What has your new MP been up to in his first two months Steve Witherden answers your questions

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00:00It's a horrible situation to have to be in, you know, the new government coming in and

00:05inheriting an abysmal financial situation from the Conservative government.

00:10It would be lovely for any politician to do what Boris Johnson did and, you know, promise

00:1640 new hospitals, but it's very important that there's no more trusonomics, there's

00:25no more promises that can't be properly funded.

00:29I did listen to the concerns of the constituents.

00:33I signed Early Day Motion 115 before the vote, which was calling for a delay, calling for

00:41it not to be implemented straight away, and also to set up a Pensioner Poverty Taskforce.

00:47I have signed Early Day Motion 169, which is calling for a pension credit threshold

00:54to be lowered so more people can still access the winter fuel allowance.

01:00It's been a difficult time, to be honest, because you probably saw that my mother passed

01:05away the day after Parliament opened.

01:10It was nice, you know, that I got there, got to be with her, because she was very pleased

01:14to have seen me elected, you know, only a few days before.

01:17I'd planned to come straight back down, but everyone said, no, don't, stay, you know,

01:23I've got a young family, a 10-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son, and it was important

01:27that I stayed with them.

01:29But I think it would be daunting at the best of times, you know, starting a new job like

01:32that, a long, long way away from home.

01:36But as well as being daunting, it's also been really exciting to speak about the air ambulance,

01:41which obviously was a terrible thing that we lost that.

01:47And Montgomery, Sheeran, Glyndwr, Labour, Constituency Labour Party did oppose that.

01:54I've been liaising with the group, working on getting the judicial review, and I'll be

01:59meeting with them, I'm hoping to meet with them next week.

02:02The all-party parliamentary group, the APPG, on air ambulances, and I've already been elected

02:08as an officer on that APPG.

02:13So there's a lot of work to be done on that, and that's something I'm still hearing from

02:16constituents, you know, what can we do about the air ambulance, you know, so obviously

02:21we're going to exhaust every avenue we can on that topic.

02:24I attended a meeting in Llanidloes Church, because Llanidloes Hospital is the one which

02:30is proposed to be downgraded.

02:33So I've written a long consultation response opposing that downgrading.

02:40Something that we will be fighting as a community, it's not something we're willing, you know,

02:46to tolerate.

02:47We're already seeing so many constituents having to go out of constituency, sometimes

02:52to Bronglais in Caradigian, but more often than that, out of the country, you know, to

02:58England, to Shrewsbury, to Gabowin, to Telford.

03:02So yeah, that is really one of the main priorities for me as a constituency MP, that was something

03:08that was raised numerous times on the general election campaign, and since my election by

03:15constituents.

03:16And yeah, big concerns, and I have written formally to WES Streeting about that, and

03:25I've shared that letter with constituents, outlining some of the concerns that I have

03:31about a blanket ban on puberty blockers.

03:36My political awakening, in a way, was many years ago, a campaign to save a village primary

03:44school in the north of the constituency, in Pont Vador.

03:48If a community loses these spaces, if you lose the school, you know, you lose the community

03:54hub, or the post office, it can have a really detrimental effect on rural life, because

04:03so much of what we do as a community is centred around those spaces, so it's fundamentally

04:08important that we do absolutely everything in our power to keep those spaces.

04:12If there are any that constituents are concerned about, I want to hear from you, I want you

04:16to let me know, and I will do everything in my power to amplify your campaign.

04:21It's absolutely horrific what's going on over there, and whenever I'm privileged enough

04:27to have a platform to speak, any platform, including this one here today, I use it to

04:34call again for an immediate ceasefire.

04:37That's my position, and I've been consistent on that, and I'll remain consistent.

04:41We did ban arms export licences to Israel, I believe it was 30.

04:53One of the things that I've done is I've been a signatory of an open letter which was written

05:00by my fellow MP, Zahra Sultana, who wrote a letter calling for F-35 jet components to

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