A FIRST call for action was made to Damian Hinds within minutes of him being re-elected as the MP for East Hampshire.

And it came from fellow election candidate, Liberal Democrat David Buxton.

In the moments after counting finished in the early hours of Friday morning, Mr Buxton revealed he had to spend “£5,000 out of my own pocket” for sign language interpreters during his election campaign.

He said: “I would like to ask Damian Hinds to do something – please do promise me.

“I’ve ended up having to pay £5,000 out of my own pocket for sign language interpreters, which has been very disappointing as the Conservatives abolished the The Access to Elected Office Fund, which helps disabled people with the costs of standing for election, in 2015.

“So after multiple years of campaigning within the coalition – lots of campaigning for that – unfortunately that was abolished. So for equality, I’d like to ask for more equality going forwards.

“So please do something regarding that, because I don’t think it’s fair for myself to be paying £5,000 – my wife didn’t know that, apologies, now you do – but I have had to pay that.

“So I don’t know if I’ll be giving you a Christmas present this year, sorry! But I love you, so there you go.”

It came after Mr Buxton was announced as the runner-up to Mr Hinds, receiving 13,750 votes and increasing the Lib Dem vote share by nine percentage points.

He also thanked the returning officer and staff “for all your hard work”, before congratulating Mr Hinds on his fourth term as MP for East Hampshire.

Mr Buxton continued: “It’s a positive message because we’ve increased our votes dramatically. That is a positive for us and we believe as a way forward we can build up our strength within East Hampshire.

“We’re very much looking forward to focusing on the major challenges ahead.

“Anyway, thank you very much, thank you to everybody, thank you to all the candidates for a wonderful debate and I’d like to say congratulations to Damian.”

Mr Hinds also thanked his fellow candidates, before extending his thanks to their teams.

He said: “David fought an amazing and very, very productive, effective campaign.

“It was a very positive and constructive election campaign here in East Hampshire.

“We had robust but mutually respectful debates at all times.”

*There’s lots more from Thursday night’s general election, including interviews with the candidates and analysis, inside this week’s paper.