GE2019: Q&A with the candidates standing for the Richmond Constituency

John Yorke (Green)

1) What are three key local issues facing your constituency, and how would you address them?

1. Climate Emergency: The recent floods have brought home to me that the climate emergency is now a local issue.

The Green Party has a comprehensive plan to tackle it at the scale and speed set out by science.

It will deliver a fast, fair transformation, renewing almost every aspect of life: energy, food, work, travel and our homes.

2.NHS: Increase funding for the NHS by at least £6 billion every year, until 2030 (a 4.5% increase on the 2018/2019 NHS Budget), plus £1 billion p.a. in nursing education.

3.Farming: Create thousands of new jobs in rural areas, through the shift from intensive farming towards smaller-scale, more people-focussed food production and land management that respects nature

2) Leave, remain or second referendum – what is your stance on Brexit, and why?

There should be a People’s Vote to decide the way forward on Brexit. We are a pro-EU party and will campaign for remain. I want to realise the full potential of the EU to lead the fight against the climate emergency and to improve the lives of workers, low income families and refugees. I want to build on the positive changes secured by Green MEPs in Europe so far, to further rebalance power within the EU in favour of citizens and national self-determination, and away from corporate dominance.

3) Should people be prepared to pay additional tax to fund improvements in public services, like the NHS?

I whole-heartedly support the Green Party’s policy on social justice through investment in public services. This will be partly funded by taxation. I believe most people are public spirited and will pay taxes provided they see that everyone pays their fair share. Policy is to end the injustice whereby people who work for their incomes are taxed more highly than those whose income is derived from wealth. HM Revenue & Customs would be established as an independent agency of government, answerable to Parliament. This will remove the power of politicians to strike secret deals with powerful corporations and individuals.

4) High streets are struggling – what would you do to rescue them?

Give small businesses access to lending at affordable rates. Reduce VAT on food and drink served in pubs, bars and restaurants, on hotel bookings and on theatre, music concert and museum and gallery tickets. This will boost the leisure and cultural sectors, helping businesses at the heart of their local communities. Increase the Employment Allowance from £3000 to £10,000pa, allowing small businesses which employ people to claim back the equivalent National Insurance of four full-time workers earning the average salary. This tax cut will allow them to hire more people, increase wages or reduce prices.

5) What does the Northern Powerhouse need to make it work?

By scrapping the doomed HS2 rail line funds will be freed up will and spent on more effective sustainable public transport options, as part of the Green New Deal. This will enable an increase in rail capacity in regions that desperately need more investment, including the creation of three electrified rail lines running from Liverpool and Manchester to Sheffield, Hull and the Tees Valley. These three newly electrified lines will run through Bradford and Leeds, creating new rail hubs in the heart of Yorkshire.

Rishi Sunak (Conservative)

1) What are three key local issues facing your constituency, and how would you address them?

Health: I will keep fighting for a wide range of safe, high quality and sustainable health services - especially the nationally renowned 24/7 emergency care service at the Friarage.

Schools: The new national funding formula will end the previous unfairness which favoured urban schools over rural areas like ours. This fairer formula will deliver millions more for our local schools.

Rural economy: I will support the delivery of full fibre broadband to every home and business and so we can support and grow our rural economy. We have a package of measures to help our pubs and High Street shops.

2) Leave, remain or second referendum – what is your stance on Brexit, and why?

I voted leave and will support the Prime Minister’s new Brexit deal to put an end to the delay and uncertainly, and ensure the referendum result is honoured. We will work with our European partners on a comprehensive free trade agreement and step-up work on doing our own free trade deals with the rest of the world. Freedom of movement will also come to an end and we will introduce an Australian-style points-based immigration system. This deal will deliver on the referendum result so that the Government can focus on our priorities like the NHS, education and tackling crime.

3) Should people be prepared to pay additional tax to fund improvements in public services, like the NHS?

After the Conservatives’ careful handling of the economy over the past nine years we can invest in our public services. We will put a record additional £34 billion per year into our NHS by the end of the Parliament, will build 40 new hospitals, and deliver 50,000 more nurses 6,000 more doctors. And we can do this without increasing income tax, VAT or National Insurance on hard working families and will cut tax for the lowest paid. We will not borrow to fund day-to-day spending, but will invest in infrastructure like roads, rail and flood defences whilst continuing to ensure debt falls.

