Michael Shanks MP has reflected on his first year representing the people of Rutherglen at Westminster.
The Labour politician took the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat in an overwhelming by-election victory just over 12 months ago on October 5 last year.
The by-election arose following a parliament recall petition which led to then MP Margaret Ferrier being forced out.
The former SNP member had been suspended by the SNP after breaching Covid lockdown rules by travelling on a train despite testing positive for the virus.
Shanks received 17,845 votes, securing a majority of 9446 over next nearest candidate the SNP’s Katy Loudon.
He had previously stood unsuccessfully in Glasgow seats at city council, Scottish Parliament and UK General elections.
After having to go to the polls for a second time in the snap General Election just nine months later, he retained the seat in the new Rutherglen constituency, taking over half of the votes.
He said: “I knew the constituency fairly well, I’d taught and volunteered in Rutherglen and had moved here [to live].
“When you’re elected you have to establish yourself in the House of Commons and learn how all of that works. I taught modern studies and had some awareness but it doesn’t bare much resemblance to the theory. It’s sink or swim.
“A key bit of advice was to try and not speak on every single possible topic, and to pick things that are either really important to constituents or that you care passionately about.
“The hardest bit is setting up the whole constituency operation and we’ve dealt with thousands of cases in the year I’ve been in.
“Less and less people go to their MP as their first port of call, but those who do are in really difficult situations, and desperate for help. Some of the cases are quite heartbreaking and complex, but it’s also where you can have some of the greatest influence and support people.
“That’s been the best bit of the job in many ways – meeting so many people and trying to help them.
“It’s also the most frustrating bit sometimes when you can’t quite get the answer that you want.”
The 36-year-old MP has been a Labour Party member since he was a teenager and worked in youth justice, before becoming a school teacher.
His year in office has not passed without criticism from some quarters. He is a member of both Labour Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East, but abstained on a Gaza ceasefire vote, where the death toll continues to rise.
“I was elected on October 6,2023, so it’s been the issue of my whole time in parliament,” he said. “It’s been a year of harrowing scenes in Palestine and now the wider Middle East.
“The reason I didn’t vote was firstly, because there was no credible plan on how you deliver it. And the second thing I think was important, was that there needed to be a long-term plan for a two-state solution.”
He added: “This issue is far more complicated than the UK calling for something and it just being delivered.
“A ceasefire has to be sustainable otherwise we just slide right back into this conflict a month later, and that’s of no benefit to anyone in Gaza, Lebanon or Israel.”
The Rutherglen MP also has the role of Under-Secretary of State for Energy. He’s backing Labour’s decision to introduce means testing for the Winter Fuel Payment (WFP).
Recently he announced details of a drop-in event in Rutherglen to encourage more elderly people to apply for Pension Credit, which would automatically qualify them for the fuel payment.
He revealed: “We’ve already helped a lot of constituents with their applications who just thought they weren’t eligible.
“I think there’s a lot of people who’ve never applied for benefits their whole lives so just don’t think about applying for anything in the welfare system.”
And according to the MP the government is currently working with Ofgem to see if standing charges for energy, which are significantly higher in Scotland than elsewhere in the UK, can be reduced.
He said: “The standing charges make up far too much of the bill and we’re working hard to see how we can do that. We knew the [energy] price cap would be going up and there was nothing we could have done in the first three months of government to turn that around.
“We need to bring bills down but we need to reduce demand for heating. We have some of the most poorly insulated housing in Europe so people are spending a lot of their income on heating.”
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