Lib Dem election candidate Imogen Shepherd-DuBey speaks ahead of election

She is a Wokingham councillor and was born at the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

She previously worked for Berkshire County Council and lived on the Oxford Road in George Street for a few years when she started work.

“It was great”, she says. “It’s a party town. It had a gay and lesbian scene which Wokingham does not really have.

“Before the internet it was the way we connected with each other.

She became a councillor in Wokingham in 2017 and says since she got elected “there’s been a cascade and it has started turning Lib Dem in Wokingham”.

Below is the Q&A with Imogen to find out why she is standing for your vote.

Hi Imogen, What’s the response when you knock on people’s doors?

We are finding there are a lot of Conservative remainers not willing to vote for Matt Rodda.

I think we are offering them a credible alternative. I do not believe they are a party of remain.

Our party is 100 per cent remain.

Jeremy Corbyn wants to negotiate his own form of Brexit so I wouldn’t advise anyone to vote Labour.

Labour want to renationalise a lot of our public services.

We really should be spending that money on climate change and funding police and our schools.

We should be building solar farms and wind turbines and alternative sources of green energy. We have only got one planet.

Removing freedom of movement is going to cause problems. There is no good form of Brexit. There is no deal better than the one we already have in Europe.

Are you concerned about splitting the remain vote?

Craig Morley is a firm leaver. Some say he is a climate denier. I am not exactly sure if that is fair.

From knocking on the doors in Reading East, there are a number of Conservative remainers who will not vote for Matt Rodda.

A lot of that is coming in our direction. They’re saying if we were not in the mix they would go back to the Conservatives.

But I am sure there is a core Labour vote that will vote for Matt Rodda.

What are your other priorities other than stopping Brexit?

Climate change. Dealing with plastic; I haven’t seen from either of the other parties a good way of dealing with recycling and plastics.

Our trains and buses should go renewable as quick as possible. There need to be more buses so people stop using their cars.

We need to spend money on low income households, making sure their homes are properly insulated so we reduce their bills and carbon output.

Housing, particularly in Reading, is in serious short supply. Anybody with a decent full-time job should be able to afford a place to live but our homeless problems in Reading seem to be very high.

The Lib Dems are offering free childcare for nine months for working people.

We want to make sure our human rights are not infringed, whatever happens with Brexit. We want to make sure low paid workers are supported. Zero hours contracts should be outlawed.

If you are on a zero hours contract you should be paid more than a minimum wage to compensate for the times when you are not able to work.

I think it’s ridiculous that we are propping up working people because they are not able to earn enough money to support themselves. Our employers should be paying them properly.

We are not funding SEND education properly. Our schools are falling apart.

What local campaigns would you focus on?

One of the things I have been doing in Wokingham is supporting people with disabilities, making sure we have parking spaces in the places we need them to be.

I have campaigned quite strongly for playgrounds to be accessible when they are rebuilt so they have equipment for children with different needs.

I have been a strong supporter of keeping Reading Prison in public ownership.

What did you think of the council’s decision to announce its intention to bid for Reading Prison during Purdah?

From a councillor perspective it set off alarm bells because it is in a purdah period and we know it is in Matt Rodda’s literature.

We did put in an objection to the monitoring officer. I understand the bid has to be in before purdah ends but it could have been announced retrospectively or as a very generic council statement.

Were there discussions between yourselves and the Green Party in Reading East about one of you standing down as part of the Remain Alliance?

No there wasn’t but I’m not offended by them being there. I understand why they are there: they have got four councillors in Reading Borough Council (RBC).

Some people will ask why is a Wokingham councillor standing in a Reading constituency?

We are a bit peculiar in Reading East in that half of the constituency falls into Wokingham Borough Council and half in RBC. I feel people in Reading don’t realise that there is a big chunk in Wokingham.

How would you support individuals in Reading as a candidate, such as surgeries?

As a councillor, I communicate a lot more by email, Facebook and Twitter. Once a month for face to face surgeries at weekends seems quite reasonable.

Surgeries are a very old, traditional idea.

What has Matt Rodda done well and not so well as an MP?

He’s a very nice chap. I don’t dislike Matt Rodda at all, as a human being. He’s not stood out from the crowd.

I’ve never seen him stand up to the party. He’s always voted along the party whip.

[Fact check: Matt’s record on public whip.org.uk shows that he voted against the Labour party whip once in his two years as MP – opposing Heathrow expansion]

He’s a nice, friendly, compliant MP. Do you want someone who rocks the boat?

What do you think about the swimming pool situation in East Reading?

I used to live near Central Pool and that’s gone. I used to swim at Arthur Hill as a child. The idea of turning it into flats is appalling. It should been kept as a historic item.

I know it needs a lot of work but for that part of Reading there isn’t a lot of choices.; I would be in favour of keeping Arthur Hill and doing it up. It needs modernising.

Would you be happy for the Lib Dems to go into a coalition with either of the two main parties?

At the moment Jo Swinson is saying no. She wants to vote on a policy-by-policy basis.

I just want a stable us to form a stable government.

The coalition gave us five years of a stable government that got things done. Since then we haven’t got anything done because David Cameron called a referendum and it has all been about Brexit since then.

Finally, do you still hear criticism about the rise in tuition fees?

Mainly from Labour supporters. Most people realise it was not a bad thing. It was not Lib Dem policy. It was a pledge signed by a handful of MPs and a lot of those MPs were Labour MPs.

It was a very prominent part of the Lib Dem campaign.

Of Nick Clegg’s campaign but it was not in the party manifesto. They were faced with a choice of cutting adult social care costs, cutting police numbers of putting up tuition fees.

They opted for the least harmful option.

Why do lower fees work in other countries in Europe?

This is a matter of budgeting and how money is used. Given a choice between funding adult social care or universities, I know which one I would cut.

I don’t want tuition fees to go up anymore, but most students don’t pay anything until they get to a certain salary; most won’t end up paying it all off.