4) High streets are struggling – what would you do to rescue them?

We will cut taxes and lower business rates for our pubs and High Street businesses. By increasing the retail rates discount from 33 per cent to 50 per cent for all but the very largest shops and by maintaining small business rates relief the vast majority of businesses in our market towns will pay reduced or no business rates at all. Our £4.6bn Future High Streets and Towns Funds will help town centres across the country adapt, and we will establish a £150 million Community Ownership Fund to encourage local takeovers of community assets that are under threat.

5) What does the Northern Powerhouse need to make it work?

In addition to the Prime Minister’s announcement about investment in transpeninne rail links and northern Powerhouse Rail, the Great North Rail Project will invest £1bn in 2,000 new train services making it easier to get across the great towns and cities of the North. For roads, work has started on the project to complete the dualling of the A66 following the £400m recently spent on the A1 upgrade between Leeming and Barton and the Bedale bypass.

The creation of a freeport on Teesside will turbocharge growth in the wider economy, attract businesses and create thousands of jobs for local people.

Philip Knowles (Liberal Democrat)

1) What are three key local issues facing your constituency, and how would you address them?

1. The NHS. The closure of the only A&E in the constituency and the moving of the Mental Health in-patient wards out of the County causes issues in a rural constituency. The Liberal Democrats have pledged a 1p on Income Tax specifically for the NHS and social care. We also need to address the north south divide with London getting 25% more per head spend on health then Yorkshire & Humber.

2. Education. Wensleydale School and the Lower Wensleydale Business Network are working together to support apprenticeships in the area. Too many of our young people need to move away for careers and education. The recent changes to apprenticeships mean that businesses no longer need to actually train the apprentice just provide an opportunity for the apprentice to practise their skills. If more local businesses took on apprentices (and it’s possible to take a Degree Apprenticeship now) more of our young people could remain in the area and the businesses would benefit too.

3. Communications. Public transport is difficult in rural areas. It is easier to get to Darlington from Catterick Village than to Northallerton (our County Town). Without transport young people cannot get to education or employment. In my village (along with many others) there are no buses on Sundays or Bank Holidays. London gets 10 times the spend per head than Yorkshire and Humber. That must be addressed. Broadband and mobile phone communications must be improved in rural areas. I think that we should pay for the service we get. My fibre broadband gives me the same speed as copper would in towns – I shouldn’t be paying more than them to get the same speed. Mobile phone frequency auctions should have a pre-condition that a minimum coverage level be achieved. The rolling out of 5G when many of us struggle for a signal at all adds insult to injury.

2) Leave, remain or second referendum – what is your stance on Brexit, and why?

I voted Remain and have campaigned for a second referendum. I was prepared to accept the verdict until I found out how much cheating had happened in the campaign. We abided to the agreement to suspend campaigning after Jo Cox’s murder but it has become clear that the Leave Campaign did not. I was brought up to believe that cheats should not prosper and to allow the result to stand in the face of all the evidence is not acceptable to me.

3) Should people be prepared to pay additional tax to fund improvements in public services, like the NHS?

The Liberal Democrats proposed in both the 2017 and this General Election to put a penny on Income Tax to specifically fund the NHS and social care. Despite austerity, since 2010 the National Debt has spiralled up by £600B – interest alone on the debt is more than twice what we pay to the EU. It is basic arithmetic that you cannot reduce the debt and spend more unless you raise taxes – but the taxes should be for specific purposes and not just swallowed by the pot.

4) High streets are struggling – what would you do to rescue them?

High Streets suffer for a variety of reasons. It’s not just the internet. However, business rates for retail premises are enormous compared to those for internet businesses. We are proposing to scrap business rates and look at fairer ways to tax businesses.

5) What does the Northern Powerhouse need to make it work?

The Northern Powerhouse needs real power. The footprint of Transport for the North has over 16M residents. It dwarfs Scotland. If there was devolution for the north and a Barnett formula to ensure equivalent funding we would be able to make our own better decisions how to spend that money on health, education, transport and housing. Why should faceless bureaucrats in London make decisions which affect our lives when it has no impact on them?

Nick Jardine (Independent)

1) What are three key local issues facing your constituency, and how would you address them?

