To the residents of the Sedgefield Constituency as was and in particular the readership of the Newton News, I should like to say thank you for your support and engagement whilst I was your Member of Parliament. I was welcomed into your community spaces and given the opportunity to understand any issues and support any you may need.
I have done my very best to do what I could to help and this has been massively aided by the outstanding efforts of my staff in Aycliffe and London. I thank them publicly for their amazing diligence and delivery and wish them well in their futures. The team that helped me campaign for re-election also deserve incredible praise but, when the national politics were as they were, their efforts proved in vain.
It has been the most amazing privilege of my life to represent you and I wish my successor all the very best in a job which was, by far, the most challenging and satisfying I have ever had and one I would have loved to continue. I sincerely hope he gets the same satisfaction from it as I did.
Paul Howell.
Former Member of Parliament for Sedgefield.