NW HANTS LIB DEM CANDIDATE: Luigi Gregori

"We need to focus on things like education, the NHS and social care"

NORTH West Hampshire’s Liberal Democrat candidate Luigi Gregori has said that the constituency deserves better than five more years of Conservative leadership.

The constituency has typically been a Tory safe seat since its creation in 1983 and has been represented by Conservative MP Kit Malthouse since 2015.

Mr Gregori – who was born in Greenock, Scotland, but has lived in Andover for more than 20 years – said: “We deserve better than what we currently have – I was a great fan of George Young as a constituency MP, but I think Kit Malthouse is letting it down.

“In terms of his voting record, he’s not been voting against anything which will impact climate change.

“He’s also a very firm Brexiteer despite the fact that it will have a significant economic and social impact on North West Hampshire.”

Mr Gregori – who was an Andover town councillor until the May election – said it was important that the election wasn’t completely about Brexit and he hoped to ensure that the NHS and schools get the funding they need.

“There are lots of other problems aside from Brexit,” the 61-year-old said.

“We need to focus on things like education, the NHS and social care, where the Liberal Democrats are suggesting a 1p increase in income tax to sort things out.

“I’m a school governor and what’s been interesting is that every year we’ve had to endure a cut.

“Schools have been managing it quite often by cutting staff, because the bulk of the cost of a school is the staff, but we’ve got to the stage that we can’t manage that now.”

Mr Gregori also said that the constituency needed to contribute more to social care.

“Since I moved to Andover some years ago, the waiting times to go see a GP has increased to a few weeks now.

“Hampshire is horrendous in terms of how much money it contributes to social care, despite the fact that it’s one of the richest counties – it contributes significantly less than places like Buckinghamshire.

“We haven’t been investing enough in mental health despite the fact that it impacts a significant proportion of the population at one time or another in their lives.”