In view of the fact that I am standing in support of the ‘Save the Friarage Hospital Campaign’, I would say that I believe this to be the most urgent local issue in the constituency. The local Health Trust closed our A&E service on safety grounds in March of this year without a formal review and had to be forced into this by a High Court ruling. They are now retrospectively carrying out a Consultation with the public but are not considering the reinstatement of a full A&E service despite the Court ruling that they should continue to attempt to do so. In order to address this issue, we need the Trust to recognise the strength of public opinion and be forthright in their long-term future plans for the Hospital.

This brings me on to the second key issue which is the large Military presence in the constituency. We need to ensure that adequate housing and health care provision is made available to our service personnel. This should in my view be taken into account by the Consultation process being undertaken for the Friarage. I also support the introduction of Crown Immunity for our Armed Forces in order that they can retire without fear of prosecution.

Lastly as a rural area we need to recognise the importance to the local economy of hunting, shooting and racing and resist any attempts to further encroach on these traditional pursuits. Although I do not personally engage in any of these activities, I strongly support the lobby for their continued enjoyment by those who do.

2) Leave, remain or second referendum – what is your stance on Brexit, and why?

As someone selected to stand as a Brexit Party candidate (and then stood down!) it will come as no surprise that I support Leave. So many words have been written on this subject over the last few years that I hardly think I can add anything useful to the debate! As to the question of why I support it however, I can summarise it in the single word ‘Sovereignty’. The EU cannot hope to maintain any sort of stability in the single currency area without further integration towards a fully federalised state which will need to have a common fiscal, legislative, judiciary and defence infrastructure. I do not believe that the UK will in any way benefit from surrendering its own unique currency, parliament, courts and military into an autocratic system run by unelected bureaucrats. Our armed forces swear their allegiance to the Queen – not some faceless President in Brussels!

3) Should people be prepared to pay additional tax to fund improvements in public services, like the NHS?

This question strikes at the heart of the two-party politics in this country. The commonly held perception is that Labour are the high tax party who spend it on public services and Conservatives are the low tax party who have a record of fiscal probity. Of course, neither of these views bear any degree of scrutiny which is why we need a common sense approach to this issue. I’m sure that most sensible people would accept a few more pence on the basic rate of tax if it would ensure we ‘fixed’ the NHS but of course this could never be achieved. Everyone will have different priorities at any given time and the healthcare landscape is continually changing as the population changes. Hence, we need to ensure that the NHS uses the money it is given in the most efficient way possible to meet the needs of the people who fund it. In my experience this cannot be achieved by a centrally controlled megalithic structure – large enough to cope but small enough to care should be the accepted mantra. In my work with the Friarage campaign group I am seeing the convoluted tendrils of decision making and financing which are paralysing the clinical side of the organisation. Hence the answer in my view is to stop treating the NHS as a political punch bag and adopt a cross party coalition to determine the optimum way of delivering free health care in this country.

4) High streets are struggling – what would you do to rescue them?

This is a key issue for the market towns in our region. Tourism and outdoor pursuits are part of the life blood of the Yorkshire Dales and these need to be encouraged to help fight the problem of reducing foot fall facing the high street shops. This is of course a widespread problem which needs the input from both local and central Government. Firstly, I would like to introduce a Digital Sales Tax based on the value of UK sales for all large on-line companies above a threshold value. Secondly, I would consider the introduction of VAT Free Zones in our major tourist areas together with a discounted business rates scheme for high street businesses in order to ‘level the playing field’ against the on-line competition. Last but not least I would seek to remove high street parking charges in the market towns to encourage more impulse shopping.

5) What does the Northern Powerhouse need to make it work?

The simple answer is that we need to leave the EU so that we can inject public funding into the core industries which the North excel at such as steel, engineering, energy, transport, textiles, communications etc etc! The Government printed billions of pounds during the period of austerity and gave it all to the Banks however very little of this managed to filter down into the economy. If we are to embrace modern monetary thinking by taking money from the magic money tree (as both Labour and to a lesser degree the Conservatives appear to be offering) then it makes more sense to me to inject this directly into the economy through subsidising the creation of jobs in industry rather than buying back utilities from private companies or giving people free internet. We need instead to spend of improving infrastructure and creating meaningful jobs which give people a sense of pride and achievement.

We are yet to receive responses from Labour candidate Thom Kirkwood and Yorkshire Party candidate Laurence Waterhouse. If we receive any more replies we will make sure to add them as soon as possible.