General Election: Does an address matter? Lib Dem candidate for Mid Beds doesn't live on patch

During last year’s Mid Beds by-election, the Lib Dems pushed the fact their candidate was “local” – but Stuart Roberts lives in Harpenden.

“Not only have I got a house elsewhere, I’ve got a farm elsewhere which is not quite as easy to move as a residence.

“[Mid Beds] is a part of the world that has very similar issues [to where I live], particularly when you get into the mix of villages, rural communities,as well as towns. I think you do need to have someone who understands the issues, somebody who can represent the local community,” he said.

Roberts said he became active in politics around “four or five” years ago, after being in a “restricted role”.

“I was a deputy president of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) and I was not allowed to get involved in politics,” he said.

“But obviously in that role you spend a lot of time with politics and with politicians and I started talking to various people just about my views, etc. And found [the Lib Dems] a very natural home,” he said.

“So when I finished with the NFU I joined the party with the aim of just doing food and farming stuff. The food and farming bit of the manifesto has come from my policy work, I was very heavily involved in that.”

Roberts said he spent a long time thinking about being a MP when the party asked him to stand.

“Because actually everything I’ve done up to then was food, it was farming, it was the environment, it was climate change,” he said. “But the more I thought about it, well actually, I’m also a father, I’ve got kids and I worry about their education.

“And actually, I’d quite like to get a bit more involved in real politics, not just agriculture, food, etc. And then the opportunity came up to stand here in Mid Bedfordshire,” he said.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service asked Roberts how he was going to keep his farm running in the way he wants it, and have the time to be in Westminster and the time to be in Mid Beds as well.

“The time up here and the time in Westminster, that’s the same for every single candidate,” he said. “The farm is a very real issue, and I look back to when I did the National Farmers’ Union role, that was effectively a full-time role.

“So whilst it is my farm and I am a farmer, I’ve resourced the farm in a way that allows me, basically, to be able to make decisions, but not do the work itself.”

Roberts added he is often being told that Mid Beds is a two-horse race between Labour and the Conservatives.

He said: “But if you want someone who works hard, someone who has real life experiences. Someone who has historically delivered for 60,000 farmers across the country – a constituency that spans the entire country. Someone who is ready and willing to work every hour of every day for the constituents in this community, then please select me.”

The other candidates standing in Mid Beds are:

Richard Brunning – SDPDave Holland – Reform UKGareth Mackey – IndependentMaahwish Mirza – LabourCade Sibley – GreenBlake Stephenson – Conservative

The election is on July 4.