00:00people filed and you won't be surprised to learn that that's filed itself.
00:04Several questions here about what each of the candidates would do for the benefit of the
00:09borough, proving what us journalists secretly know but don't like to admit, which is that the public
00:14asks the best questions. Here's one for each of you. What is the first thing you will specifically
00:19do for the file that is not about toeing the party line but actually for the good of the file?
00:24And Anne, we'll go for you on this one.
00:28So I am a member of Fight Coast Against Sewage. I'm absolutely incensed that untreated sewage
00:36is going into our seas. We're a tourist area. Our rivers are full. It's just disastrous. So
00:43my main thing, I'm absolutely adamant that we have to do something about the sewage spills.
00:50We have to make the United Utilities accountable. At the moment I am in partnership with the
00:56council and we are testing the seas. So we do that once a week and we're going to just see how
01:02bad it is and then hopefully we can all work together. But that is my one thing
01:07that I'm adamant about that I've got to sort out for the file. Thank you.
01:11Thank you.
01:18We'll come to Tom next. How would you reject the party line in favour of file with the opportunity
01:23or the need arose? Let's be clear, the first thing we need to do is propose a wind farm project
01:28that's going to be going for development consent later this year. So in terms of sheer urgency,
01:33that's got to be the first thing. But I'd agree with you. It's about sewage and Labour Party has
01:38a plan for sewage, which means I can tow the party line and still deliver for this constituency.
01:43It's about fines, automatic fines for water companies, installing independent monitoring
01:50so that water companies can't get away with misreporting the spills that they're committing.
01:57It's about ensuring that water company executives don't take home whacking great bonuses while
02:02founding our seas, our beaches, our waters. And it's about going for criminal prosecutions if
02:07people don't get the message from all that. But yeah, absolutely. We have a water company that is
02:14owned massively by overseas investors. They're never going to come to our beaches. They're never
02:20going to come and look at our countryside. They just simply don't care because it's not in their
02:25backyard. We need to ensure that we have the financial penalties that actually land exactly
02:30close to home. And then we can have cleaner beaches. And the funny thing is, my first step
02:36is United Utilities will, on my email, almost instantly say we'd love to have a conversation
02:41about this. And this is where it isn't politics. This is where it's not about a party line.
02:46These are the beaches my children play on. And you can think again if you think you can dump...
02:52...
03:07I'm not sure that the Liberal Democrats within our manifesto are saying anything specifically
03:13about the Morgan & Morgan scheme other than we want to invest in our energy infrastructure.
03:19But that clearly is the item of urgency. That would be the first thing that I would do as your
03:25MP. But referring also to the sewage scandal where our beaches along the Fylde have been rated as
03:33poor, the Liberal Democrats would make our water companies a public benefit company.
03:39And the regulator, we would just scrap off what and introduce a clean water authority
03:45that had real teeth in keeping our waters clean. We would also ban, for those bosses who don't
03:53deliver, we would ban the bonuses for them. And we would extend the blue flag status that we
03:59currently have for beaches to our waterways as well. So it is in that way that the Liberal
04:05Democrats would address the scandal of the Conservatives dumping sewage in our waterways.
04:15Thank you very much. I believe I'll actually answer the question before, which is where would we be willing to
04:20break our party line if we were elected? And one area that I have great concern about and have been
04:26talking to many residents and business people is around farming in Fylde and the future of the
04:33farming business and the farming community. There are too many central directives that issue around
04:40subsidies for rewinding land, allowing farms to be broken up into small holdings around development
04:48onto farmland. For me, farming is an absolute fundamental part of rural life. If you took
04:55farmers out of our countryside, it would not be the beautiful, well-maintained and glorious place
05:01that it is. It is part of the fabric of our countryside. And I don't think we do enough
05:07to support our farmers and the countryside. Something that I will campaign on heavily is
05:13that we have a complete readdressing of the subsidy system that is perversely paying farmers
05:20not to produce food. It is wrong. It is against our food security as a country. It's something I
05:26feel deeply passionate about, and I know it is affecting our farming community in Fylde and
05:32beyond. And it is something that doesn't seem to be bubbling very close to the headlines,
05:36but is causing serious issues in the farming community. And to answer the question, is there
05:42an issue that I already can see where I will have with the party line? I don't know what the
05:47Conservative party line is going to be when we eventually discuss these issues of subsidies,
05:53but it is an issue that I will raise and I will fight for, because we have to keep Fylde farming
05:57and we have to keep and protect our greenbelt. As one farmer said to me the other day,
06:02it's a beautiful area, the farmers make it beautiful and someone needs to stand up for them too.
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