I actually did quite a few things before I was an MP. My first ever job was as a Saturday
assistant at WHSmiths in Ealing Broadway when you used to have to wear a brown pinafore.
I then graduated on to being a Saturday assistant at Ealing Central library. I’ve worked for
Ealing Council, had jobs at the BBC, shortish jobs in other places, but the main thing I
did was university lecturing. Right up until May 2015 I worked at Kingston University and
I even did a bit of it after I was elected. With a swing seat it was not definite that
I would win so I didn’t give in my notice until I knew I’d won, so I was marking exam
scripts as an MP which brings you right back down to earth - marking someone’s messily
handwritten thing that you’re trying to figure out.
I wanted to be an MP because I felt that Parliament needs more ordinary people who aren’t politicians,
so the first time I got a House of Commons pass was as an MP. I think it’s unhealthy
if we have too many people who are just in the Westminster bubble (or whatever you call
it) who have worked for MPs, who then become MPs. As a Labour Party member in Ealing Central
and Acton, when they advertised that they were looking for a candidate to take on the
then Conservative MP I put my name forward to see what would happen.
I won my seat in May 2015 so it was a strange mix of emotions. Obviously it was elation
at the personal triumph of turning what was a blue seat red, but tinged with the sadness
of the overall picture because we knew that the Conservatives were back in again, so it
was strange. If I had a pound for every text message which said ‘a ray of light on a
bleak night’ I’d have a lot of little round ones by now. A lot of people were texting
me the same thing.
I think the one word to describe Parliament
is ‘awesome’. That’s not in the American teenager kind of way ‘awesome!’, it truly
is an awe inspiring building, it’s a palace. It’s an honour and privilege to work in
the Palace of Westminster, to represent people who in my case I grew up with, that I still
live amongst, it’s an amazing privilege and I’m still pinching myself that I’m
here at all. I think the day that it becomes normal I’d have been sucked into the system
so I’m enjoying every minute of it.
The first time I spoke in the Commons Chamber
was for my maiden speech and again it’s slightly awe inspiring at first. But then
once you get into the flow, and I had supportive colleagues around me - I think there’s a clip of Mrs Thatcher on her last PMQs where
she goes: ‘I’m enjoying this!’ - so the more I went on the more enjoyable it became.
In a maiden speech I think there is a kind of formula. You have to praise your predecessor
or predecessors fulsomely, then you describe your constituency. I painted a pen portrait
of Ealing Central and Acton which is quite a diverse seat because Ealing and Acton are
two separate places. They’re quite different in character. I described how,
I think I said something like: ‘Mr Speaker’ - in fact it was Madame Deputy speaker – ‘you’ve probably seen my seat
without knowing, because lots of it has been in TV programmes before’. So the tower blocks
at the beginning of Only Fools and Horses were not Peckham, those were the South Acton
Estate. I also think some of the 70s sitcoms; Terry and June was originally in Ealing.
I’m not even sure what I was expecting. With a toss-up, unpredictable swing seat I
don’t think I ever took anything for granted. I’m not precisely sure what I was expecting.
It’s an amazing role because it’s so many different things. In part it’s being a shameless
exhibitionist and orator in the Commons Chamber but some of it is a lot less glamorous. Maybe
a bit like being a social worker when you have complex cases. People come into your
surgery, it’s not even one characterisable thing they’ve got, it’s not just a housing
issue or an immigration issue, it’s several things all going on at once. It’s not all
the West Wing, certainly. I think because I didn’t have many expectations, I never
assumed that I would be there, I find it difficult to answer that question but it’s immensely
rewarding once you’re here.
One thing that‘s surprised me about Parliament
is the number of people that work here in many different capacities and roles. It’s
not just the 650 MPs who hang out in Parliament. I’ve found a lot of my constituents here,
because I’m a London seat. There’s a Graham in computing who lives in Ealing Common, there’s
a Simon in the post office and when I go in there he says ‘Oh, that’s my MP’, he
lives in Acton. I think there’s someone in the canteen, Lucy, and even Vanda who I
believe will be splicing up this film once we’ve made it, from AV. So I’m always continually
amazed by the range and diversity of employment opportunities there are within the Parliamentary estate.
