I’m delighted to have been chosen as our party’s representative to fight this election for Wantage.

Full statement

I was born onto a council estate and attended a secondary school where only 20% of people passed any 5 GCSEs. My mother left school at 16 and started work as soon as she could and my father left school at 14 and joined the army as soon as he could.

I was the first person in my family to go to university and I have spent the past 16 years running organisations that help young people across the UK to get a better education and a better job. Most recently, that has been as Chief Executive of a charity that I built from a team of 2 to a national charity that has 7 offices around the UK and helps around 7,000 young people from the Isle of Wight to the Western Isles. Last year, I was humbled to receive an OBE for services to social mobility and education.

The reason I decided to go into politics now is that the issues I care about are all affected by what happens in parliament. About a year ago I was reading the paper and the first 11 pages were all about Brexit. Although I voted to leave and back Boris Johnson’s deal, if elected I’m keen to see us get back to tackling the issues that I have seen affect people’s day to day lives.