The Blackpool Gazette, Lancashire Post and Blackpool Lead invited the candidates standing for the Fylde constituency at the upcoming general election to a hustings in which they fielded questions from voters.
The candidates standing for election on 4th July were each given time to answer questions from an audience at The Lowther Pavilion Theatre in Lytham.
Four out of the seven people on the ballot took part in the event with Cheryl Morrison (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom), Brendan Wilkinson (Green Party) and Brook Wimbury (Reform UK) all absent.
In order of appearance on stage:
ANNE AITKEN (Independent)
TOM CALVER (Labour)
MARK JEWELL (Liberal Democrats)
ANDREW SNOWDEN (Conservative Party)
The candidates standing for election on 4th July were each given time to answer questions from an audience at The Lowther Pavilion Theatre in Lytham.
Four out of the seven people on the ballot took part in the event with Cheryl Morrison (Alliance for Democracy and Freedom), Brendan Wilkinson (Green Party) and Brook Wimbury (Reform UK) all absent.
In order of appearance on stage:
ANNE AITKEN (Independent)
TOM CALVER (Labour)
MARK JEWELL (Liberal Democrats)
ANDREW SNOWDEN (Conservative Party)
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NewsTranscript
00:00people filed and you won't be surprised to learn that that's filed itself.
00:04Several questions here about what each of the candidates would do for the benefit of the
00:09borough, proving what us journalists secretly know but don't like to admit, which is that the public
00:14asks the best questions. Here's one for each of you. What is the first thing you will specifically
00:19do for the file that is not about toeing the party line but actually for the good of the file?
00:24And Anne, we'll go for you on this one.
00:28So I am a member of Fight Coast Against Sewage. I'm absolutely incensed that untreated sewage
00:36is going into our seas. We're a tourist area. Our rivers are full. It's just disastrous. So
00:43my main thing, I'm absolutely adamant that we have to do something about the sewage spills.
00:50We have to make the United Utilities accountable. At the moment I am in partnership with the
00:56council and we are testing the seas. So we do that once a week and we're going to just see how
01:02bad it is and then hopefully we can all work together. But that is my one thing
01:07that I'm adamant about that I've got to sort out for the file. Thank you.
01:11Thank you.
01:18We'll come to Tom next. How would you reject the party line in favour of file with the opportunity
01:23or the need arose? Let's be clear, the first thing we need to do is propose a wind farm project
01:28that's going to be going for development consent later this year. So in terms of sheer urgency,
01:33that's got to be the first thing. But I'd agree with you. It's about sewage and Labour Party has
01:38a plan for sewage, which means I can tow the party line and still deliver for this constituency.
01:43It's about fines, automatic fines for water companies, installing independent monitoring
01:50so that water companies can't get away with misreporting the spills that they're committing.
01:57It's about ensuring that water company executives don't take home whacking great bonuses while
02:02founding our seas, our beaches, our waters. And it's about going for criminal prosecutions if
02:07people don't get the message from all that. But yeah, absolutely. We have a water company that is
02:14owned massively by overseas investors. They're never going to come to our beaches. They're never
02:20going to come and look at our countryside. They just simply don't care because it's not in their
02:25backyard. We need to ensure that we have the financial penalties that actually land exactly
02:30close to home. And then we can have cleaner beaches. And the funny thing is, my first step
02:36is United Utilities will, on my email, almost instantly say we'd love to have a conversation
02:41about this. And this is where it isn't politics. This is where it's not about a party line.
02:46These are the beaches my children play on. And you can think again if you think you can dump...
02:52...
03:07I'm not sure that the Liberal Democrats within our manifesto are saying anything specifically
03:13about the Morgan & Morgan scheme other than we want to invest in our energy infrastructure.
03:19But that clearly is the item of urgency. That would be the first thing that I would do as your
03:25MP. But referring also to the sewage scandal where our beaches along the Fylde have been rated as
03:33poor, the Liberal Democrats would make our water companies a public benefit company.
03:39And the regulator, we would just scrap off what and introduce a clean water authority
03:45that had real teeth in keeping our waters clean. We would also ban, for those bosses who don't
03:53deliver, we would ban the bonuses for them. And we would extend the blue flag status that we
03:59currently have for beaches to our waterways as well. So it is in that way that the Liberal
04:05Democrats would address the scandal of the Conservatives dumping sewage in our waterways.
04:15Thank you very much. I believe I'll actually answer the question before, which is where would we be willing to
04:20break our party line if we were elected? And one area that I have great concern about and have been
04:26talking to many residents and business people is around farming in Fylde and the future of the
04:33farming business and the farming community. There are too many central directives that issue around
04:40subsidies for rewinding land, allowing farms to be broken up into small holdings around development
04:48onto farmland. For me, farming is an absolute fundamental part of rural life. If you took
04:55farmers out of our countryside, it would not be the beautiful, well-maintained and glorious place
05:01that it is. It is part of the fabric of our countryside. And I don't think we do enough
05:07to support our farmers and the countryside. Something that I will campaign on heavily is
05:13that we have a complete readdressing of the subsidy system that is perversely paying farmers
05:20not to produce food. It is wrong. It is against our food security as a country. It's something I
05:26feel deeply passionate about, and I know it is affecting our farming community in Fylde and
05:32beyond. And it is something that doesn't seem to be bubbling very close to the headlines,
05:36but is causing serious issues in the farming community. And to answer the question, is there
05:42an issue that I already can see where I will have with the party line? I don't know what the
05:47Conservative party line is going to be when we eventually discuss these issues of subsidies,
05:53but it is an issue that I will raise and I will fight for, because we have to keep Fylde farming
05:57and we have to keep and protect our greenbelt. As one farmer said to me the other day,
06:02it's a beautiful area, the farmers make it beautiful and someone needs to stand up for them too.