Candidates go head-to-head at final debate before general election

Worcester’s parliamentary candidates came face-to-face in the last election debate before polling day.

The seven people hoping to become the city’s next MP were invited to a hustings at Nunnery Wood High School on Tuesday evening (July 2).

A packed room saw six of the candidates answer questions on roads, planning, social care and the merits of windfall taxes.

Andy Peplow, the Reform UK candidate, did not turn up.

SCHOOL: Students from Nunnery Wood who helped organise the election debate pose with parliamentary candidates (Image: Phil Wilkinson-Jones/LDRS)

Lib Dem candidate Mel Allcott said her party’s priorities in this general election campaign have been “health, the NHS, the cost of living crisis and the environment”.

She said: “Since Liz Truss crashed our economy we’ve had high mortgage prices and high food bills,” adding: “This needs to be fixed.”

Mark Davies of the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition said: “People we speak to are desperate for a change in government. They see the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.”

Mr Davies said he would be a “worker’s MP on a worker’s wage”, pledging that he would take only the “average wage of a worker in Worcester” if he were elected to Parliament.

READY: Candidates prepare to take questions from voters in Worcester on Tuesday night (Image: Phil Wilkinson-Jones/LDRS)

Asked about social care, the Green Party’s Tor Pingree said: “It’s important to recognise how much carers do - both paid and unpaid, as well as those who go unrecognised as carers - looking after relatives or friends.

“The lack of social care puts pressure on the NHS.”

She said the Greens would invest £20bn a year in social care.

Asked “who in their right minds approved those homes on the Ketch roundabout”, Tory candidate Marc Bayliss said: “They are too big - they are a blot on the landscape. That vista across to Malvern is very important, I’m disturbed by those.”

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Mr Bayliss also said the roads in Worcestershire are in better condition than those in Herefordshire, Gloucestershire and Birmingham.

Labour candidate Tom Collins said his party would create a flood resilience taskforce and would stop the “sticking plaster approach” to fixing potholes”.

“We will fix an additional million potholes a year,” he said.

Mr Collins also said Europe needs to show solidarity with Ukraine and talked of the need for a “strong and functional NATO”.

Duncan Murray of the Social Democratic Party said: “We are about coming up with fair-minded, reasonable policies on key issues.”

He also outlined plans to build 100,000 social houses a year.