Dennis Saunders Reform Party Candidate i/v 11.06.24

Dennis Saunders Reform Party Candidate i/v 11.06.24

God this is Martin J of the girl for Dragon news and I’m with Dennis Saunders who’s the reform UK Party candidate for Guilford in the forthcoming general election Dennis thank you for giving your time for this interview with the Guilford Dragon news my pleasure good to be here and um we’ll get straight into it uh I’m I’m looking for the interview to last for about uh 20 minutes the first question is um Jeremy Hunt in guilford’s neighboring constituency he standing for the conservatives there seems unconcerned with the level of development in sui are you yes sorry that’s a bit of an easy one the wisley development is shocking um the wisley Airfield is classified as a Brownfield site and therefore it’s very easy for Builders to get planning permission to build on it um I used to fly small airplanes and I’ve been to whizley I used to live very close to it and it’s very little tarmac and mainly Green Field covered in poppies um we have an issue that there aren’t enough houses and I guess that is probably a reasonable place to go but the issue is and I’m going to sound racist or something but there’s too many people coming into the country year after year after year and our housing supplies simply can’t last and we have to stop that okay so would you allow any green built land to be developed there may be a case for it on an individual onetoone basis but as a general principle you know I live in the S Hills which is an a um would it’s not a nimi thing but I just would want to see our Green Belt being built on there are other Brownfield sign that we should be using um and we have to protect what we’ve got because once it’s built over it’s built over and if you look at some of the things that are happening we simply don’t have the infrastructure to support for instance cranley has had uh so many new houses built it’s now changed where it is it used to be in the guil constituency it’s now not but the infrastructure can’t cope where I live there’s just no water when it when it’s dry it’s ridiculous and um you say about Brownfield development but of course the the pro a problem with that is that councils or the government can’t force that development because it’s you know if the owners don’t want it to be developed or the developers don’t want it to be developed um they don’t develop it so would you change the rules so that Brownfield there would be more onus on developers and owners to get it developed yeah certainly I mean it it all comes down to money at the end of the day Maring that if you make it uh in the developer’s interest to build on Brownfield rather than green belt then that’s what they’ll do so would you tap them if they leave it if they left it undeveloped or how would you do that yeah one of the things that the developers have got a favorite trick of doing is saying that they will build a mixture of houses some of which are executive houses and some of which are low cost they’ve done this recently they then build the executive houses and leave the low cost as part of a later phase which never gets done so there must be penalties and it’s a ridiculous situation you’ve got a you know I’m not anti- bus I’m an ex- businessman I I built a business from nothing with a partner and we were generating 3 million pound worth tax and and employing 60 people I’m very very Pro business but you’ve got to have some kind of moral value in businesses and building on Green Bel when we have brown belts available I understand Brown field sites available I understand they’re to make a profit so therefore you either punish them for not building on um you either punish them for building on green belt or you bribe them in essence make it worth their while to build on Brownfield sites and how do make it worth their while and how do you feel about higher because there’s been controversy in Guilford about Brownfield development which is a relatively high rise relatively High compared with the rest of the Town how do you feel about that on a personal level I don’t particularly like it I’ve lived in Guilford or worked in Guilford for about 50 years um so personally I don’t particularly like it but I think it’s inevitable that the town has to change in some ways you know when you look at North Street or the center of town or round by the station it can’t stay how it was in the 70s um but on a personal level I don’t like it at all you know if you look at woking for instance woking and Guilford were very similar woking is now Tower Block City 20 28 London guilford’s got a lot more history than woking hasn’t it oh it has yeah there’s no choice sorry woking so um would you take any other measures to increase the housing Supply other than building on Green Belt have have you thought of that in what way other than building on Green Belt yes to build on Brownfield sites but there’s also an issue with the housing that we have in that although it’s been sheld for the moment the legislation section if I was a landlord I would have a six-month um short-term tency agreement with a renter at the end of that if we’re both happy it continues otherwise wise that ends at the end of six months that is in the process of being abolished because of that it means that if you’re a landlord you can’t have people you can’t get people out of your house it’s actually a it’s now Tory policy it was a Jeremy Corbin hard left policy that you would have the uh right to stay in somebody else’s house you then have to be taken to court to um get the person out if the court system is so blocked that what I’m hearing anecdotally is that people are actually just paying tenants to move now what that has done is it has stopped people renting out their houses which is pushing up rent prices right okay that was the no fault eviction I think it was labeled wasn’t it yeah yeah it’s a Jer Corbin policy adopted by the Tories okay right well let’s move on to the High Street um what would your party do to help the health of the nation’s High streets we’ve got empty shop units in Guilford in fact what was the probably the leading store on the High Street um uh House of Fraser