William Hague turns out in Newtown to support Craig Williams

Lord Hague was in Newtown this morning (June 7) with Mr Williams to campaign to keep him in his seat, as the final nominations are confirmed and the full election campaign kicks in.

“I am not able to vote because I am a member of the house of lords so I have to show my support in other ways because he is an outstanding local MP,” said Lord Hague.

Mr Williams was delighted with the show of support and feels his record in office has helped Montgomeryshire – including the recent town deal for Newtown.

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“With the town deals there were 60 of them now there are about 100. It’s not about central government. It’s about giving Newtown an endowment of £20 million to spend over 10 years to use on the issues they want,” said Mr Williams.

“£20 million for Newtown is transformative, it is about delivering proper localism."

(Image: Ruairi Walsh)

Lord Hague from his perspective as a constituent it was “vital” that Mr Williams be re-elected.

“I’m long since retired but I feel very strongly about this now I have been living here for nines years and I care a lot about this area,” said Lord Hague.

“It’s absolutely vital that we have a really excellent MP which we have had in Craig in the last few years.

“Sometimes people come to me because of my past n politics with issues and things they want help with and I am not in a position to do that.

“But whenever I mention them to Craig he will and visit them in their house and hear their concerns – not all MPs do that.

“I can really see the difference it makes for local people. I can see what a great service people have from Craig.”

Mr Williams said that he was proud of his record particularly the extra funding that he helped bring to rural areas such as  Montgomeryshire.

“When you look at Montgomeryshire when I took over the word rurality didn’t appear in funding formulas,” said Mr Williams.

“The old European money in Wales used to got to urban areas. We managed to get the word rurality in there.

“Now shared prosperity funds are delivering millions to Powys. We got levelling up funding that will deliver the reopening of the Montgomery canal. We also have the Mid Wales growth deal which is another £130 million pot.

“If you look locally over my time you will see a huge level of investment you wouldn’t have got in the last two decades”.