Hustings at the Globe

 It was a very interesting evening at the Globe last night.  The hall was packed, and fifteen people had asked written questions before the session started.  There wasn't time to get through them all, even though the session ran over time by half an hour.

There are eight candidates for the new constituency of Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe, but only four of them were able to make it.  Some of the others sent letters of apology, which were available to see at the back of the hall.  I didn't manage to see any of them, because there was quite a crush.

Present on stage were Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal, for the Green Party

                                    David Chadwick, Lib Dem

                                    Fay Jones, Conservative

                                    Matthew Dorrance, Labour

The ones who couldn't make it were Emily Durrant- Munro, for Plaid Cymru, Jonathan Harrington for the Abolish the Welsh Assembly Party, Adam Hill for Reform and Lady Lily the Pink for the Monster Raving Loony Party.

Fay Jones, the Conservative who has been our MP for the last four and a half years, said she was disappointed that the Reform candidate hadn't turned up, because the audience might hate him slightly more than they'd hate her!

Each candidate gave a three minute presentation on what their party stands for, followed by the question session.

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal spoke about the nature and climate crisis, and tackling pollution, but also local facilities like libraries and sports facilities.  The Green Party wants to increase Universal Credit, abolish the third child cap on benefits, provide food for school children even during the holidays, improve disability benefits, fund the NHS properly and abolish the right to buy council houses so that more social housing is available.

David Chadwick started with the need to beat the Tories.  He also mentioned the climate, stopping pollution in our rivers, and concern over cuts to public services and the NHS.  The Liberal Democrats would fund public services by raising tax on the wealthy and big business.  He also talked about the need to abide by International Law.

Fay Jones talked about her accomplishments while in office, such as obtaining funding for the Judge's Lodging in Presteigne, Talgarth's Victorian school and the New Radnor Arms at New Radnor.  She identified access to banking services as a problem, and talked about the problems with the River Wye as a cross-border problem, involving several different agencies, which she has been working with.  She is against wind farms.

Matthew Dorrance greeted the audience in Welsh, and emphasised that he is a local boy born and bred, and the amount of experience he has already in serving the local area.  He is the Deputy Leader of Powys County Council, and has been responsible for the council house building scheme across Powys.  He wants to increase the living wage and have a child poverty taskforce.

Matthew Dorrance also mentioned the new part of the Brecon and Radnor constituency - there are seventeen thousand voters in the Upper Swansea Valley, and historically that area has voted most for Plaid Cymru, which should make for an interesting election in an area which has traditionally swung between the Tories and the Liberal Democrats.

During the questions, we learned a lot about each candidate's background.  David Chadwick was paralysed for three months, so has personal experience of the disability system, which he wants to be more generous.  His mum was a single parent from Maesteg, so he grew up hearing about the closure of the local mines.

Ammi Kaur-Dhaliwal is trained as a lawyer.  Her family is Sikh, and she also has a lot of experience volunteering locally for the Citizen's Advice Bureau, and working as a substitute teacher in local schools.

Matthew Dorrance's father was a Grenadier Guard, and his mum was a dinner lady, and he said something about doing things to help military veterans that I wasn't quite fast enough to write down, during his work with the County Council.  He's also a friend of the First Minister of Wales, Vaughan Gething.

Fay Jones has a background with the National Farmers' Union, which is why she wanted to represent a rural constituency.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about some of the issues that were raised by the questions from the audience.