Interview with Hugo Swire

‘A seat at the table of the best game in town’ 

With just days until the highly anticipated general election, I spoke to Hugo Swire, your Conservative candidate for East Devon, about his passion to save Rolle College, Britain going into a digital age and why you should re-elect him. 

 Why and how did you get into politics?

I don’t come from a particularly political family, but I was interested in politics from about 15, and it was just something I always knew I would do. I didn’t go straight into politics though, as I fundamentally believe it is more interesting, and that you are of more use, if you do something else before. I also believe it is important to do something as well as being an MP, to keep your foot in the real world. When anyone says they get into politics because they wanted to give something back, it sounds a bit contrived, but there’s always an element of that. It’s multifaceted and that’s what makes it worthwhile. Someone said to me once that being in politics is like having a seat at the table of the best game in town. I think that’s true, because when something is happening of national or international importance, it is fantastic to be at the centre of it, but it has its frustrations, I can tell you! 

Why the Conservative party? 

I was always amused by people who said that if you’re not left wing when you’re 18 there’s something wrong with you – I never was left wing. I’m fairly moderate on many things but I don’t fundamentally believe in socialism, I don’t think it works, and it doesn’t emancipate anybody. I think very often the state does things badly and extinguishes public enterprise. I suppose I’m instinctively a Liberal Conservative, which I’ve never really questioned – I’m happy in my party. 

Why should the people of East Devon re-elect you? 

Well I hope I’ve served them, since 2001, as a diligent member of parliament. I’ve had endless surgeries and helped a lot of people, who have written to thank me. I’ve taken up a lot of causes on their behalf to the House of Commons, about local things of local interest - long term healthcare for the elderly, our woeful inequality in terms of educational spend, our inadequate transport network, the lack of affordable housing, issues to do with tourism and employment. I have championed a lot of local things, and I’m now heavily engaged in trying to save Rolle College in Exmouth. I hope I’ve got support, but of course the boundaries have changed this time, as we’re told there’s room for another seat in Devon.

The idea originally was to divide Exeter in two but I think Ben Bradshaw fought rather hard to shed all the more Tory voting bits of Exeter, in order to preserve Exeter for himself – we’ll see how successful he is that. I lost everything to the east of Sidmouth, and now I go all the way to Exmouth obviously, up the estuary, including Topsham and into St Loyes. 

During your nine years as MP, what are the achievements you’re most proud of? 

It’s difficult to point to one specific thing. One of the roles of the MP is to get involved with logjams – particular with health issues, I can try and help get someone’s operation happen quicker for example, or resolve something with the child support agency, and that’s when you can make a difference to people’s lives, which happens on a regular basis. It doesn’t get publicised very much because that’s private between my constituent and I. I’d like to be able to point at some stage that I helped save Rolle College. I think that’s what gives me the most satisfaction, rather than point to one individual thing; it’s more about directly helping individuals. That along with other things such as getting a statue of Sir Walter Raleigh for East Budleigh – I found the money for it myself, commissioned the sculpture for it myself and there it is. Although I am proud of it that’s hardly likely to be my legacy, I hope! 

What are the biggest problems now facing East Devon? 

When you come into the House of Commons you make a speech, in which you talk about your predecessor, your constituency and your views on life. And funnily enough all the problems that I spoke about back in 2001 – I could make the same speech all over again. There’s the problem of affordable housing, as we have some of the greatest disparity in the Country between income and house prices. We have a problem with Education in terms of underfunding of school children in Devon, as well as on a National scale. We have a problem with a lot of retired pensioners who have seen their incomes shrink, because of low interest rates, and utilities bills have become the highest in the country, so they’re straining to survive. And then there are the problems in terms of jobs and youngsters, we have pretty low wages that are seasonally dependent, making it difficult for them to get a well-paid job. 

If you are re-elected, what are your plans for the next 4-5 years?

Well I am so passionate to preserve Rolle College. Originally we thought that the Community College could expand into, but clearly that’s not going to happen now. I came up with this idea of having a hospitality academy. There are lots of courses in hospitality and tourism in different colleges around the South West, but there’s no dedicated college to it, so we’re doing a study at the moment to see if Exmouth could be the place for one. People could study hotel management, for example, and that qualification would be recognised at all the leading hotels around the world. It would put Exmouth on the map, as the only other two colleges are in Holland and Switzerland. Part-time and refresher courses for employers of the tourism industry could also be available, and chefs working there could go out into the community and teach people how to cook fresher food. I think it would be fantastic for Exmouth in many ways, and it’s a no-brainer because tourism is the biggest employer in our area, but employers are constantly telling me that there’s a skill shortage. Unfortunately Plymouth University are trying to sell the site for as much money as they can get. Whether we can pull it off in time, I don’t know, I’m very nervous about it. 

What can the Conservative party offer to the students of Great Britain? 

