Pendle in the General Election: Conservative HOLD

Can I thank Pendle Council Chief Executive, Dean Langton, Corporate Director, Philip Mousdale, Elections Manager, Gillian Turpin, the local police, my fellow candidates and all the staff involved in the smooth and efficient running of todays General Election.

Can I also thank my Agent Tom Watson for his professional management of my campaign? And also thanks my Pendle and Westminster teams, Laura, Alastair, Joe, Naz, Rachel and Andy for everything they do to support me. Throughout my campaign people have thanked me for helping them resolve the issues they have raised with me – in reality much of the credit is due to my fantastic team. I’d also like to thank my family, friends and supporters – I could not have do this without you.

I am delighted to have been re-elected for the fourth time to serve the people of Pendle. Having first been elected with under 40% of the vote, I am pleased to have seen that margin increase at every election. Evidence of the growing confidence that the people of our area have shown in the Conservative Party. And as I have said before, and will say again now, I intend to repay that confidence by serving the people of Pendle whether they voted for me or not to the best of my abilities.

Since 2010, working together we have secured over £60 million investment into Burnley General Hospital, doubled the number of local children attending good or outstanding school, significantly reduced unemployment, made huge progress in the £32 million transformation of Brierfield Mills and secured millions more in investment. However, clearly one of the biggest factors in this election was Brexit. In 2016 Pendle voted by 63% to leave the EU and since then I have done everything I can to respect that result. Results from across the UK tonight show that after three years of rowing, people just want to get Brexit done.

Since 2017 I have been lucky enough to hold a number of Ministerial roles, whip, Business Minister and currently a FCO and DFID Minister, however none of these are as important to me as being Pendle’s representative in Parliament and I promise to always put the interests of this area first.