Margaret Ferrier (born 10 September 1960) is a Scottish politician serving as
Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP) for
Rutherglen and Hamilton West
Rutherglen and Hamilton West is a burgh constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which was created for the 2005 general election. It covers almost all of the former constituency of Glasgow Rutherglen and ...
since 2019, and previously from 2015 to 2017. As the candidate for the
Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...
(SNP), Ferrier was first elected to the
House of Commons
The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...
in the
2015 general election. She lost her seat to
Ged Killen
Gerard Killen (born 1 May 1986), known as Ged Killen, is a Scottish Labour and Co-operative politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Rutherglen and Hamilton West from 2017 to 2019.
Early life
Killen was born in Glasgow, living in ...
of the
Labour Party at the
2017 general election but regained it
two years later.
On 1 October 2020, Ferrier was suspended by the SNP for breaching
COVID-19 lockdown
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of non-pharmaceutical interventions colloquially known as lockdowns (encompassing stay-at-home orders, curfews, quarantines, and similar societal restrictions) have been implemented in numerous countrie ...
rules; the party leader and Scottish First Minister,
Nicola Sturgeon called on her to resign her parliamentary seat. She was arrested on 4 January 2021 and charged with "culpable and reckless conduct",
for which she pleaded guilty and was later sentenced to community service.
Life and career
Early life and career
Ferrier was born on 10 September 1960 and brought up in the
King's Park district of
Glasgow
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
, attending
Holyrood Secondary School
("By this conquer!")
, established = 1936
, closed =
, type = Comprehensive
, religious_affiliation = Roman Catholic
, president =
, head_name =
, head ...
.
After living with her family in
Mallorca
Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest island in the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain and located in the Mediterranean.
The capital of the island, Palma, is also the capital of the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. The Bal ...
for two years, she moved to
Rutherglen
Rutherglen (, sco, Ruglen, gd, An Ruadh-Ghleann) is a town in South Lanarkshire, Scotland, immediately south-east of the city of Glasgow, from its centre and directly south of the River Clyde. Having existed as a Lanarkshire burgh in its own ...
from 1972 to 1990 and then resided in
Darnley
Darnley is an area in south-west Glasgow, Scotland, on the A727 just west of Arden (the areas are separated by the M77 motorway although a footbridge connects them). Other nearby neighbourhoods are Priesthill to the north, Southpark Village t ...
. She has lived in the
Halfway district of
Cambuslang since 2000, where she joined the Rutherglen branch of the SNP in 2011 (in her youth she had been a
Scottish Labour member).
[
Before her election to Parliament, she was a commercial sales supervisor for a manufacturing construction company in Motherwell.]
Political career
Prior to her successful election to Westminster, she had previously been a defeated candidate for the Rutherglen South ward of South Lanarkshire Council
South Lanarkshire Council ( gd, Comhairle Siorrachd Lannraig a Deas) is the unitary authority serving the South Lanarkshire council area in Scotland. The council has its headquarters in Hamilton, has 16,000 employees, and a budget of almost £1b ...
in a 2013 by-election (following the death of Cllr Anne Higgins). The councillor voted in ahead of her on that occasion was Ged Killen
Gerard Killen (born 1 May 1986), known as Ged Killen, is a Scottish Labour and Co-operative politician who served as Member of Parliament (MP) for Rutherglen and Hamilton West from 2017 to 2019.
Early life
Killen was born in Glasgow, living in ...
of Scottish Labour.
She became the Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...
(MP) for Rutherglen and Hamilton West
Rutherglen and Hamilton West is a burgh constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which was created for the 2005 general election. It covers almost all of the former constituency of Glasgow Rutherglen and ...
after winning the seat at the 2015 United Kingdom general election
The 2015 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 7 May 2015 to elect 650 members to the House of Commons. It was the first and only general election held at the end of a Parliament under the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011. Loca ...
; she achieved 30,279 votes, 52% of the total cast and a 31% swing from the previous incumbent and their party. She was the first female MP, and the first for the SNP, to be elected in the Rutherglen/Cambuslang portion of the constituency or its predecessor;[ ]Winnie Ewing
Winifred Margaret Ewing (' Woodburn; born 10 July 1929) is a Scottish politician, lawyer and figure within the independence movement who served as President of the Scottish National Party from 1987 to 2005. Ewing was a Member of the Scottish ...
had previously served a short spell as representative of the original Hamilton constituency for the same party.
Ferrier narrowly lost the seat in the June 2017 election to Ged Killen by 265 votes. In May 2019, Ferrier stood as a candidate in the European Union elections.
She was again selected as the SNP candidate for the seat in the 2019 Election, where she defeated Killen on a 5% swing and gained a majority of 5,240 votes or 9.7%.
