'You can make a difference' - County Durham politician reflects on years as MP

A County Durham MP standing down for health reasons after over 30 years of public service said he is ‘overwhelmed’ by the letters of support he has received.

Kevan Jones, who has represented North Durham since 2001, announced he would not stand when Thursday’s General Election was called by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

The 60-year-old said he is having ongoing treatment for a medical issue and would be unable to give adequate time to campaigning.

Mr Jones said it was ‘not the way he had planned it’.

He said: “Politics has been my life for the last 40-odd years so it is difficult to give it up but the number one thing for me at the minute is get my health back and get back to fitness. That is the main thing.

“This is the first election in over 40 years that I have not been involved in so it is a bit frustrating.”

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Kevan Jones (Image: Sarah Caldecott)

Originally from Worksop in North Nottinghamshire, Mr Jones moved to the region to attend Newcastle Polytechnic before studying Government and Public Policy at the University of Southern Maine.

He became a city councillor in Newcastle in 1990, was chairman of the development committee and an elected officer of the GMB Union.

Mr Jones became an MP when Tony Blair beat William Hague in a second landslide Labour election victory in 2001.

During his parliamentary career, he was undersecretary for veterans with the Ministry of Defence, Commonwealth War Graves Commissioner, vice-president of the NATO Assembly and part of the Intelligence and Security Committee.

But Mr Jones, who had a reputation as a hard-working back-bench constituency MP, said the most rewarding part was helping ordinary people.

He said: “Locally there are hundreds of thousands of people I have helped over the years.

“Some small, some large.”

He was one of the MPs who continued calling for answers for sub-postmasters wrongly accused of theft by the Post Office as part of the now notorious Horizon.

Mr Jones said: “One of the things people know about me is when I get my teeth into something I stick with it.

“It was 14 years I was involved with it on occasions when people were telling us nothing could be done.

“It came directly from a constituent, Tom Brown, who came to see me at a surgery. It just goes to show there are local issues that are of national importance.

“The sad thing is Tom passed away last year before it was all sorted out.”

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Mr Jones supported the family of Chester-le-Street man Christopher Rochester who bled to death on a hospital trolley on the Greek Island of Rhodes in the year 2000.

He had fallen from the hotel balcony and his body was returned to the UK with a kidney missing.

He also supported Dawn Knight, from Stanley, who was unable to close her eyes after botched cosmetic surgery, raising awareness of what happened to her in parliament.

Mr Jones broke taboos by highlighting the importance of mental health issues by discussing his own struggles with depression and OCD.

He said: “One thing I will miss from the job is just being able to help people locally and to navigate life.

“That has been proven from the last couple of weeks in the number of letters and emails I have had from people, some of whom I cannot remember saying: ‘thanks for when you helped me 20 years ago’.

“It has been quite overwhelming."

Mr Jones said: "The thing I would say to anyone who is standing for parliament who wants to become an MP is that if you are determined to do things you can make a difference.

“I hope I have left North Durham in a better place than it was when I was first elected.

“It has certainly changed a lot.”