Mhairi Black: ‘Only 20-year-old in UK helped with housing’

Giving her maiden speech, the newly-elected SNP MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South lambasted George Osborne’s budget, saying “we now have one of the most uncaring, most uncompromising and out-of-touch governments” the UK had ever seen.

She said: “The government quite rightly pays for me, with taxpayers’ money, to be able to live in London. My housing is subsidised by the taxpayer. Now the chancellor in his budget said it is not fair that familes earning over £40,000 in London should have their rents paid by other working people.

“But it is okay if you’re an MP. In this budget, the chancellor also abolished housing benefit for anyone below the age of 21. So we are now in the ridiculous situation whereby because I am an MP, not only am I the youngest, but I am also the only 20-year-old in the whole of the UK the chancellor is prepared to help with housing.”

Referring to the SNP’s victory in 56 of Scotland’s 59 seats at the election, Ms Black also criticised the Labour party, which she said had let down working people.

‘Triumphed on wave of hope’

“I, like so many SNP members, come from a traditional socialist Labour family and I have never been quiet in my assertion that I feel it is the Labour party that left me, not the other way about.

“The SNP did not triumph on a wave of nationalism. In fact nationalism has nothing to do with what happened in Scotland. We triumphed on a wave of hope.”

But despite her criticisms of the Conservatives and Labour, Ms Black also paid tribute to her Labour predecessor, former shadow foreign secretary Douglas Alexander, as is traditonal in maiden speeches.

She said she wanted to thank him for the “good” he had done in the constituency, adding that she commended him for “the dignified way that he handled himself on what must have been a very difficult election night. He did himself proud and he did his party proud and I wish him the best for the future”.