is has laid empty now for months um what would you do to improve the situation uh reform policy is very simple it’s to totally abolish business rates for High Street businesses having had a business business business rates are a real cost and if I was going to start a shop now in Guilford and I’m looking at a Cashflow forecast and I’ve got to pay all this money out business rates I’m un inclined to do it if on the other hand there are no business rates I’m more inclined to do it it’s an obvious thing to do and to be honest I would argue that you know the the wealth that shops bring to a town outweighs the fact of taxing them with business rights okay I want our High Street our High Street back I mean I actually did a stand for reform in Guilford High Street a couple of months ago and we were actually just outside um House of Fraser and it’s just the High Street has changed again I don’t want to be a person that says nothing must change but the High Street now when you walk up and down there’s probably I haven’t counted there’s probably six or seven empty shops right and you’ve got to help these shop owners and it’s not just the small shops it’s also the big shops as well big stores if you if you scrap business rates I think that’s what you said what how for High Street shops yeah so how would you because I mean obviously government relies on that Revenue whether it’s National or local how would you fill the whole of uh that income for the government the um reform we have a contract which if you like is a Manifesto everything we’re doing is fully costed right and the details of that online under the the reform contract um the way to do that is to actually pay the money that the councils have lost or reduce some of the waste that is going on in councils at the moment okay um but it’s High Street that that counts you know and along with that reducing parking charges and Etc ET just makeing it easier to get into the town okay and on the cost of living which I think is the and the list I saw was the um the topic that came top of the list of uh voters concerns um what would your party do to make life more affordable for those on Lower incomes because although guilford’s an affluent town and an affluent County we have got people on Lower incomes in Guilford so what would you do to help them okay this again is very much about generating growth um we will make the tax threshold £20,000 that means that nobody will pay any tax at all on any salary up to 20,000 obviously if you earn 25 you’re only paying tax on 5,000 again that is fully costed but by reducing that reforming the Civil Service removing waste you know we’re employing 600,000 more civil servants than than we were costing billions More For Worse results there savings to be made and these are redirected to people um the taxation in this country is the highest it’s been in living memory okay you can keep quoting the pandemic or the financial crash or Ukraine but reform is genuinely a party of low tax high growth and you also have a situation where if it’s paying people more to work and you couple that with training for people to get into jobs for instance I was talking to the apprentices Association uh last week when I was a kid you used to either go to university or generally you do an apprenticeship you go to Guilford Tech you’d learn on the job now we’re importing people from abroad to be plumbers and plasterers and Builders and we’ve got people on benefits who can’t get jobs and in some cases if you’ve got a number of children if you have a job you’re no better off than you would be on benefits that’s fundamentally wrong okay now you’ve mentioned there about um cutting uh oh sorry about raising the tax threshold when obviously would also decrease government revenue uh and you said it’s all costed but what what are the areas then where you would increase or you would fill those gaps could it all be done just by Saving on the Civil Service Etc no there there’s other things as well the um Net Zero project that the three main socialist parties really have signed up to um is completely uncosted reform will put that on hold if not scrap it and save 30 billion a year that’s what’s quoted in the contract however I know an absolute expert in this field and it’s near a 45 billion every year you need to build something like 40,000 windmills if you want to store it you need a Tesla unit that’s 1 kilometer by 1 kilometer by 400 m high and then you’d need to rebuild the grid to carry the electricity but are you not concerned by are you not concerned by the scientists saying you know about the risks of climate change everybody is um I’m not a climate change denier but the UK produces one% or 1.1% of global emissions um India and China are producing in the 20s and the 30s but you can’t bankrupt the country stop all of us having gas boilers make us have heat pumps that don’t work for very little change and literally bankrupt us it just doesn’t make any any political sense at all I mean if it’s I’m not denying climate change but for instance it was warmer in Roman times that it is now and Guilford used to grow graes and does well yes it does actually over at the um several Vineyards now in gford okay yeah um let’s move on to migration and your party has known uh probably more of your migration policy probably more than any other um and it’s against the current levels of net migration what would it do to bring those levels down okay well there’s um one of the things is stop the boats um by leaving the echr and rur boats are of small percentage of the I was going to say but that is a very very small percentage the major issue is that net migration in the last two years has been 1, 449,000 more people coming in than are leaving now the Tories under Cameron would say we’re going to reduce this to tens of thousands it’s simply not happening there are certain things that are wrong fundamentally wrong with the system you have people coming from overseas to go to university here and bring in their dependence now with all due respect if I was going to go somewhere to get a university education I’d either leave my dependence at home or I wouldn’t go people did this if you look at