We asked the candidates for Barrow & Furness if they were successful in this year’s General Election, what would the constituency look like in five years’ time.
Parliament runs on a fixed term of five years – so unless another General Election is called in the meantime, or other events force a by-election, the person chosen as MP for Barrow & Furness has until 2029 to make a difference.
We asked every candidate we have been able to make contact with – and would encourage anyone standing in this constituency to get in touch.
Here’s what Barrow & Furness candidates had to say – in their own words:
Simon Fell, the Conservative Party
We’ll see some major changes. The new university campus will be delivered, as well over 800 homes at Marina Village, and more near Cross-a-Moor.
Portland Walk will be a bustling shopping area again (I’m sticking my neck out on that one!).
The shipyard will have massively expanded, and with it will have come more jobs and apprenticeships.
There will be targeted work to help get people into work. I want to see agreement on new nuclear at Sellafield, Millom’s Town Deal delivered meaning new leisure provision, the Grizebeck bypass open, further improvements to our road and rail networks, investment into Furness General, a new life science park in Ulverston, Carbon Capture and Storage at Roose, more offshore wind, and much, much more!
But more than investment, I want people to look at Barrow and Furness from the outside and think that it is a place that they want not just to visit, but to settle in.
Those of us who live here know what a remarkable place this is.
With campaigns like the one I’ve led on for Royal Town status we can start to turn the perception of this community around. There is nothing but opportunity here, and I’m really excited about what we can achieve together.
Michelle Scrogham, the Labour Party
Under Labour, the next five years will deliver:
- 13,000 more community police will help tackle antisocial behaviour and rural crime. I would continue to work with Labour’s Police, Fire & Crime Commissioner to get named officers in our communities.
- Affordable and social housing being built. I’ll be working to deliver proper council housing.
- Scrapping the current business rate system will help level the playing field for bricks and mortar businesses, encouraging life back to our high streets.
- Labour will negotiate a new deal with our NHS dentists, attracting them to areas currently without enough provision.
- Our rail services will be brought back into public ownership, ensuring the profits don’t disappear into shareholders pockets or bonuses for bosses, but are reinvested.
- Public transport should benefit the public. Labour will give powers to local authorities to decide their bus services.
- Labour will offer long term budget plans to local authorities, helping them plan more efficiently for things such as road repair so they could end the poor temporary repair cycle we see with potholes reappearing after just weeks
- The provision of 40,000 more NHS appointments per week will help people who’ve been living in pain and end the two-tier system of those who can afford it being seen faster.
- 65, 00 more teachers and mental health specialists in secondary schools.
- Make Britain a Green energy superpower by 2030, delivering cheaper energy and saving families £300 per year on their energy bills and creating 650,000 good jobs.
Louise Wrennall, of the Green Party
I’d want University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay and local community health services (including more NHS dentists) dropping private contracts and reverting to a centrally funded public budget with greater accessibility – to be able to see the right doctor or dentist within a reasonable time when you need them.
I’d want to introduce universal grants for home insulation and renewable energy (solar PV panels), to enable the future-proofing of a lot of our older terraced housing stock, especially. I’d reform rental rights to ensure tenants are fairly treated.
I’d see BAE staff working on other aspects of the national defence programme without any need for nuclear warhead involvement (Trident), and healthy job opportunities for nuclear powered submarines that don’t carry nuclear missiles, surface vessels for the Royal Navy and the commercial sector.
Trident is so obscenely expensive for the small role it plays compared to other national strategic defence initiatives so it doesn’t justify the cost to the public purse.
To have strong policing on utilities companies and stop them from polluting our lakes and rivers and seas, along with clean up programmes to reverse the ecological damage and biological risk to life caused.
I’d also want to see better support for those on low incomes or benefits via the introduction of Universal Basic Income, as well as new jobs going into the green and community sectors to rejuvenate the employment market and make real strides towards net zero and a happier, healthier Furness.
Barry Morgan, of Reform UK
In five years’ time, Cumbria Crack will not be asking a prospective candidate for Parliament about what promises need to be kept to improve the lives and livelihoods of Barrovians.
This is so because the name Barrow and Furness will have become synonymous with paradise on Earth – Our farms will be profitable and untrammelled by unnecessary regulation, our young people will stay in-region under local apprenticeships or a University of Cumbria campus ahead of talking well paid jobs in Barrow’s rapidly expanding and diversified industrial base.
Waiting lists will have been slashed as health care standards soar within a system in which NHS systems and private medicine work hand in glove.
There will be more bobbies on the beat, adequate accommodation for young singles, families and supervised facilities for the homeless; and a well funded drug abuse prevention and support programme
I can faintly see through the mists the shape of an energy barrage and rail bridge snaking across the sands linking Barrow with Heysham and another across the Duddon Estuary to Millom — miraculous indeed!
But I’ll have to stop now as my crystal ball’s getting a little too hot to handle.
Adrian Waite, of the Liberal Democrats
My vision for Barrow & Furness is that it would be a place where:
- Everyone can make the most of their potential and has freedom to decide how they live their lives.
- The natural environment, including wildlife, is valued and protected. There is no pollution and raw sewage is not discharged into water courses or the sea. Everyone enjoys the environment of Barrow & Furness.
- The economy offers everyone a secure and well paid job with high value added businesses including in the green economy. Hard work and aspiration are rewarded. Communities flourish.
- Every child gets the best possible start in life and the opportunity to flourish, regardless of background or personal circumstances.
- Children and young people receive an excellent education and training.
- Health services are excellent and accessible with everyone able to see a GP promptly, minimal waiting times in hospital and access to NHS dentists.
- Everyone can have a comfortable retirement when the time comes.
- Everyone gets high quality social care when they need it. People are enabled to live independently and with dignity. Elderly and disabled people and carers are valued.
- Everyone can afford a decent home that is well maintained, safe and clean.
- Everyone gets affordable, healthy and nutritious food, produced to high welfare and environmental standards. Farmers in Furness are valued.
- Everyone – including women, children, the elderly and minorities – is safe in their homes and communities. Everyone’s rights and freedoms are protected.
- Poverty and deprivation are things of the past.
- Everyone gets a fair deal.
