A view from Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr’s Member of Parliament

Wrexham.com has invited local Members of Parliament and Members of the Senedd to write a monthly article with updates on their work in their respective Parliaments and closer to home – you can find them all here.

In his first monthly column for Wrexham.com, Montgomeryshire and Glyndwr MP Steve Witherden writes:

It has been a bittersweet few months since being elected as the MP for Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr.

Representing your home in Parliament is a great honour and I am enjoying every chance I get to give our communities the voice we deserve.

To be elected with a larger majority than six other Welsh MPs, when many in the press were saying this seat would be the last Tory seat in Wales, was an incredible achievement. While our 13 Wrexham wards have a proud Labour tradition, I became the first ever Labour MP to be elected to represent Montgomeryshire.

Sadly, that elation was quickly tempered by the loss of my mother five days later. I dedicated my maiden speech, which you can watch here, to her. I offered my sincerest thanks to the House staff – their assistance in getting me out of the chamber in time made sure that I saw her before she passed away that evening in Wrexham. I also want to thank everyone for the many kind condolences I have received, I remain grateful for them all.

Nevertheless, I have been hard at work in Parliament and in the constituency. I have voted for the introduction of bills to bring our trains back under public control, create a publicly owned clean energy company, and to end no fault evictions.

I am in contact with stakeholders regarding plans for the lithium battery plant in Esclusham, and back the community’s safety concerns. I also met with representatives from Kronospan to discuss their operations in Chirk, which is the biggest of their five UK plants and is the largest employer in the constituency.

There have unfortunately been difficult decisions to make too. I understand the strength of feeling over the changes to the Winter Fuel Payment, and I share everyone’s frustrations. I have been working to mitigate the impact of the changes, which you can read about here. I know that constituents will understand how painful it has been to take the necessary steps needed to begin fixing the public finances after 14 years of Tory failure.

This government’s number one priority for this parliament is to deliver growth so that future governments do not need to make the same difficult decisions. This should be the responsibility of any governing party, regardless of their political stripes. Regrettably, the Conservatives abdicated this responsibility and left us to clean up the mess.

It will take time, but I pledged to bring prosperity back to our communities, and that is what I intend to do.

My work representing Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr is in full swing – most of my staff are now in place, and we are close to finalising plans for the constituency office. Once this is confirmed, we will widely share further information about how to get in touch in person. Until then, do not hesitate to reach out via [email protected], and keep up to date via my website, stevewitherden.wales.