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.
What are your plans for education? Schools are struggling with limited budgets, and increasing demand for services. Staff are being cut because support staff’s pay rises aren’t fully funded. People are losing their jobs because education is underfunded. Children are the future of our country, and our education system should be a beacon of funding and investment to give us the best future possible.
Mark Jenkinson, the Conservative Party
As a parent of four, and a former school governor, I’ve placed particular focus on education.
I am also one of the few backbenchers to have taken legislation through both Houses of Parliament with cross-party support and have it on the statute book.
The focus of my bill was education and ensuring our youngsters are fit for life after school.
Pay rises were funded, with even the militant National Education Union taking credit for securing “an extra £900 million to properly fund the teacher pay offer and protect support staff jobs”.
Would you/your party consider writing off all nurses’ university debt if they signed up to working in the NHS or care sector for at least 5 years thereby upskilling the care sector and taking some burden off the NHS?
Mark Jenkinson, the Conservative Party
This government restored nurses’ bursaries. I believe we should be making much better use of the non-university routes to nursing, which achieve the same end without the reliance on student loans.
We should absolutely be ensuring that where taxpayer funding is used to pay for, or subsidise, education, the public sector protect that investment by requiring some length of service or repayment in lieu, just as happens with expensive training in the private sector.
