Welsh Labour conference: Party will 'fight for every vote'

Welsh Labour's annual conference is starting in Cardiff, with Carwyn Jones promising to fight for every vote.

The Welsh Labour leader and first minister will address the party on Saturday afternoon.

Speaking to BBC Wales on Friday night, he said the party was looking to increase the number of councils under its control at this year's local government elections in May.

He said the economy and the health service would remain priorities.

The conference weekend gets under way with Harriet Harman, Labour's deputy leader, speaking at an event at the Hilton Hotel in Cardiff on Friday.

Labour leader Ed Miliband will then address delegates on Saturday morning.

Mr Jones said Welsh Labour had delivered much in the past year and had exciting plans for the future.

These included "putting money into the economy" and "making sure we have a safe and excellent health service".

Mr Jones said Wales had seen a cut of 7.5% in its budget, adding that "we can only spend the money we get".

"What we've tried to do is to allocate money to those areas we think are important to people - health, education and particularly of course, at the moment, making sure people have the opportunity to get jobs and training," he said.

"We've put a substantial amount of money, hundreds of millions of pounds, into the economy over the past year, and we've seen the unemployment rate drop over the past two months that we have figures, when it's gone up, unfortunately, elsewhere in the UK.

'Not complacent'

"Now that's not the full picture, who knows what will happen in the next few months, but it shows that what we're doing is having an effect even at this early stage."

Following the worst set of local election results in the party's history four years ago, Mr Jones said he wanted to build on last year's Welsh assembly election result when Labour won 30 seats.

"Clearly we want to increase the number of councillors that we have and to increase the number of councils that we control," added Mr Jones.

"But we're not complacent, we're not going to sit back, we're going to go out there and fight for every single vote.

"Hard work brings the results... you can never afford to sit back."