Breaches of COVID-19 regulations
On 1 October 2020, Ferrier made a public statement apologising for serious breaches of COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
regulations. Five days earlier, she first noted symptoms of COVID-19 and took a test, then visited a gym, beauty salon and a gift shop. While waiting for the results, having COVID-19 symptoms, Ferrier took a train from Scotland to London, on 28 September, and spoke in a parliamentary debate that evening. The same evening, she received a positive test result, but returned to Scotland the next morning, again by train, having told her party whip
A whip is an official of a political party whose task is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. This means ensuring that members of the party vote according to the party platform, rather than according to their own individual ideology ...
that a family member was unwell. Following her public statement, Ferrier was suspended from the SNP, and referred herself to the police and the Parliamentary standards authorities.
SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said on 2 October that Ferrier had been guilty of the "worst breach imaginable". Sturgeon said she had told Ferrier that she should step down as an MP. Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons Speaker of the House of Commons is a political leadership position found in countries that have a House of Commons, where the membership of the body elects a speaker to lead its proceedings.
Systems that have such a position include:
* Speaker of ...
, described her actions as "reckless". ''The Scotsman
''The Scotsman'' is a Scottish compact newspaper and daily news website headquartered in Edinburgh. First established as a radical political paper in 1817, it began daily publication in 1855 and remained a broadsheet until August 2004. Its par ...
''s Gary Flockhart criticised Ferrier for hypocrisy in calling for government advisor Dominic Cummings
Dominic Mckenzie Cummings (born 25 November 1971) is a British political strategist who served as Chief Adviser to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson from 24 July 2019 until Cummings resigned on 13 November 2020.
From 2007 to 2014, he was a ...
to resign after he travelled to County Durham during the national lockdown before being found to have broken the rules herself. Ferrier said that the coronavirus made her act "out of character", an explanation that was dismissed by Sturgeon.
In October 2020, Ferrier's Rutherglen constituency association announced that they had asked her to resign her seat over the scandal, which she refused. In the same month, the Metropolitan Police
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), formerly and still commonly known as the Metropolitan Police (and informally as the Met Police, the Met, Scotland Yard, or the Yard), is the territorial police force responsible for law enforcement and ...
said they would be taking no further action into the matter.
On 12 November 2020, Ferrier made her first appearance in the Commons since breaching COVID-19 regulations. In view of the circumstances, Richard Leonard
Richard Leonard (born January 1962) is a British politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Labour Party from 2017 to 2021. He has been a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP), as one of the additional members for the Central Scotland ...
, the then Leader of Scottish Labour, described the appearance as "a gross insult to her constituents." He accused her of gross selfishness and started a petition for her resignation from parliament.
On 4 January 2021, Ferrier was arrested and charged by Police Scotland
Police Scotland ( gd, Poileas Alba), officially the Police Service of Scotland (), is the national police force of Scotland. It was formed in 2013, through the merging of eight regional police forces in Scotland, as well as the specialist service ...
with "culpable and reckless conduct." On 3 February 2021 she appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court
Glasgow Sheriff Court is a sheriff court in the Gorbals ( Laurieston) area of Glasgow, within the sheriffdom of Glasgow and Strathkelvin. It is reputedly the busiest court in Europe.
History
The new court was commissioned to replace the Old Sh ...
; no plea or declaration was made and she was given bail. She pled guilty to the charge on 18 August 2022, and on 13 September was sentenced to 270 hours of community service
Community service is unpaid work performed by a person or group of people for the benefit and betterment of their community without any form of compensation. Community service can be distinct from volunteering, since it is not always performed ...
.
Personal life
Ferrier lives in Halfway, South Lanarkshire
Halfway is a largely suburban area in the town of Cambuslang, Scotland, located within the local authority area of South Lanarkshire. It borders the smaller areas of Lightburn, Cairns, Flemington, Drumsagard and Hallside.
Halfway is the large ...
with her daughter.
References
External links
*
Personal website
profile
on SNP website
*
Margaret Ferrier
'MP Costs' at IPSA
''Ipsa'' is a genus of small or medium-sized sea snails, cowries, marine (ocean), marine gastropod mollusks in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries.WoRMS (2010). ''Ipsa'' Jousseaume, 1884. In: Bouchet, P.; Gofas, S.; Rosenberg, G. (2010) World Ma ...
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferrier, Margaret
1960 births
21st-century Scottish women politicians
21st-century Scottish politicians
Female members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for Scottish constituencies
Living people
Scottish National Party MPs
People from Cambuslang
People from Rutherglen
People educated at Holyrood Secondary School
Scottish expatriates in Spain
Politicians from Glasgow
UK MPs 2015–2017
UK MPs 2019–present
COVID-19 pandemic in Scotland
Independent members of the House of Commons of the United Kingdom
Politicians from South Lanarkshire
Politicians affected by a party expulsion process
Scottish politicians convicted of crimes