Well unfortunately we can’t wave a magic wand and say we’ll scrap top-up fees, which we’d all love to do, but someone’s got to pay for further education. What we’re beginning to see is students leaving further education with very large debts, and then not being able to find a job. So I think the best thing we can do is offer an economy that is vibrant and in which people can get a job at the end of their education. We need to create a cleaner environment for the next generation, and the measures put in place to make that happen will create well-paid jobs. I would say the UK has always been a fantastic trading nation – we’re a trading island and we’ve got to rediscover our roots by getting trade going again and getting our exports up. That’s why we’ve put James Dyson in charge of a task force for the Tories, to help export new technology. Freiburg in Germany is a very green city, with solar panels on all the schools and public buildings, electric cars etc, and as a result of which a whole lot of green technology’s come about, creating 10,000 jobs. So being green also means that the new technology can create all these new jobs. 

What’s your view on climate change, and do you think enough is being done for the environment? 

I take the view that even if you deny climate change is man-made, surely just good human behaviour is to use less of the Earth’s resources. There are finite supplies of fossil fuels and surely we want to live in a cleaner and healthier environment. To care for our planet better must be good, even if you don’t believe that’s going to make a significant difference to climate change. That’s why I think we should tackle it head on – we should reduce our carbon emissions, use less of our resources and live a cleaner life.

You can never do too much, but if you do take it seriously you’ve got to do a lot more. We’ve got to consume less water and generate more water and energy from alternative, sustainable supplies. That needs to be a mix and I’m afraid it does need to be nuclear, as well as wave power and off shore wind farms. Also, in terms of our own national security, we need to become less dependent on importing oil and gas, because we’ve seen what other countries can do by cutting off pipelines. It’s a very serious issue – keeping the lights on in our own country. 

What things are there for young people in East Devon? 

If you talk to young people in East Devon they’ll tell you there’s not enough to do, but I’d then point out, particularly in places like Exmouth and Sidmouth, that they live in some of the most beautiful parts of the world. Most people would just enjoy the luxury of living here, but teenagers want something different. One of the interesting things that Cameron has come up with is some kind of voluntary service to get younger people involved in community work. More people of a younger age do need to get involved in working together with other people in their community; I think that’s terribly important. 

How will cutting public spending effect East Devon? 

Devon County and Council is a well-run local authority, which is becoming even better run now, but I think savings will have to be made, as one of the things we said we’ll do to help people is freezing council tax for two years. You may see loos closing, roads deteriorate (although they can’t get much worse) or gardens not being maintained as well, and that’s regrettable but I think people need to understand that the Country has been bankrupted by this government – after 13 years the debt now is about 118 billion pounds – and it’s unsustainable. I think the figure is that for every four pounds the government are spending, one pound goes to servicing that debt, which means that one pound isn’t going to help the most vulnerable in our society. It’s completely ridiculous, so we have to have an emergency budget within 50 days of taking power. We’ve identified areas of waste, where we can shrink public expenditure and it’s important to encourage the private sector to try to expand and create jobs, in order to fund the public sector and therefore reduce the deficit. Labour party has said we should go on borrowing even more, so there’s a fundamental difference there of how to deal with it. We need to get the economy rebalanced. 

How will cutting public spending effect the NHS? 

We’ve been specific about how we’re maintaining funding for the NHS, which David Cameron is passionate about. That doesn’t mean to say that there doesn’t need to be tremendous reform of it, including cutting back on bureaucracy and getting more money to front-line services. One of the other things that David’s been talking about is making more cancer drugs available. These drugs are enormously expensive, so one of the great challenges of the NHS is how to fund them, but I think David is determined to do it. 

What do you think of Britain going into a digital age? 

I think Britain is lagging behind, especially in terms of getting high speed broadband, particularly in the rural areas, it’s simply not good enough now to have people without access to it, and indeed good mobile signals I would also argue. How that can be funded, we’re looking at various options. We’re thinking of slicing some of the BBC licence fee to fund it. Something needs to be done to bring Britain up to the rest of the technological world. 

Do you have any predictions on the general election? 

I can’t predict anything really – it’s very difficult. A colleague of mine predicted a wonderfully high majority for us, but I think he must be living on a different planet! We have to do better than at any time since 1931, in terms of a swing, because of the way the electoral system works. Labour has many more constituencies that are much smaller than ours, but if we both got exactly the same amount of votes, they would end up with 30+ more constituencies than us. It’s an unfair system that we can live with, but it does means we have to do that much better to get the same result. The unknown factor, particularly in the South West, is of course the Lib Dems, because of the televised debate where Nick Clegg was able to project himself. All I hope now is that if the Lib Dems are going to be taken seriously as a party, then they’ll be put under the same scrutiny as Labour and Conservative because I think people might be surprised in some of the inconsistencies in what they’re saying. Do the polls really translate to how people are going to vote? I just hope people make their own minds up for themselves. 

 On the doorstep it is clear people don’t want Gordon Brown again, but what is less certain is how much they want us. I have to say a hung parliament is the worst possible idea at this time, because it could well tilt the economy back into a recession. When the financial markets need clarity and certainty, they’d have uncertainty and a lack of clarity, because we won’t be able to get our budget through. I think inevitably, like all coalitions, it will come apart at the seams and you’ll just have another general election in 5-6 months time. We want a new Government to sort out this country and I think we at least deserve a chance.