After a false-start last week, the Examiner finally got a sit-down interview with the man hoping to be re-elected Prime Minister on May 7.

David Cameron spoke to the Examiner about housing, why Kirklees Council should have the conviction to say ‘no’ to green belt development, and the bonuses received by health care bosses.

He also paid tribute to Yorkshire for its efforts to promote cycling, and revealed the place a good bike ride should always end – the pub!

After the Examiner was barred from following his tour of a Meltham factory on April 9 in favour of the national press, he said: “I’m very sorry because it was a really interesting factory visit, we had a lot of good conversations with people working there, it was fascinating to hear about what happening in the business, the apprenticeships, the expansion of the business and the Regional Growth Fund and I’m really sorry that you were not able to come and join us.

“I think there was an administrative muck up that’s our fault, my apologies and it won’t happen again... I always want to try and give local journalists a fair chance to ask questions and see what we’re up to. It was a very interesting visit and an amazing business.”

Here’s our Q&A with David Cameron

Examiner: In the Examiner’s manifesto our readers told us they don’t want development in the green belt. Your manifesto says you’ll protect the green belt but give local power to the people - the local council is working on “inevitable” allocation of the green belt, so does your manifesto hold up?

DC: “Once the local council draws up a proper, fulfilled local plan it has a greater ability to say yes to the development it does want and no to the development it doesn’t want.

“The second thing is, the council doesn’t have to accept the previous housing numbers from the regional spatial strategy, the council just needs to come up with a realistic assessment of housing need and have a five-year land supply, and they should have the courage of their convictions to say ‘this is a good plan, this is a good number of houses and we’re going to get out there and protect it and defend it’ and they can do that and as they do that the green belt is protected.

“You need to have a council that makes a conscious decision to want over-ride build on green belt and I would urge them to do that.”

Examiner: A lot of the new homes that are being built are large, luxury homes, as a young person I cannot afford the houses being built:

DC: “You will like our new starter homes policy, where we’re going to build 200,000 homes at 80% of the market value.

“The house builders are very excited about this because we’re taking away some of the obligations on local councils, they will not be available to buy to let landlords, they will not be available to foreign property investors, they will be there for people under the age of 40 to buy as homes of their own at 80% of market value.

“Combine the starter homes with the help to buy scheme, to help to get your deposit, and now the HTB ISA, where for every £200 you save we put in £50, I think we’ve got a very attractive policy to get houses built that young people working hard can afford to buy.”

Examiner: On the right to buy, the council leader feels like they’re losing houses and not getting anything back, how can you speed up the process of building new homes?

DC: “This is more than a one for one replacement, for every housing association home sold you can build another house with the receipt. But we're saying to councils – as your most expensive houses become vacant - and some of them are very expensive council houses - you should sell that and fund the building of new homes.

“The people who are opposing this are exactly the people who opposed the right to buy your council house, which was a policy that enabled many people to become home owners and led to more mixed communities and improved the housing stock of our country.

“I trust the people rather than those who often, from their own bought homes, try to stop other people owning theirs.”

Examiner: The local hospital trust that covers both Huddersfield and Halifax had to save £39m in two years and they haven’t done that, you say you’re investing in the NHS, how does that square up?

DC: “We are, the Clinical Commissioning Group here is getting more money this year than it got last year, there is an increase in funding and we've said if we’re re-elected we’ll increase NHS funding in every year. We’ll fund the Simon Stevens NHS (five-year) plan, which is at least an extra £8bn by the end of the next Parliament.

“Do hospitals need to find efficiencies and make sure they’re efficient in order to meet the growth in demand? Yes of course they do and hospitals, by and large, are doing very well at that by using modern technology, making sure we’re computerising patient records, making sure that we’re minimising bureaucracy. Here in Yorkshire, compared with five years ago, there are 500 more nurses, 500 more doctors and many fewer administrators.”

Examiner: At a local not-for-profit health provider the boss received a £26k pay rise in the last accounting year, which is well above the annual average salary for a Yorkshire worker. His staff were told they weren’t getting their £40 high street gift vouchers, what do you feel about that?

DC: “I haven’t see this case, I’ll have to have a look at it but people should be responsible about pay and on the surface of it this looks highly questionable.”

Examiner: The weekend after next is the Tour de Yorkshire, are you coming up for it?

DC: "I’m hoping to come it, my schedule is so changeable at the minute. I’m a huge fan of what Yorkshire is doing for cycling, I think it’s not only brilliant for Yorkshire but brilliant for the country because you’re promoting cycling. I think Gary Verity (of Welcome to Yorkshire) is a modern day hero and all power to your connective elbow.

"I am a cyclist, I don’t wear lycra, I can exclusively reveal to the Huddersfield Examiner. It’s a question I was first asked by George Bush in the White House, he asked if I exercised and I said cycling and he said ‘you don’t wear lycra , do you?’

"I’ve got a Ridgeback, a very nice bicycle but it’s more country rambling cycling,.. it’s more out with the kids on a Saturday. My son sometimes refers to himself as ‘Elwin Wiggins’ he’s got the bony, stringy physique of a cyclist and he’s getting quite good, so it’s a struggle against him and I'm carrying a little extra weight.

"My constituency in West Oxfordshire has got some of the features of West Yorkshire, beautiful villages, scenic routes. On a Saturday as you sit outside a pub you see so many cyclists go past it’s becoming a healthy natural obsession. To me a good cycle ride ends at a pub.”

Mr Cameron also visited Decorative Panels, formerly of Huddersfield and now based at the Lowfields Business Park.

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