Yahoo News General Election 2024 - Scunthorpe: Conservative Holly Mumby-Croft on her priorities if elected
Continuing to build trust between residents and their elected MP, work with businesses and to build on achievements so far are priorities for the Conservative Party's Holly Mumby-Croft if she is re-elected as Scunthorpe MP.
In the run-up to polling day, Scunthorpe Live is speaking to Scunthorpe candidates, putting to them set questions to find out their priorities and stances. There are seven candidates standing in the constituency.
Scunthorpe is now a slightly redrawn constituency compared to the last general election. As well as the town itself, it has expanded to include some places that were previously in the now defunct Brigg & Goole constituency such as Winterton, Burton-upon-Stather, Gunness, Winteringham, Alkborough and Flixborough.
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Holly Mumby-Croft is the Conservative candidate. Born in Scunthorpe and brought up in North Lincolnshire, she was the town's MP from 2019 up until this general election. Before that she was a North Lincolnshire councillor. In much of her answers, she cited her track record in the last four-and-a-half years, and the government's.
What will be your priorities for Scunthorpe, if elected?
"It’s to continue to build on what we’ve already achieved. That’s things like saving the football ground, protecting the steel industry, further improvements to the hospital." Improvement in recent years to the latter included the new A&E, a new ambulatory care unit and improvements to some of the wards, she said.
"I use the hospital and my family does just like everyone else, so it’s also about protecting services and making sure we don’t lose any services." She also would "continue to work with businesses. There’s a lot of land on the steelworks site that’s not been utilised so I’m really keen to get some businesses onto there."
There was more to do on public transport too, even though there have been new services and "quite big investment in that".
"To be honest, when I got elected, the first job I had was to try and rebuild the trust between residents and the elected MP, because of everything that happened in 2019 and people felt they’d been ignored and not had their wishes respected on Brexit. The initial thing was to build that contract back," she said, adding: "I will continue to protect that, because that is the most important part of my job."
Reader-prompted question: “Which one of you will seek to end the tax on visiting loved ones in hospital or ourselves having to go to to hospital? Parking fees and on road fear of a ticket are a added problem.” - What is your stance on proposed hospital changes, and hospital parking charges?
Ms Mumby-Croft said she is "absolutely totally opposed to any move of any services from Scunthorpe to Grimsby, or anywhere else." She said she raised it with government immediately, including to ministers and Secretaries of State, and got the minister to visit. "I started doing a big local survey and interacted really closely with the hospital."
Noting the NHS Humber and North Yorkshire Integrated Care Board's (ICB) response to its consultation is awaited, she said: "I’m ready and waiting if I’m re-elected to challenge that if it’s not acceptable to us."
"I don’t, just as everyone else, want to see us losing those services and frankly having to drive down that really loud road to Grimsby," she said. "I’ve been clear it’s totally unacceptable to me and it’s something I have fought and will continue to do if I’m re-elected."
On parking charges, she said: "It’s something we have talked about before, it’s something the hospital feel they can’t stop doing. One of the things I have done, because I am concerned about parking charges, I know it’s difficult for people, is to start to think differently about how we provide services."
She highlighted the community diagnostics centre (CDC) being built in Lindum Street, saying: "I wanted it in the town centre. Part of the reason for that was an increase in footfall into the town centre, but also one of the reasons is because people can then park for free. They can park in the multi-storey for free for two hours right next to it. So that would be 150,000 appointments that people won’t have to pay to park."
"I think we’ve got to start being a bit smarter about how we deliver healthcare and thinking about ways like that," she added.
The steelworks - there are real fears of more than two thousand job losses, should the coke blast furnace closures go ahead as planned. What will you do to try to ensure those fears never become reality?
"Under the last Labour government, steel jobs halved and production halved," she asserted. "Under the Conservative government, what we actually did was step in and pay people’s wages, so I’m completely comfortable that our instinct is to protect the steel industry."
Her personal view is "we need to retain the blast furnaces at least until we can find greener ways to run them." Other countries do, she said, like with hydrogen.
"It is totally unacceptable to me in every conceivable way to lose those blast furnaces for two reasons. One because I’m deeply concerned about people’s jobs and livelihoods. But two, because I really believe a country should be able to make its own steel.
Ms Mumby-Croft said she had "banged on absolutely endlessly in Westminster" about the steelworks, adding she had raised it more than 250 times in Parliament. "It has been the biggest piece of work I’ve done, working with Andrew Percy, who was MP next door, to make sure we kept those blast furnaces running.
"We’ve had decent support, we’ve had energy support, the steel safeguards extended twice, and the government is still at this time negotiating on a big package of support with British Steel, to try and find a way forward." She said she "will never ever accept" the loss of the jobs and blast furnaces. "That’s basically the exact words I’ve said to government consistently for four-and-a-half years."
