Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says Cambridgeshire needs a mayor who understands business

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch paid a visit to CMR Surgical’s global manufacturing facility in Ely on Thursday (17 April) - and said Cambridgeshire would benefit from a mayor with an understanding of business.

Ms Badenoch was accompanied by Paul Bristow, the party’s candidate to become mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough at the 1 May elections. Mr Bristow is the former MP for Peterborough whose earlier business career included founding the public relations consultancy PB Consulting

After being given a tour of the surgical robot company’s facility by Luke Hares, chief technology officer, and Lionel Gousset, general manager, Ms Badenoch said: “One of the things that I’ve been talking about at CMR is having politicians who understand business, who have a business background, who know how to make things work is really important.

“When I look at the Cabinet right now, it’s not only that they haven’t run a business, they’ve never worked in one - and so they keep making the wrong decisions.”

She described Mr Bristow as someone “who’s very smart, who understands business, who wants to deliver a better quality of life for the people who live here”.

Mr Bristow will be running against Labour’s Anna Smith, Liberal Democrat Lorna Dupré, Bob Ensch of the Greens, and Ryan Coogan, of Reform UK.

Pressed on what else a Conservative mayor would bring to the county, Ms Badenoch said: “Fixing the roads - we talk about potholes endlessly, and how it is that things have gotten so much worse over the years because of the changes in regulations around potholes. Funding’s also an issue…

“We talked about transport links, how to make sure that we can deliver great transport without impacting people’s quality of life.

“It wants someone who understands the trade-offs and isn’t just following an ideological line - and that’s what we’ll have with Paul.”

CMR Surgical is one of the Cambridge region’s success stories. Founded here in 2014, it now has unicorn status and operates in markets around the world, selling its Versius robot to hospitals.

It is the kind of growth that successive governments have been keen to capitalise on, with a Cambridge Growth Company set up by the last Conservative government and continued by the current Labour administration, to make the most of the region’s knowledge economy.

Amid talk that 150,000 new homes could be need to supply a burgeoning workforce and propel such growth, does Ms Badenoch - MP for North West Essex and previously Saffron Walden, since 2017 - believe Cambridgeshire really has the infrastructure and water to cope?

“Well, my constituency borders Cambridgeshire, we have the same water issues too - reservoirs have not been built for far too long,” she said.

“I remember when the Liberal Democrats were debating about building reservoirs; they didn’t want to do that because of the impact it would have on people.

“But these things are trade-offs; you can have a minimal impact early and then have a larger impact for not taking difficult decisions when you should.

“We need to be able to take the right difficult decisions for the future. What inheritance are we leaving to our children?

“Previous generations built so that all of us could have a good life - we need to do the same for the next generation and find out how we can minimise the impact on those people whose quality of life could be reduced.”

Voters will also elect Cambridgeshire county councillors on the 1 May.

The Conservatives will be hoping to win back control of the county from the Liberal Democrat, Labour and Independent coalition that has been in charge since 2021. Is the Tory leader feeling confident?

“We’re going to be fighting for every seat,” she replied. “We have a very positive message; the party is under new leadership, we had a historic defeat at the General Election last year and we are starting afresh with fresh leadership, and also ensuring that we can rebuild trust with the public.

“One of the things that I am really keen to emphasise is that there are so many councillors who are so hard-working all across Cambridgeshire, for example, where we are today and people don’t often realise the hard work that they put in.

“So one of the things I really want to do is talk about the good work that they do and hope that they get the very best possible result here.”

Ms Badenoch was also asked for her views on the Labour government’s relationship to China.

She said: “I worry that this current government is too close to it. I think [trade minister] Douglas Alexander has been out there trying to get investment on green tech at a time when we’re trying to get China out of steel, for example, and out of critical national infrastructure.

“So they need a proper plan and a proper strategy. Right now, they don’t have one.”

Mrs Badenoch described the decision not to admit Liberal Democrat MP Wera Hobhouse into Hong Kong as “different” to Israel’s decision to refuse entry to two Labour MPs, Yuan Yang and Abtisam Mohamed.

She said: “The two situations are different. I’ve been very vocal in my criticism of China. It is a dictatorship. It uses slave labour.

“Wera Hobhouse was going on a personal trip. I don’t understand the reasons why she was refused entry, but so many Conservative colleagues have been sanctioned by China.

“They can’t go anywhere near the country. My view is that we need to really reassess our relationship with China.”

She also commented on the ruling on Wednesday (16 April) by the Supreme Court that women are defined by their biological sex.

“I really welcome this decision by the Supreme Court,” she said. “It is common sense, it’s what we all knew.

“Biological sex cannot be changed, and I’m glad that the efforts of so many women who lost their jobs, their reputations, their livelihoods that this has really vindicated them.

“So I think that this should put a lot of the concerns to bed, but I do know there are many organisations, within the public and private sector, who are resisting.

“And what the government needs to do is ensure that it enforces guidelines where it has control, and where it doesn’t, in the private sector, I think we’ll be seeing many more court cases.”