ab Elis, Plaid Cymru

For Blaenau Gwent I see the most pressing priorities as: (a) Attracting and retaining quality local jobs for local people; (b) Getting the Ebbw Vale - Newport/Cardiff railway reopened; (c) Suppressing crime and anti-social behaviour; (d) Actively promoting care of the environment; (e) Achieving better healthcare.

Work: Never was there a greater need to attract light industry and IT jobs to fill the gap created by the Corus jobs haemorrhage. Ineffective Labour and Tory policies have left a deep unemployment wound. Time to give Plaid Cymru - the Party of Wales the chance to bring jobs back to Blaenau Gwent.

Transport: Giving Blaenau Gwent workers access to jobs in Cardiff and Newport means reopening the Ebbw Vale - Newport/Cardiff rail route to passengers. Failed Labour and Tory policies from London have resulted in Blaenau Gwent being the only constituency in Wales without any passenger railways, and there's no action in sight. I have no car but travel 50-60,000 miles every year by public transport.

By campaigning, using local bus services daily, I know how they have declined and continue to decline. I have decades of raw experience of our public transport - unlike most car-bound politicians. If elected, I would campaign tirelessly to get this rail service restored.

Law and Order: A Neighbourhood Watch local activist (and vice-chairman of Newport Crime Prevention Panel). I understand crime prevention issues and believe in proactive campaigning against crime and anti-social behaviour, and drug abuse wrecking our communities.

I want to listen to local co-mmunities, who have too seldom been listened to - best solutions come from within affected communities themselves.

Environment: We live in one of the most scenic places on the planet, and yet, too often, 'succeed' in turning it into a tip. Each one of us can make a difference - the solution is in our own hands if we want a trash-free environment, without another generation of polluting industries poisoning our land.

A vote for Plaid Cymru - the Party of Wales is a vote for a party that cares about where we live - and how we live, and will work to improve it. Health: Blaenau Gwent's projected new hospital mustn't reduce hospital beds elsewhere in Blaenau Gwent.