LABOUR hopeful in Central Devon Ollie Pearson says that if elected he will stand up for working people in Okehampton and the surrounding areas.

The town has been hit hard by the cost of living crisis. It has seen its hospital wards mothballed and maternity services moved to Exeter.

At a meeting held in Okehampton on Saturday last week, where the prospective Labour MP met the public, he pledged to take action to restore health services. He adds that he will listen and take concerns back to what he is confident will be a new Labour Government.

“Okehampton has a great local hospital and people are seeing services stripped out of that,” he said. “Labour has a plan for better health services.”

With experience as a local councillor on Exeter City Council, he says that as the Central Devon MP he would back local people’s interests in Westminster, be they townsfolk or farmers.

“Only Labour can beat the Conservatives in Central Devon – take a look at the previous election results. If you want a change, Labour is the way to achieve that. I will be listening to local people’s concerns and working hard if you elect me,” he said.

Mr Pearson, who runs a web design business, said: “The first priority is stopping the chaos of the Tory Government in terms of the economy. The struggles of working people are down to the mismanagement of the economy in the last 14 years by the Conservative Government, a chaotic Brexit and Liz Truss’s disastrous mini budget. The Labour Party has got a proposal to lock in budget responsibility so we don’t have the craziness of Liz Truss’s  mini budget so people can have consistency in mortgage rates and costs going forward. We also have to get back to a situation of growth in the economy. The Conservatives have fundamentally not delivered that growth.”

He added that education would be a priority, with plans to recruit more teachers.

“We have got struggling schools in Devon and that has fundamentally been hampered by a lack of teachers. Labour have plans to remove tax breaks on private schools to pay for our struggling state schools in the area.”

“If you elect me as your MP I would be advocating to the Labour Health Minister about the issues faced by people here in Devon. 

“It would be great to have a Labour MP represented a rural area of Devon [Central Devon] if there was a Labour Government so that I can take that information about what we need here back to government. 

“One thing is the farming subsidies, they are not working well for farmers actually producing food. I will be taking the concerns of Devon farmers back to Government. 

We need to listen to people as well.”

In 2019, Conservative Mel Stride retained the Central Devon seat with 32,095 votes, a majority of 17,721. Labour came second with 14,374 and the Lib Dems got 8,770 votes.