the Windrush generation the guys would come over they get a job they get a home established and then they bring their dependence that makes okay so you you would scrap um dependence being allowed in on student visas what what else would you do well the other things that um I would have for instance to in the olden days if somebody wanted to be a nurse they would get a job as a training nurse then become a junior nurse and a nurse and a staff nurse Etc now they have to go to university and learn how to do spreadsheets before they can start things like that are fundamentally wrong we’re bringing in nurses from overseas I would also but don’t we need those nurses uh there are 11 administrators to every single person in the NHS with a medical qualification I’d reform the NHS completely and increase the salaries of nurses and doctors to stop them leaving to talk about waste I’ll give you two very good examples uh there’s a drug called the pigil which I’m on and I wanted to check what I should do before a miner operation going online 215 NHS trusts have employed 215 managers to write the same thing in different words and that’s for one drug the NHS needs massive reform it doesn’t it’s not that it’s overfunded it’s that the funding isn’t going to the front lines and from personal experience I feel that when you’re looking at recruiting diversity managers and sending people surveys of whether they would recommend using certain doctors and hospitals I know for a fact that people with pancreatic cancer are given One Drug on the NHS go for ferox 68% of people can’t have more than one cycle it’s so bad most of the western societies will treat with a jug called jit brain of braan but you can’t get it on the NHS and that can extend somebody’s life by six months a decision made by nice and at the same time that they’re saving money there they’re spending the money on sending people questionnaires and woke training so your point is I think sorry to interrupt but time is against this I’m afraid but your point is I think I’m right in inferring then your point is that by decreasing uh inefficiency then you decrease the demand for people U coming in is that correct yeah but it’s across it’s across all likes if you link that I do want to mention it again if you link with apprentices right so effectively you control immigration you stop bringing in non-essential people you train UK people to do those jobs which is a win-win because I lost many years ago I lost my job I lost my business I lost everything and the doll Center is not a nice place to go and luckily for me I in natur I started another business but the help is limited shall we say that you actually get and you can do something like two strikes in you’re out not taking a job which again must be done one of my sons recruits gardeners sorry again to interrupt Dennis but we’re veing away a bit from migration and and but okay so um on the the conservative solution for the boat people or the the people coming across on boats is uh the Rwanda solution do do you support that do you think it’s the most effective and moral way to tackle the the problem okay the conservative party is totally split on this half of them are saying that it’s immoral and you can’t do it and the other half are saying the legislation isn’t strong enough there a uh at least one high court case that I know that’s taking place in July after the election and it’s almost certain that the rer screen won’t work I personally think the reason that sunak called the election was that when the flights are grounded in July or August or September this year he’s left with absolutely no immigration policy okay but do you support it do you support that solution no no because because you’re saying it wouldn’t work yeah it wouldn’t work and you stop people coming in the first place okay fair enough um right let’s move on to water there the problem of water supply in Guilford has um been in the headlines over the last six months we’ve had interruptions in the supply and of course there’s sewage going into our local Rivers what would your party do to fix the water industry okay we don’t have enough res we haven’t built reservoirs for how many years I I I couldn’t even begin to tell you um we also need a structure it doesn’t rain much in the Southeast when you’re looking at Guilford things so we need to transfer the water we need pipelines to transfer water from areas where it does rain but the thing that strikes me is that whenever it rains the roads are running with water the water companies exist for their sh sh holders that’s what they have to do they’re bound to do that they’re not Charities so you have to change the structure of water companies to say make it 50% state owned um you can’t let this carry on like this and as for sewage they get fined but they just put their prices up the the point is that the water industry is a monopoly and it’s an essential part as I alluded to earlier from 2019 onwards where I live any dry period we’d have literally no water T’s water used to fill a reservoir on Pitch Hill with tankers then decided it was too expensive so didn’t bother right um my neighbor this was during Co my neighbor was a NHS intensive care nurse who couldn’t wash when he got back from work neighbor over the other side had a few uh llamas I think they were couldn’t water them my wife was very ill was going to the hospital with infections because she couldn’t wash right and T’s water did nothing about it I’m sorry that just that just can’t happen anymore okay there’s too many things just sorry briefly Martin there’s too many things that the Tories in particular have talked about doing but done nothing and it’s time for change it is time for other parties to come to the for people that represent center right values there’s not much now between the other three parties their policies are mainly socialist anyway and it’s time to have another party okay that may be that out of that comes another center right party who knows but okay thank you very much I’m afraid we’re out of time now but Dennis Saunders reform UK candidate for Guilford in the general election thank you very much yeah thanks Martin thanks for your time