Ann McKechin MP

Labour Member of Parliament for Glasgow North

Maiden Speech

28 June 2001

It is a great honour to make my maiden speech as the representative of the electorate of Glasgow Maryhill. Although I was selected as a Labour candidate only in March this year, I received a warm welcome from the community.

I heartily support my Right Honourable Friend the Leader of the House in the motions before us. Tradition has an important part to play in our institutions, but it should not act as a barrier to progress.

I pay tribute to my predecessor, Maria Fyfe, who served the constituency diligently and with great skill over the past 14 years. Since arriving here, I have met many hon. Members who held her in high regard, and that sentiment was expressed to me by many of my constituents during my election campaign. She is an excellent example to follow. She was an independent and strong Back Bencher and I am sure that all hon. Members join me in wishing her well in her future endeavours. I feel privileged to stand here today as her successor and as part of a long line of Labour Members for Maryhill and, uniquely for Glasgow, as its second female Member of Parliament.

My constituency has yet again resoundingly shown its support for the Government with a 60 per cent. share of the vote and a majority almost double that achieved in the 1999 Scottish Parliament elections. Glasgow's citizens know that the Government are working for them on jobs, pensions or public services. When my predecessor was first elected, unemployment in Maryhill was growing at an alarming rate and was matched with chronic under-investment in public services and housing stock. The consequent dire effects on the local community were all too evident.

I am happy to say that the policies of the present Government, based firmly on the principle of social justice, have already had significant effect. In the past four years, long-term unemployment in Maryhill has been reduced by a massive 65 per cent. and the general unemployment figure has been lowered by almost 40 per cent.

However, there is still much to be done to lift our constituency from the poverty trap, and I urge the Government to continue their good work with a resolute commitment to full employment and continued increases in our public spending. Too much talent and life has been squandered in the last quarter of a century. We have a heavy responsibility to our constituents, who have placed their trust in us year after year, to deliver them a country where opportunity for all is not just a meaningless phrase but a reality.

Maryhill has a strong record of community activism. That was particularly evident during my election campaign when the Forth and Clyde canal, part of which runs through the area, was formally reopened as part of the millennium project. Water has always been seen as a symbol of life, and that project encompasses many hopes and aspirations in the constituency for a better life in the coming years. Although Maryhill might not appear to be a tourist attraction, it may surprise hon. Members to know that it includes a bird sanctuary, the site of a Roman fort adjoining the Antonine wall, the Queen's Cross church designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh and the largest number of farms in any Glasgow constituency.

Maryhill is also home to Glasgow's best-loved football team--Partick Thistle, of course--which this year not only celebrated its 125th anniversary but succeeded in winning promotion to the first division. I am sure that this will be only the beginning of more triumphs for the club and I look forward to watching my first ever football match at its ground. Although I have not watched a match before, my active membership of the Labour party in the west of Scotland over the past decade has proved to be an invaluable source of information and advice.

There has rightly been great concern in the House about the low turnout at this and other recent elections. I urge hon. Members from all parts of the House to give serious and mature consideration to that issue in the weeks and months ahead. It is clear that a growing percentage of our electorate feel no link between themselves and their elected representatives. It is beholden on us to commit ourselves to reform and modernisation, where necessary, while retaining the highest standards of conduct. In particular, I welcome the Government's proposed legislation to allow political parties to achieve better gender balance as an important step in that process.

It is vital, however, that all sections of our society, including the media, play their part in establishing the principle that our Government are the servant of their citizens and that, in turn, all citizens have a duty to maintain our elected democracy. That sense of shared responsibility has, for multiple reasons, broken down in recent years. Unfortunately, spin and sleaze are not new phenomena in world history; they have been with us since the days of Machiavelli, if not before. But the right of ordinary citizens freely to elect their Governments is still a relatively recent concept, and one that has involved much struggle and sacrifice. Many people throughout this globe are still facing death and oppression and are fighting for rights that we take for granted at our peril. We must move away from the pre-eminence of individualism in our society, to create a society where the principle of caring for, and working with, our fellow citizens has priority.

It is not just within the confines of our own boundaries that threats to democracy exist. Elected Governments will face enormous challenges in the coming years, as we experience the effects of continued globalisation and changing relationships with international organisations. The economic and political strength of transnational corporations has been well documented, but as yet the imbalance of power that they hold has still to be harnessed and regulated for the proper benefit of all people on the planet. If we are to avoid a return to a modern-day version of feudalism, democracies will need to unite to ensure that the interests of their citizens instead of the level of dividends paid to shareholders are made paramount.

I very much welcome the widespread reforms that were recently put in place by the Department for International Development, and its new priority on the reduction of world poverty. As someone who has long campaigned for the end of the link between trade and aid, I congratulate the Government on their proposed reforms of the aid system. The Government have established themselves as a world leader in the fight against the scourge of world poverty, but much still needs to be done, and I urge them to renew their efforts on debt reduction at the forthcoming Genoa summit, and to argue vigorously for reform of our international organisations to ensure that poverty reduction is truly integral to their decision-making processes.

Reform should be embraced, not feared. Let us tackle our challenges, be they at home or abroad, with renewed vigour and confidence to ensure that we have a democracy that is fit for this century.


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