TAUNTON Deane MP Rebecca Pow this week refused to reveal whether she voted to support Prime Minister Boris Johnson in Monday’s ‘confidence vote’.

Ms Pow refused to say if she voted in support of the Prime Minister. Instead, she gave the Wellington Weekly a statement which read: “Following the vote of confidence in the Prime Minister, I believe it is important that we now pull together, deliver for the country, and turn our focus to the economy, jobs and skills, cost of living, further support for Ukraine, and the new era for sustainable food production and food security with nature recovery. I continue to support the Government in fulfilling these ambitions.”

Ms Pow is a junior Minister in the Department for the Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs, a post from which she would have been expected to resign had she voted against the Prime Minister.

The MP’s refusal to answer questions about the confidence vote angered some local Conservative members, whom Ms Pow will face when she holds a private ‘town hall’ question and answer event in Wellington later this month.

One member, who asked not to be named, told the WWN: “The strength of feeling among the public about the Prime Minister’s behaviour during the lockdown has just been demonstrated in the way they voted in droves against Conservative candidates in the local elections recently. In the circumstances, I think people have a right to know if our MP shares their feelings.

“Either she backed Boris or she did not, and she should own up to the public who elected her.”