Minister for Security Tom Tugendhat has been in the area this afternoon to support South West Devon’s Conservative candidate Rebecca Smith.

The constituency covers the western part of the South Hams and has been expanded to areas around Yelverton where the visit took place.

Tugendhat was born in Westminster itself and is the son of a High Court Judge and a French mother.

He served in the Army rising to the rank of Major then Lieutenant-Colonel in the Territorial Army.

His tours of duty included the Iraq War and the War in Afghanistan and says he’s very familiar with Dartmoor: “I’ve been on Dartmoor in good weather and bad.

“I had the great privilege of training near here and being on Dartmoor for some exercises.”

Being an agricultural area he said: “As somebody who spent many Easters helping with lambing near Chard I know the importance of agriculture.

“It is incredibly important we support farmers and our party has set out a very clear agenda for supporting farming because we believe in food security in this country.

“It is not OK to be dependent on foreign risk when we can support ourselves.

Another hot topic is the very high cost of getting on the housing ladder.

The minister said: “What’s really important is to make sure people can start their lives and build families.”

“Young people have quite rightly made the case to us that we need to take housebuilding really seriously and that’s why we’ve already invested more in housebuilding than in previous years.

“It’s now up to around 200,000 houses across the United Kingdom.

“Housebuilding is really important but also stamp duty which we are lowering to zero on houses valued at under £425,000 for first time buyers.”

The visitor economy is also something that the minister commented on: “It’s fantastically important and for someone who has spent holidays down here, it is an amazing part of the world to come to.

“Labour’s plan to end zero-hours contracts from day one would bring in workers rights for holiday workers and others and people will either not hire or make people redundant.”