A Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate has said she believes “feminising hormones in the water supply” are affecting people’s sexuality.

Susan King was responding to a question about party leader Tim Farron’s past refusals to say whether or not gay sex is a sin.

“I do feel environmental influences are affecting reproduction," she answered during a live webchat with the Shropshire Star. “All the pollution is having an effect on our DNA and our population is changing and evolving.”

Ms King who is standing for the Telford seat, added: “There are a lot of feminising hormones getting into the environment and that has to be taken into consideration. It’s affecting people’s sexuality basically. People are at liberty to interpret how they want to live themselves.”

“Everything that’s getting into the environment is disrupting the way industrialisation has changed our living conditions, residues of all sorts of feminising hormones in the water supply from pharmaceuticals, etc, which is affecting gender of fish stock, etc.”

The landscape specialist who used to work as a director of the National Pure Water Association was then asked if she believed the hormones were affecting people’s sexuality.

“I do,” she replied. “I’ve done a lot of research connected with water quality, and that is where I gained my political and media experience.”

The National Pure Water Association is a non-profit organisation which campaigns for non-fluoridated water, despite broad scientific agreement that fluoride has reduced tooth decay in the general population.