The Green's Anthony Slaughter says "carrying on business as usual, tinkering around the edges" won't fix the NHS.

"Things can't carry on as they are, squabbling is helping no one".

"We're looking at moving resources from secondary care to primary care," he says.

Darren Millar, of the Conservatives, says his party would get to work straight away on the NHS.

"It's not a plan-ifesto that we've published - it's a manifesto that we've published," he says.

He says it has a very clear message - "our NHS is in crisis".

He says extra money can be found for the health service by scrabbing extra politicians in Cardiff Bay.

But Eluned Morgan replies that scrapping them "wouldn't pay for the NHS for a day".

The leaders of Plaid Cymru and Reform Wales come to blows over the direction of their political parties.

"Did Farage appoint you to cause trouble for him or because you would do everything he he says?" asks Rhun ap Iorwerth.

"I think it's the latter," he adds.

There is a smattering of groans from the audience as he questions the Reform leadership.

Plaid's leader Rhun ap Iorwerth accuses Reform of not having a plan for the NHS.

"Their leader, Nigel Farage, has made it clear that he doesn't believe in an NHS funded out of general taxation," he said.

"Your boss is stood in the middle here, that's Eluned Morgan," Thomas replies.

Dan Thomas insists that the NHS is a "huge priority" for his party. He accuses Labour of slipping up on their targets set after the pandemic".

He says nurses are being "let down by senior managers that are not being held accountable".

"We need to make sure that senior managers are running the hospitals properly," he said.

Challenged on the failure to meet waiting time targets, Morgan says she is "not ashamed of the fact that we set stretching targets.

"We could have set targets that are easy to meet. But I think it's important to test the system."

NHS a huge issuepublished at 20:05 BST 28 April

20:05 BST 28 April

Owain Clarke
Wales Health Correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

Health and social services already consume more than 55% of the Welsh government's total budget for day to day spending - a much higher proportion than at the start of devolution.

Also staff numbers have grown substantially - with around 20% more working in the Welsh NHS now than in 2019/20, just before the Covid-19 pandemic.

But those increases have not, according to experts from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), led to an equivalent rise in NHS productivity.

The other challenge for the politicians - is that the likely demands on the health service, will further rise over the next 20 years - as the population continues to grow older.

That will happen as the proportion of people of working age, paying tax to sustain public services, shrinks.

The first question comes from Ameera Hussain, a 19-year-old student from Cardiff who works in the health service.

She asks: “Wales needs the NHS. What will you do to sustain it and what will you do to save it?”

Eluned Morgan says waiting lists have come down for nine months in a row. She says she has a plan and its working.

She says the Welsh government has promised the "biggest hospital infrastructure programme that Wales has ever seen".

The audience have taken their seats and the debate is about to begin here at BBC Wales in Cardiff.

The voting system is changing as part of wider reforms pushed through the Senedd by Labour and Plaid Cymru.

Here are the key changes:

• The number of politicians in the Senedd is increasing from 60 to 96.
• The first-past-the-post system is being scrapped in favour of a proportional system known as D'Hondt.
• In previous elections voters had two votes. This time, voters will have one vote in which they pick a party rather than a specific candidate.
• People aged 16 and over in Wales will be eligible to vote.

Find out more about the new voting system here.

Gareth Lewis
Wales political editor

The audience is also likely to play a big role in tonight’s debate.

It’s trickier for politicians to push back against people’s experiences than it is to do so against each other or journalists’ questions.

So far in this campaign we have heard some pretty grim tales from audience members of long waits in A&E and struggles with the cost of living crisis which have really put politicians on the spot.

These are moments when political pledges collide with real-life.

Not only can they make compelling viewing, but they also illustrate the sense of scale of some of the issues that politicians need to grapple with.

Image source, Matthew Horwood

Exactly who would be the leader of Reform in Wales was resolved when Nigel Farage revealed his pick in February - the question having followed the party around for months.

Thomas was not a name familiar to most in Welsh politics, having cut his teeth as a Conservative councillor in the London borough of Barnet, where he was leader from 2019 to 2022.

Thomas defected to Reform in June 2025, and resigned from the council at the end of that year.

He grew up in Blackwood - a valleys town north of Newport - and later worked in financial services in the UK capital.

Rhun ap Iorwerth was born in Tonteg, near Pontypridd, but grew up in the north west of the country, moving to Anglesey aged five.

Ap Iorwerth's family were very active in Welsh public life - his father was a teacher, prominent singer and campaigner for the Welsh language, while his mother was a president of a number of bodies promoting Welsh.

Before he entered politics he was a high profile political journalist for BBC Wales, quitting the broadcaster in 2013 to stand for Plaid Cymru in the Senedd seat of Ynys Môn.

He took over as leader in 2023, after a scathing report on misogyny, harassment and bullying within Plaid led to the resignation of Adam Price.

Jane Dodds became Welsh Liberal Democrat leader in 2017, having previously worked as a social worker.

She became an MP in 2019, winning the Brecon and Radnorshire by-election, and after a short stint in Parliament she returned to politics at the Senedd election in 2021.

Being elected as the only Lib Dem in the Welsh Parliament, she has referred to her situation as like being "billy no mates".

In the Senedd she secured a ban on greyhound racing in Wales and a £1 bus fair for young people in an agreement to support Welsh Labour's budget for 2025/26.

Eluned Morgan became the first woman to lead Wales after a chaotic start to 2024 that saw Welsh Labour elect Vaughan Gething as its leader, only for ministers to ditch him over how he paid for his campaign.

Morgan grew up in political family in Ely - where both her parents were councillors and her dad had served as a council leader.

Her own political career started young when she was elected to the European Parliament aged just 27 in 1994. She was granted a peerage in 2011, and swapped Westminster for Cardiff Bay in 2016 when she was elected to represent Mid and West Wales in the Senedd.

She is known to speak her mind - describing trying to run the NHS on a tight budget as "hell on earth" in 2022 when she was health minister.

Image source, PA Media

Anthony Slaughter took over as leader of the Welsh Greens in December 2018.

If the polls are right, he could be the first Green leader to see the party win seats in the Welsh Parliament.

The former punk rocker grew up in Australia and South Africa, before moving to the UK, according to a Walesonline profile, external.

His band Riot Squad SA was the first South African punk band to get a record released in Europe, the news site reported.

Darren Millar had been talked about as a potential leader of the Welsh Tories in the Senedd for years before he actually took the job in late 2024.

Millar took over from Andrew RT Davies after the former leader quit under pressure over the direction he was taking the party in.

Brought up in Towyn, Conwy, Millar worked as a manager for an international charity supporting persecuted Christians before he entered Senedd politics in 2007, when the institution was still known as the National Assembly for Wales.

The party leaders have been carrying out last-minute preparations and going over their main talking points as we near the start of the debate.