On Disagreeing With The Welsh Party...

...for the first time since my politicisation! (It sounds painful, but it really just involves taking the important step in the life of any Lib Dem activist' relative - the step where folding Focus stops being something you are told to do by your father for pocket money, to become something you ask your father to do... for free)

It was quite a wrench, to disagree for maybe the first time, but I just can't support the motion that will be coming to Welsh Conference in October. It calls for our party not to reintroduce prescription charges.

Now, of course as always I am willing to be persuaded.

It seems to me we need to be showing the Welsh people where we would make savings and where we would promise not to make any cuts. This is a brilliant moment for us to be open and honest with the electorate.

Dare I say, it also gives us a chance to set out our priorities. Let us say we are going to be taking a fine tooth comb to the bloated Assembly budgets, to really slice out unnecessary expenditure. That's the sort of maturity we need to show, especially as budgets begin to tighten.

Now, saying that we will protect everyone with a chronic, terminal or even long-term condition from paying anything. That protects people who otherwise would pay. It is right that people who suffer long-term conditions of any kind should have their prescriptions free of charge. However, I think having the guts to tell the Welsh people that we will make people pay for penicillin during the occasional cough (unless they cannot afford that, in which case they could also get it free), is vital for us to be honest with the Welsh people.

Let us make sure we amend the free prescription mess so that it protects the poor and anyone at all of any income suffering any long-term conditions. But lets not promise to keep something free for everyone. When I was phoning (admittedly a small number of people), many people said they did not begrudge paying for penicillin or paracetamol. It is that sort of freebie that becomes wasteful.

I suppose I could be swayed if someone in the party assured me the cost of changing the system for a small number of people would be greater than the cost of making it universally free for Wales.

If that's not the case, I think I feel an amendment coming on!

(Wow, two blog posts in an hour... it's like that 'waiting for a bus' joke!)