Welsh election: Tory official unable to explain new hospital policy

Glyn Davies is the former Conservative MP for Montgomeryshire

Welsh Conservative chairman Glyn Davies was unable to tell a radio interviewer the details of a key party policy for the Senedd election.

Mr Davies could not explain costings or locations for the five new hospitals which the party is promising to build if it forms the next Welsh government.

He told BBC Radio Wales it would cost "a lot of money".

"You are asking questions which are probably impossible for anyone answer at the moment," he added.

He told the Gareth Lewis programme to get the details from Welsh Conservative Senedd leader Andrew RT Davies "and his team".

The party's manifesto, launched on Tuesday, promises to "deliver five new and upgraded community hospitals over the next parliament in Flint, Llandrindod Wells, Newtown, Rhyl and west Wales".

Other pledges include 65,000 new jobs, and an income tax cut if the target is achieved.

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Asked to explain where the hospitals would be on BBC Radio Wales, Mr Davies said: "I don't know exactly where they'll be but some of them, there's one [that] will be very close to where I live in Newtown."

Pressed on whether the hospitals would be new or upgraded, he said: "I suspect that they'll be new. The precise, the exact, you'd have to really ask the Andrew Davies and his team".

He explained that the hospital in Newtown would have to be moved to a different site. He later said the hospitals would be "perhaps upgraded".

Gareth Lewis asked how much the policy would cost. Mr Davies replied: "It would cost a lot of money."

"As I say it's ambitious, but it all hangs together."

Pressed again, he said: "You are asking questions that are probably impossible for anyone to answer at this moment."

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