Code of Conduct and Modernisation Committee

Debate between Gordon McKee and Judith Cummins

Thursday 25th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate you on your election and welcome you to the Chair, although it feels a bit weird to welcome anyone here, given that I have been here for about two minutes. I follow on from the excellent contributions made by my hon. Friends the Members for Poole (Neil Duncan-Jordan), for Cardiff West (Mr Barros-Curtis), and for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) among others. I praise in particular my hon. Friend for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, both because he gave an excellent speech and because his mum is one of my constituents.

As I start this new job, I have been thinking a lot about my family; I was doing so while preparing my remarks today. I was thinking in particular of my grandpa, who was a coalminer in the coalfields of Lanarkshire, just outside Glasgow. When I was a wee boy, he would tell me of the conditions that he worked in: “Darkness,” he said, “so black that you could hold your hand right in front of your eyes and still not be able to see it.” In that darkness, he would toil away, unable to imagine his own future, let alone that of his grandweans, as he would say. All the while he toiled, he was inhaling fumes so toxic that later in life he would have lung cancer, and live the rest of his life with just one lung.

My dad, a welder, is here today—off during the Glasgow fair—along with my mum, who runs her own business, to watch me from the Gallery. My career so far has been very different from that of my parents and grandparents. For a start, they have a proper job, whereas I am now doing this for a living, but it has been different for two related reasons. The first is the Labour party—both in the sense that it has helped to provide me with a new job, and in the protections that it has delivered for working people. Health and safety legislation, delivered by Labour and built by the trade union movement, have ended the kind of conditions that my grandparents worked in. The second reason my career has been different is technology. I suspect that today in Britain there are more bitcoin miners than coalminers, and that is ultimately a good thing. Coalmining was difficult, hard, laborious work.

As a kid I spent many long hours in front of my computer and, while much of that was spent playing FIFA against my wee brother Mark, some of it was more productive, because I taught myself to code. I watched YouTube videos and over weeks, months and years I learned how to build software. I developed iPhone apps that were used around the world, meaning that code written on my laptop in Glasgow could be pushed out to devices around the world in seconds and that this 19-year-old kid in his childhood bedroom could run an app servicing people from Los Angeles to Dubai.

If it can do that, technology can reform our public services too. Technology might even help to reform this House, as we are debating today. I hope and know that high-growth, innovative businesses in my home city of Glasgow will be a key part of that.

Much has been said and written about Glasgow over the years, but one thing sticks with me in particular. Anthony Bourdain was not a man known for his parliamentary language, so let us just say that he described Glasgow as the most unpretentious place on earth—an “antidote” to the world, in his words,

“so unapologetically working class and attitude-free”.

I think he was right because, of all the things I love about Glasgow, it is our people and our humour that I enjoy most. If someone ever gets a wee bit too big for their boots, returning home to Glasgow will soon put an end to that—something I am sure will be increasingly useful the longer I spend in this place.

Unlike many Glaswegians, my admiration even extends to some of Glasgow’s politicians. It is customary in speeches such as this to praise our predecessors, but I know that for some that will be done through slightly gritted teeth at the end of a long and bitter-fought election campaign. In my case, I talk about my predecessor with genuine warmth and admiration. Stewart McDonald served the people of Glasgow South diligently and built an enviable reputation in this place. He was particularly respected for his long-standing support for the people of Ukraine, something that saw him awarded the Ukrainian order of merit. If I leave this place having done half as much as he did for people around the world fighting for democracy, I will leave a happy man.

Before Stewart, there were Labour predecessors. There was Tom Harris, who has been personally kind to me; John Maxton, now Lord Maxton, whose son taught me modern studies in high school, believe it or not—although I will leave it up to others to decide whether he did a good or bad job of that—and of course Teddy Taylor, who is still remembered fondly by many of my constituents.

I would also like to mention two other Members of this House who had a big impact on my life, both from Glasgow. The former Member for East Kilbride, Adam Ingram, grew up in the east end of Glasgow and was one of the first people I ever spoke to in the Labour party. His advice and wise counsel has been a constant source of support to me over the years, and I am incredibly grateful. The other is a southsider, my friend and the former Member for Glasgow Central, Anas Sarwar. I had the great privilege of serving as the director of Anas’s successful leadership campaign to become leader of Scottish Labour. Three and a half years ago, as we sat beginning that campaign, it was hard to imagine what the future might hold, but even in our most optimistic of moments, I do not think we would have predicted this. I stand here as one of 37 Scottish Labour MPs.

Having praised three Glaswegians, I will do something unusual for a Glasgow MP and praise someone from Edinburgh. My right hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray) has been a friend of mine for many years, and he deserves enormous credit for his long and lonely shift as the sole Scottish Labour MP, and for being someone who recognised that the Labour party had to change if it was to earn people’s trust once again. It gives me enormous pleasure and pride to see him in his rightful place as the Secretary of State for Scotland.

That brief interlude aside, we return to Scotland’s real capital city. I am privileged to represent Glasgow’s southside, a place that has had something of a renaissance in recent years, boasting the trendy tenements of Shawlands, the tree-lined avenues of Newlands and the beautiful conservation village of Carmunnock, among others. My constituency contains many of Glasgow’s beautiful parks, of which Linn Park, Queen’s Park and Pollok Country Park are just a few. In the latter, hon. Members will find the Burrell collection, which was awarded the Art Fund’s museum of the year award after its reopening last year.

Like many parts of the city, however, we are not without difficulties. Castlemilk is an area with enormous spirit and the kindest people anyone will ever meet, but it also remains an area with challenges. Even today, the simple act of getting a supermarket in Castlemilk has proven difficult, something I hope I hope to change as local MP.

What is true of all my constituency is that it is an outward-looking, diverse and welcoming place. The Scots-Asian community in particular have contributed enormously to Glasgow’s character, and I am very proud to represent them here in Parliament. Immigration has made my constituency richer, and it makes our country richer, too. The southside of Glasgow is also a passionately pro-European place. Although Brexit was settled in the previous Parliament, I intend to support the Government’s moves to repair our relationship with Europe.

My first duty is to my constituency and my country—being the Member of Parliament for Glasgow South is the only job that I will do, so long as the people of Glasgow South wish for me to continue—but I also feel a sense of responsibility towards the many millions of people at home and around the world who do not have a voice; the people toiling away in darkness, just as my grandpa did all those years ago. I hope that none of us in this House forgets the millions—indeed, billions—of people around the world who are not as lucky as us, including those facing persecution or war, those without access to clean water or a good education, and those bound by modern slavery. I am one of the lucky few to serve in this place, but I will never forget the people who put me here and the people who do not have a voice. Delivering for them will be how I judge my success.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call Lisa Smart to make her maiden speech.