In the run-up to next week's 2021 Senedd Election, Nub News will be profiling the candidates running for the Vale of Glamorgan.

Next up is Michael Hancock, the Reform Party UK Candidate for the Vale of Glamorgan, who wants to live up to the party's name and bring real change to the Senedd.

We met with Michael in Cowbridge, the town he now calls home.

"You'll have gathered by my accent that I'm not Welsh," he said.

"Well, the truth of it is I am partly Welsh. I'm Welsh on my paternal grandparents' side. My dad's mum was Welsh, and his dad was a Yorkshireman.

"I was brought up in England and I moved here about 18 years ago. There must be something in the blood because I felt more at home here, than anywhere else I've been."

Michael is standing for the Reform Party UK, formerly the Brexit Party. We began our discussion by talking about lockdown and the effect on people's mental health.

"We recognize that we've not had this situation arise before and nobody quite knew how to handle it," said Michael.

"But we believe that there isn't a case for another lockdown, not in the same way that it was imposed last time.

"For children, they've been kept out of schools. Now they're kept in schools with masks on. It's a key period to develop in life and we feel that's been denied to them in the last 12 months. That's going to have long-reaching negative effects.

"So, we don't want to encourage that sort of thing to happen again, we will keep schools open no matter what.

"We'll also keep the health areas open: the gyms will stay open because physical health is important in combating diseases, and everything else. If you start locking people up in boxes, it doesn't really help."

Regarding the NHS, Michael said changes need to be made to allow it to cope with seasonal peaks.

"In terms of pandemic, I think they've done as well as to be expected, given the circumstances," he said.

"The NHS is always under the hammer in winter. There needs to be a change in the way that the NHS is run, so that those peaks in health issues can be dealt with without the whole thing that comes to collapse.

"One of the biggest wastes is when people don't show up to their GP appointments.

"We think that people should value what they have free. One idea might be when somebody doesn't go to their GP appointment is to give them a dummy invoice that shows them how much the appointment has just cost.

"If we show how much money they've wasted, then that educates the public to use the system more responsibly."

Speaking of education, Michael felt more awareness of financial systems was needed.

"We need to teach kids at school from around the age of 13 exactly what the financial world is going to look like for them when they leave school," he said.

"They're going to need to understand the notion of a wage and an hourly rate. They're going to need to understand what National Insurance is and what it pays for, what income tax is, interest rates and how they work if you're saving money, or if you're borrowing, credit cards, credit agreements etc.

"The reason is that they need to know how easy it is to multiply the and how easy it is to get into debt."

Michael also talked about missed opportunities by the government to get big businesses working in Wales.

"If we're going to have a successful economy, we've got to prove that we're open for business," he said.

"Companies coming into Wales along the M4 or M55, at the other end of the country, they've got to know that they can get in and out of the country without sitting in a car park for two hours.

"We do need to make ourselves more accessible. We have great opportunities and potential.

"We could create jobs all over the place with the help of the Union.

"The union is stronger with everybody together than being fragmented.

Wales is not in a position to be independent. We don't have the strength of economy to do that at the moment.

"Abolish are right in their opinion that the assembly hasn't worked up until now.

"But our argument is that to throw the baby out with the bathwater is not the answer.

"If we abolish the assembly, what we get is some MPs in Westminster looking after the affairs of Wales from a distance."

But Michael still feels something has to change.

"To me, it's key that anybody who comes into politics has life experience. How can you possibly know what's good for your electorate if you just come straight out of university into a politician's office?" he said.

"That becomes the game, which is what they're playing now like school boys in the playground, but not really say anything of substance.

"I'm not a politician. I have life experience, everything from being an engineer being in the armed services, to a financial advisor, running pubs in London, and working sound desks for companies internationally.

"I've done a lot of different things and I've seen an awful lot. If it was just more of the same old, same old I wouldn't be bothering but there is a different approach on offer.

"We got to get beyond that old hackneyed political nonsense that we've had before, which is why Reform is in this election in the first place, because it's got to be different."