General election 2015: Ardrossan hustings

With one of the most unpredictable poll results in living memory just weeks away, and political engagement in Scotland at an unprecedented high, local voters crammed in to the main hall to probe the candidates and listen to them pitch for their votes.

The event – organised by the Three Towns Churches Group – was chaired by Canon Matthew McManus who introduced the evening by reminding everyone that: “We live in a democracy and people have different views.

“The stronger they hold those views the more passionate they become, but that should never be an excuse to disregard other people's legitimate views.” With that salutory reminder for everyone to 'keep the heid', Father McManus introduced each of the candidates who read their opening statements in balloted order.

Questions ranged from international affairs – how to tackle terrorism wreaked by ISIS and the EU – through austerity to more local issues such as the future of Hunterston jobs and regeneration of the Three Towns.

The debate that followed was in the main civilised and orderly with only the occasional heckling.

Of the five candidates standing, all were present with the exception of Lib Dem Ruby Kirkwood who Father Matthew said was 'not able to come'.

However, the Herald later learned Ms Kirkwood had not received her invitation due to an administrative error.

We have included her contribution here retrospectively.

On the Middle East: Katy Clark (Labour): We need a military response but not by the West. The Middle East should take the lead. Western military foreign policy is a failure. The hypocrisy of the issue of Palestine is part of the reason for the problems we have with ISIS.

Patricia Gibson (SNP): Any military action must go through the UN. We should be worried about mission creep. There must be no third Iraqi war. The issue of ISIS is not territorial.

Jamie Greene (Conservative): It saddens me that ISIS acts in the name of God. I'm proud of the £40m in aid and the military support we are providing in the region.

Sharon McGonigal (UKIP): Ex-service personnel need our support.

Ruby Kirkwood (Liberal Democrat): We must support the Iraqi, Syrian and Kurdish people, offer diplomatic assistance, which is the ideal solution, help train their armed forces and provide humanitarian aid to those people displaced. What we do not want is to be sending our troops in to a conflict that is not ours to fight.

On the EU: KC: There are problems but we should stay in.

PG: We get a lot of benefits from the family of nations. But I fear we will be dragged into a referendum that will see Scotland pulled out against our will.

JG: We should stay if we are in in the right way. The British people should decide in a referendum - guaranteed under a Conservative government.

SM: It's £55 million a day for not very much. I obviously want out of this expensive club. We can do better things with the money. Building relations with Commonwealth countries would give a really effective trading block. The EU is a plague of locusts.

RK: We support EU membership as we fight for a stronger economy and support British jobs. We must reform the EU, but this has to be done from within.

On 'democratic austerity': SM: Politicians shouldn't dictate to the electorate. We should ask the people. We cannot have full equality but a redistribution of wealth would be good.

JG: The top one cent of tax payers pay 25 per cent of tax. I don't agree with politics of envy. As a rich nation we should do more for developing countries.

KC: We fought for the right to vote. Many decisions that affect us are not taken under democratic accountability. Ordinary people should engage in political debate.

PG: Scotland has avoided being disengaged in politics as a result of referendum. For that reason if nothing else it was a good thing. Modernise our political institutions – get rid of the House of Lords.

RK: We should not penalise those who work hard to earn a decent wage as we want to encourage people to engage with society and punishing them for working hard and earning well will disenfranchise them away from politics.

Glasgow has £0.5 billion for regeneration. What would you give the Three Towns?

SM: We have a policy for seaside town regeneration. We will develop brown field sites and build social housing. We will kick starts the high steet, by buying up and renovating unused housing stock. We will compulsory purchase poor quality multi-occupancy houses and turn empty retail space into homes.

JG: We should attract new business to the area. We have ideas on how to encourage business to set up and stay open. There is a sense of moral compass missing across Scotland – street crime, graffiti. At the heart of the community is the people.

KC: A key policy we have control of is the dignity of everybody having well-paid employment. We have had job loss after job loss over the years. We need to make sure the Tories are kept out of government. We need an industrial strategy. I welcome what Irvine Bay has done but a lot of it has been vanity projects. We will give a job guarantee to young people out of work for more than a year. We will put together packages of policies to regenerate areas like this. Way beyond the Smith Commission. Devolved social security.

