WELSH Liberal Democrat leader Kirsty Williams today launched a manifesto she said would leave the "vast majority" of people better off.

A pledge to raise the income tax threshold to £10,000 is at the centre of the party's platform for the General Election.

Mrs Williams said she would "make no apology" for proposals that would lift 200,000 people in Wales out of paying income tax altogether and hand £700 back to 800,000 more people on low and middle incomes.

"The vast majority of Welsh citizens will be better off under these proposals,’’ she said.

The tax break would be paid for by raising Capital Gains Tax, cutting pension relief for high earners, increasing aviation taxes and a "mansion tax’’ on properties worth more than £2 million.

Launching the Welsh Lib Dems' manifesto at a Cardiff hotel, she hailed "a plan that's as radical as it is filled with common sense and that is as possible to deliver as it is profound in what it has to say’’.

She added: "People will find that in the Liberal Democrats you have an honest partner in that fight to build a better Wales.’’ Mrs Williams said children in Wales had a one-in-three chance of being born into poverty, and received an education that was funded £500 per pupil less than their English counterparts and would leave university with record debts.

Her own family had shared in the struggle for fairness, she said, including her steel-worker great grandfather and his daughter who grew up on a council estate and was widowed at a young age.

"Life was tough then, and for far too many people in Wales it's tough now.’’ The Lib Dems go into the election as Wales's second-biggest party at Westminster, with four of the 40 seats.

Asked about the likelihood of retaining that status, Mrs Williams said: "I am very confident that we can make progress at this election.

"We doubled our number of MPs last time. We are campaigning very hard on the ground to make those gains.’’ She denied the party's shadow Welsh secretary Roger Williams had been sidelined from the campaign. Brecon and Radnorshire candidate Mr Williams was not at today's launch and there are no pictures of him in the manifesto.

"Is it my fault that I am more photogenic than poor old Roger Williams?’’ she said.