We asked you to submit your questions to candidates standing in the 2024 General Election.
From all your submissions, we chose 10 that represented the broad issues you wanted answers to.
We asked every candidate we had contact details for to respond.
We’ll be publishing them in the run-up to the General Election with the responses from the candidates who replied from each constituency.
These are the answers are from candidates standing in the Penrith & Solway constituency.
How will you encourage foreign workers to come to Cumbria so that the hospitality, health and care sectors can function and don’t need to close because of lack of staff?
Mark Jenkinson, the Conservative Party
We need to stop perpetuating the myth that hospitality and health and care are low paid and low skilled, we need to work much harder to ensure that our youngsters know the opportunities on offer, and the career paths available to them.
Many of our local employers are registered visa sponsors for when they require specific skills that are in demand here, but importing labour is not a sustainable fix in the long-term.
Susan Denham-Smith, the Green Party
It has been noticeable since Brexit that the hospitality sector has been missing its European backbone.
I remember trying to get a coffee on a Monday lunchtime in Cockermouth last year and only one cafe was open. We still see signs for vacancies for staff advertised outside hotels and early-week closing all across the Lake District.
The Green Party is Pro-European and will be working towards rejoining the EU in the longer term but in the immediate term joining the Customs Union and working to gain reciprocal rights for essential professions.
As in the tourist hotspots of the Alps where hospitality is deemed essential and encourages workers to gain entry to the country we must create a legal framework where workers in care and hospitality are identified as essential.