PG: Problems in Ardrossan didn't start when the Tories took power. They existed in the 13 years of Labour government. Under Labour £81million was spent on PFI schools. We are now paying back £400million. The Dalry bypass now included in Scottish Government investment plans. It will create new jobs in North Ayrshire.

RK: We must work with private enterprise to help them regenerate the area and encourage private and public landowners of unused brownfield sites to use these sites constructively for the benefit of the 3 Towns and the region in general.

On replacing the jobs lost when Hunterston power station closes: SM: Our energy policy is to keep existing power stations opened and develop clean coal and fracking. We would reopen unused mines.

JG: I am absolutely for keeping Hunterston open. I don't have ideological any objection to nuclear. It's clean and safe. Don't listen to the scaremongering. All energy is dangerous.

KC: Hunterston is going to close. It may get an extension but it's going to close. We need to have a discussion about what happens to jobs. We need to move on by developing new jobs and new skills and take advantage of what is offered via the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

PG: The SNP doesn't have the power to close down Hunterston or stop the building of new power stations.We are against building new nuclear stations. If it's clean, what about the waste? The NDA says it will take 125 years to decommission Hunterston. The total jobs required for that will be the same. Jobs in renewables are on the way.

RK: We accept we must keep nuclear power as part of a holistic approach to supplying a variety of sources of energy, so we will be looking to redevelop Hunterston to keep it as a vital source of power for Scotland and the UK.

On further devolved powers: KC: We are trying to devolve powers over rail. We are arguing for more devolved powers.

JG: We are the party of giving back power to communities. MPs should vote on how local people have asked you to.

PG: Gordon Brown promised if we voted no we would get as close to federalism as possible. That sounds to me like Full Fiscal Autonomy.

SM: We will have consultative referendums on any issues. We have the technology – computers, phones. UKIP will be damned good constituency MPs. We are ordinary people.

RK: We have been arguing for many years for further devolved powers and support further devolution. We have gone over and above the "Vow" and we insist other parties accept and follow the views of the people from last September's referendum.

On Full Fiscal Autonomy: PG: I wouldn't squander £100 billion on Trident or illegal wars or aircraft carriers. I wouldn't have started from here. FFA would give us power over taxation for investing in infrastructure. If you're saying Scotland can't pay its way that's not an argument for Union.

KC: I will vote against any measure that gives Scotland less money. Debate should not be a continuation of the referendum it should be about we do on May 7.

RK: The Institute of Fiscal Studies and the Scottish government's own GERS figures have shown that this is simply not feasible and certain people are living in cloud cuckoo land if they think this can happen. We already have a system that works very well for Scotland.

On Foodbanks: JG: I've visited Foodbanks because you need to talk to people there to know what they are about. It's dangerous to say eradicate Foodbanks. Foodbanks have a place in society. The third sector should be valued. Foodbanks have been around a long time. They have become a victim of their own success.

SM: The treatment of people on benefits is appalling. UKIP will put advisers in Foodbanks to help deal with problems like debt. We will abolish ATOS style assessments. I faced homelessness after domestic abuse and North Ayrshire 's homelessness department is wonderful.

KC: Foodbanks are there because of low wages. We will force larger companies to pay Living Wage and give tax breaks for smaller companies to allow them to pay the Living Wage. People who are sanctioned have appalling stories. Staff at DWP are under pressure to reduce spending. Labour has a five point plan to reduce need for Foodbanks.

PG: Child poverty has increased as a result of Westminster cuts. SNP will push for an £8 minimum wage by 2020.

RK: Many people who work use foodbanks and we have taken 242,000 workers in Scotland out of paying tax and reduced the tax burden for many more of the lowest paid. We have promised to take all those working up to 30 hours a week on the minimum wage out of taxation and promise to support a fair and honest benefits system to provide for those who need (as opposed to want) benefits to help eradicate the need for food banks.