Plaid Cymru stronghold continues for Dwyfor Meirionnydd with Liz Saville Roberts
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00:00It's the fourth term that you've been elected, how do you feel?
00:25It's exhausting and it's exhilarating at the same time, and of course the major difference
00:31this time is that the boundaries of the constituency have changed, and there's the old Dŵrfam
00:35Eirionedh area, but it's also brought in new areas of Arfon, up to Felenhely and Bethal,
00:41and of course entirely into a new county as well, the county of Denbighshire, the communities
00:45of Edernion, Wythacorwen, Llandryllon, Cynwyd.
00:49So there's been so much work really since we knew the boundaries were changing, just
00:53to try to get to know people, and it will be a massive challenge, and my duty now is
00:58to make sure that we reach out to people, that we hear their needs, that we're always
01:03in contact as best we can.
01:05So how do you plan on representing your old and new constituents in Westminster specifically?
01:14Plaid Cymru has two offices already, we have an office in Cynarfon and we have an office
01:18in Dolgellau, certainly be keeping an office in Eirionedh, and then we have surgeries.
01:24In many ways obviously people contact differently now, they contact primarily over email, but
01:29in the new areas it's really important to offer that face-to-face contact.
01:33I'm lucky I've had a fantastic staff team working with me, they will be behind us, and
01:39as they always say, the work starts now.
01:43And it's been a good night for Plaid as well, you've been rejoined by Ben Lake who's been
01:48re-elected in Ceredigion as well, what do you, Plaid, plan to continue doing or do differently?
01:55Well we will have, and this is fantastic, we will have four MPs, two of them will new,
02:00three quarters of them now will be women, and the other one of course is Ben Lake who
02:05is excellent.
02:06Our job in going to Westminster is to point out what could be done differently, and what
02:12could be done better for Wales, and where we're losing out, and that is unfair, it's
02:16our job to draw attention to that, make sure that it has a high profile.
02:20This is really important now that we have Labour in power in Cardiff, and Labour in
02:25power in Westminster, because we're very used historically to Labour complaining that they
02:30can't do things because they don't get the money from Westminster, now the buck stops
02:33with them.
02:34We've had Jo Stevens, the Secretary of State for Wales, saying two years ago, yeah HS2
02:40that should be bringing ÂŁ4.6 billion into Wales.
02:43Now she's turning around and saying, oh it's not actually, well once she said HS2 didn't
02:47even exist, then she was saying that it wasn't that much money, and that they can't afford
02:51to do it.
02:52Labour have got nowhere to hide now, but it will be Plaid Cymru who put the interests
02:55of Ceredigion, Dwyfor Merioneth, Carmarthen, Carberthen and Ynys MĂ´n, we'll be putting
03:01those first, but with that of course we're putting the interests of the whole of Wales
03:04first in a way that I think we'll now see Labour are very used to being able to send
03:09people to London because of Welsh votes, but actually what are we going to get out
03:13of it?
03:14We will be holding them to account.
03:15That's great to hear.
03:16And you've touched on this already, but the national picture, there's a return of Labour,
03:24also a rise of Reform UK, what's your take on what's happened in the country today?
03:31Well it's, democracy will produce a range of effects, everybody who is elected has been
03:38elected by a democratic means, so they have a right, so they should be respected for being
03:44there.
03:45Nonetheless, much of what reform stands for is entirely the opposite of what Plaid Cymru
03:50stands for.
03:51So on their ideas, on their policies, on their values, we will be calling them out, because
03:55we believe in an international Wales, an outward looking Wales, a Wales that welcomes migrants
04:01and appreciates the contributions that they can make, and a Wales that believes that our
04:05Parliament is best placed to make all the important decisions for Wales, so we will
04:09be taking reform on, and even more importantly, we will be holding Labour to account.