What would you as the MP do to support people struggling with the cost of living?
"On cost of living, we have done a lot," she said of the Conservatives. "The most important thing being the ambition to halve inflation, because that affects everybody." She cited cutting tax, including the "double tax with the National Insurance tax", the Household Support Fund that had also helped locally, and cost of living payments for low income households.
"I think a big part of my job is to make sure people know about it," she emphasised. "In a genuinely non-political way, I have tried to make sure people in groups, whether that be older people, people on lower incomes, are actually aware of this support.
"Through my office, we’ve done over 19,000 bits of casework over the last four-and-a-half years and many of those have revolved around making sure people are accessing the support they are eligible to. That’s something I would look to continue doing."
If elected, what will you advocate to help address crime and anti-social behaviour locally?
"What I would advocate is working together with local residents." She cited Sheffield Park, Scunthorpe. "Not long after I was elected, Sheffield Park was having a lot of anti-social behaviour problems. It was really affecting people’s quality of life who lived around the area."
Work with the police, council and residents led to measures put in place, which Ms Mumby-Croft described as "common sense". These included smartening up the area, leading to more people using it. A residents' group was set up, and practical steps taken too, "like making sure it was locked after hours".
"Also, on anti-social behaviour around motorbikes, we’ve had massive issues with that over the years," she said. She had worked closely with the police, who had launched Operation Yellowfin, "which has really helped with that". She also saw the trends of areas with issues through her inbox, saying it was helpful that people let her know.
"I think we’ve seen real improvement in anti-social behaviour over the last four-and-a-half years. I think it’s just a case of recognising where it’s occurring, helping people to know how to and have the confidence to report it, and then working with local residents and the police, and other partners like the council, to make sure we find really common sense ways of dealing with it.
"It is something I recognise is really important, because it genuinely affects people’s quality of life. It has to be a priority."
Scunthorpe has had its first Pride event in the last year. How will you represent the concerns of the LGBT+ community in Parliament?
"The first thing to say is that was amazing, I had a really great day. Secondly, I represent everybody’s concerns with equal weight and equal importance."
She was "really proud" to be a member of the party that legalised same-sex marriage, she said. "And we’ve been the party that’s really acknowledged the unjustness of some of the stuff that’s happened in the past around Armed Forces and around past convictions.
"I’m really proud we’re moving towards better stuff on conversion therapy, which I want to see gone and never ever rearing its head again." The government also appointed the first LGBT+ health advisor, Dr Michael Brady, she added.
For her, it was about listening to and working with people, "trying to understand the issues that are important and making sure that I represent them. That’s something I’m delighted to do and happy to do."
Across Humberside, we have had questions on the Gazan conflict for candidates. How will you represent constituents’ views on foreign policy issues, like Gaza?
"The first aim of any foreign policy has to be to defend our own interests and keep us safe at home," she said, describing it as foreign policy's "golden thread". "As always, I’ll listen to residents’ views on all sides of the debate and try my best to represent them."
Ms Mumby-Croft said most people she spoke to about Gaza wanted the conflict "brought to a sustainable, long-lasting end as quickly as possible". "It’s important to be realistic about what we’re able to achieve," adding she was "really pleased" on UK efforts to help get aid to Palestinian civilians, and that it is able to work with partners to de-escalate the situation in the region.
"We are going to require a new political settlement, a two-state solution is incredibly difficult, it’s a human tragedy, of course it is. But I always seek to listen to people and have conversations and I have done that many times over recent weeks and months around this issue in particular."
How would you like to have seen the area improved in five years' time?
"I’d like to continue to build on everything we’ve done. I’d like to see us on a really much firmer sustainable footing on steel. I’d love to see the blast furnaces being run on hydrogen, or introducing carbon capture and storage, or a greener way to run them," so people can be confident about the long-term future of their jobs and our ability to make steel.
"I’d like to see services protected at the hospital. I’d like to see a wider selection of businesses coming into the area and some of those coming onto that steelworks site," adding there are good transport links in the area. "I’d like to see further improvements to schools." She was proud of nine out of ten children going to local schools rated good or outstanding. "But I want to see ten out of ten children doing that, frankly."
"I’d like to see further improvements to roads and travel and just continue to be really ambitious and work with the council and work with local councils." A real strength of North Lincolnshire, she said, was the way herself as the MP, the council, and ward and town and parish councillors have been able to work together.
"We all have a really good working relationship and I think that’s actually quite special. It does lead to quite good outcomes."
"I’ll also continue my BID writing service, we’re approaching a million pounds now that we’ve been able to achieve for local good causes and projects," she said. This aids businesses and organisations in applications for grants.
