North Herefordshire’s newly elected MP Ellie Chowns has used her maiden speech in Parliament to urge colleagues to work together to rebuild trust in politics.

Telling the Commons this afternoon that it was “an honour and privilege to be standing here as the first woman MP from Herefordshire”, the Green Party MP paid tribute to her predecessor, the Conservative Sir Bill Wiggin, she spoke of his many years of service and contribution to local improvements and his championing of North Herefordshire’s farmers.

Dr Chowns highlighted the county’s produce, particularly its apples, “which produce the finest cider in the country”.

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And she paid tribute to the creativity of the recent Ledbury poetry festival, the energy efficiency of the Wye Valley Brewery, the entrepreneurialism of Peter Cook’s Bakery and the Beefy Boys, “home of officially the best burgers in the UK”, and the care provided locally by St Michael’s Hospice and disability support charity ECHO.

Moving on to the themes of her successful election campaign, she said “fuel poverty is a real issue in my constituency, with low wages and hard-to-heat housing stock”.

She would be scrutinising Labour’s new proposals to reform England’s planning system, saying it was “crucial that new houses are built to the highest efficiency standards”, with solar panels.

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The NHS “needs to be nursed back to health”, with more investment in preventive measures, while Herefordshire’s potholes “are perhaps its most visible symbols of under-investment in local government”, she said.

Lastly, the “recent major expansion of the industrial poultry industry has clearly played a key role” in the ecological decline of the county’s rivers, she said.

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“For too long our rivers have been treated as free sewers, and this cannot continue,” she added.

“We now need a supportive government to enforce pollution rules and invest in solutions. This goes hand in hand with renewing our economy.”

But she concluded: “Living on a farm myself, I am inspired by farmers leading the transition to more nature-friendly farming, and I will be a voice for those farmers in this house.”