Call for Powys MPs to challenge Dominic Cummings over lockdown breach

The county council's Lib Dem group leader, Councillor James Gibson-Watt, has challenged Powys’s two Tory MPs to join the growing number of their parliamentary colleagues to call for Dominic Cummings to resign.

Mr Cummings drove his family over 250 miles to the north east from London during the crucial early stages of the coronavirus lockdown and at a time when his wife was showing symptoms of the disease.

Councillor Gibson-Watt said: “It is clear to me from reading the regulations that Mr Cummings breached the rules.

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"Politicians from across the political spectrum at all levels in Powys including our two MPs have been urging people not to travel to the county during the lockdown and to obey the ‘stay at home’ message.

"Families across the UK have faced agonising choices to stay within the rules, as we all know that this has been a crucial part of controlling the spread of this deadly virus.

"People in Powys and across Wales have heeded and obeyed that message very commendably. Yet, thus far we have heard nothing from our Powys MPs about this breach committed by the Prime Minister’s most important adviser who himself helped to draw up the lockdown rules.

“Local Powys residents, who have sacrificed so much are rightly very angry that the most powerful government official in the UK has been allowed to flout the rules in circumstances that did not justify doing so.

"Like all parents facing childcare difficulties in the face of this awful epidemic, he could have contacted his local authority in London, a local voluntary organisation or his local school hub to seek assistance, just as Powys residents have had to do in similar circumstances.”

“It’s time for our MPs to step up to the plate and add their voices to the many MPs from across the House of Commons in calling for Mr Cummings to resign, if the Prime Minister does not have the backbone to ask him to step down.”