The people vying to be Maidenhead’s next MP have made their pitches to voters at a town centre debate.

Candidates told the full-up hustings at Maidenhead Methodist Church, on the corner of High Street, why they thought people should vote for them.

Green Party candidate Andrew Cooney said the ‘vast acceleration’ of climate change is ‘the key issue we live and work and deal with'.

But he added that the party’s policies extend beyond climate change such as imposing rent controls and reviewing the two-child benefit cap. He said: “It’s about being a green country and a fair country as well.”

READ MORE: Slough general election candidates vie for your vote at debate

Independent candidate Qazi Yasir Irshad said he thought Maidenhead has ‘great potential'. But he added: “Unfortunately no one has delivered in terms of tourism.”

He emphasised his opposition to conflict and arms sales. He said: “War is fuelling the conflicts around the globe resulting in the suffering of millions of people.

“We should not encourage conflicts around the globe, we should not be a part of the invasion force.”

Tania Mathias hopes to follow Theresa May as Maidenhead’s Conservative MP. She urged people to stick with the Tories. She admitted that the Conservatives’ 14 years in government had ‘not been easy’ with an economic crisis, a pandemic, the impacts of global conflict and inflation.

But she said ‘now is not the time to turn back'. She said: “The Conservatives did do the furlough scheme, the Conservatives did do the cost of living payments, the Conservatives did freeze fuel duty and did increase childcare, they did increase the living wage.”

Liberal Democrat candidate Joshua Reynolds said that ‘everything just feels broken’ and ‘nothing seems to work’ after years of a Conservative government.

He said: “The NHS is broken, there’s sewage in our rivers, and many of us and our neighbours are struggling with the cost of living crisis.”

He said that voting for him would mean ‘a vote for a strong local champion who will fight every day for our NHS and our water services'.

Labour’s candidate Jo Smith emphasised the NHS, town centre regeneration, housing, and water quality in the rivers.

She said: “I want our economy kickstarted with good jobs and a vibrant town centre that we so desperately need here, not the town centre that’s still waiting for redevelopment.”

She added: “I want to see genuinely affordable homes built and social housing stock that can be a growing asset for our community. I want the infrastructure that can support these developments and I want that to be paid for in part by developers.”

George Wright, another independent, said he is standing ‘mostly on a platform of electoral reform'.

He said: “The two main parties have got away with a lot because they’ve relied on just being better than the other main party.” He added: “I’m not going to be toeing a party line.”

Social Democratic Party candidate Tim Burt could not attend due to illness. The hustings was hosted by Churches Together in Maidenhead.