Cumnock Chronicle Media Request - 21/4/22
/My comments in relation to a media request from the Cumnock Chronicle regarding MPs' contribution to the chamber:
From the offset, I’d like to point out that the reason my voting participation is below the Westminster average is that, as with all SNP MPs, we do not vote on matters which do not concern Scotland. Given so much is devolved to the Scottish Parliament, we do not vote on issues that only get implemented in England and Wales. Indeed, until recently we were prohibited from voting in such matters under the “English Votes for English Law” changes to voting standing orders. Now we can do so again, we would only do so in exceptional circumstances such as saving the English NHS from privatisation. However, in short, we tend to only vote on reserved matters that affect Scotland, given Holyrood has the power to make decisions on education, health and justice.
Prior to the 2019 General Election, I had the highest speaking stats out of all Scottish MPs and this is an accolade I hold with great pride. I know a lot of people have a preconceived idea of MPs but I certainly give 100% for my constituents and a lot of my spoken contributions are constituent cases.
This is certainly personified in Business Questions on a Thursday. This is where I tend to bring up the bulk of constituent cases and this has even been recognised in the opposition benches, as the previous Leader of the House (Jacob Rees-Mogg) would often pay tribute to the fact I am raising issues on behalf of my constituents in his answer. I also use written questions to obtain information for constituents and challenge the Government both in my spokespersons' roles and in general. I never submit a question just to increase my statistics which I know to be well above average anyway.
Some aspects of asking questions, such as oral questions depend on your luck in the ballots, although you can bob to be taken as a supplementary question, hoping the Speaker will call you. During the hybrid working, bobbing was not allowed and the ballots were also much harder to win because some MPs entered more often because they could ask the question from the comfort of their own homes!
I do not like to make promises in my job, but I can assure you I will continue to work as hard as I can and carry out the job I was elected to do: represent all constituents in Kilmarnock and Loudoun.