I think my biggest challenge to some extent
is that I just don’t look like an MP. Going somewhere like the terrace you have to be
accompanied by an MP, people will say ‘which MP are you with?’ so I have to tell them ‘I am an MP’.
And also, to some extent, I’m representing people, including my own teachers.
When I was knocking on doors (the Labour Party sets a lot of store on this knocking on doors
and having conversations) sometimes I’d meet people who remembered me from double
maths in 1985, or whatever, and then reimagining me as their MP. Most people have been very
welcoming, even the people who have said ‘where do you think you’re going?’. I think it’s because it's
teething troubles and they’re just getting used to all the new faces.
In a political sense, asking Prime Minister’s questions. I think the usual frequency, they say,
on any normal balance of probabilities, because there are 650 of us and there are
15 slots at PMQs so when it looks all very spontaneous it’s actually literally pulled
out of a hat. So people say
you should get about two a year but I’ve had five. Even my Ealing neighbour Steve Pound,
the Ealing North MP, recently when I had a group of people in and I said, ‘Steve come
and meet my constituents’, he said, ‘you’re here on a rare day because Rupa Huq has not
been drawn for a question.’ So that has been quite exciting. There’s been so many
highlights actually. It was amazing to be drawn to do a three hour debate on the NHS
in London in my name, so I led that debate. And also it was a highlight to get a ticket
through the All Party Parliamentary Group on Music, which I’m vice chair of, to the
Brit Awards.
I guess if we rewind time back to May 2015, back at that time
there were three Labour MPs that were my colleagues who are no longer with us. Those range from
one who’d been there a long time, Michael Meecher, to two who came in at the same time
with me. There are these photos of the class of 2015, when we got in, two people from that
picture aren’t here anymore and that’s Harry Harpham who I think was the last deep
surface miner and Jo Cox which is a very tragic and unusual case of being murdered on the
street outside her surgery. What I’d have done differently, I guess, is spent more time
with them, but who was to know they wouldn’t be here now.
I’m a London MP so I’m fortunate that it’s not very far away to get back to the
constituency. Usually, Monday mornings I do an assembly in a school. The two schools I went to are both in my seat. I do things in Ealing
until 2.30pm when the House sits, so usually by lunch time I like to be setting off to
be back here for 2.30pm. Then Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday I’m completely in Westminster.
Friday, all day in Ealing, although having said that, Fridays are Private Member’s Bills
so some of my colleagues have Bills on Fridays that usually the Northern MPs or
further-flung people won’t come back for, but it’s very easy for me. The one other
way I think London MPs probably have it tougher than others is that Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
nights I will often have a resident’s association or Ealing Civic society or tomorrow night
I have Ealing Decorative Crafts Association. I do evening engagements also in the constituency
whereas people from more far-flung places, they come on Monday and that’s it, they’re here until
Friday or Thursday.
An MPs job in some senses is seven days a
week and almost twenty-four hours a day. The House of Commons, the first thing they give
you, even before you get a physical office is an iPad which takes you straight into the
House of Commons documentation and your Parliamentary email. That sort of means you’re never out
of the office, but I quite like that because before that system you’d get into work on
a Monday, in my previous jobs, and have a thousand emails, or whatever, you know a big
pile of emails to look at. I quite like the way that you can work as you go and some of
the weekend functions I have, often they’re things like, well yesterday was the Ealing
Jazz Festival, they’re fun things I’d like to be doing anyway. So although sometimes
looking at the electronic diary can be a bit scary, most of it is fun stuff. I’m a family person so those sort of
family events I’d be doing anyway.
I think for anyone wanting to be an MP it’s important to remain grounded and to have a career first. I think it’s
just unhealthy if there’s a very narrow genepool. I do careers evenings. I did them
even before I was an MP for many years at my old school, Notting Hill and Ealing High.
They used to put me on a table called ‘Teaching’ and then last year they put me on one called
‘Politics’ and to the people coming, saying ‘how do I be a politician?’, I say it’s
good to have another career to fall back on or to do on the way there. I think it just
makes you a more rounded person, having other hinterlands. That can be interests or children,
I know people have been attacked for that recently,
but I mean all those things count as well.
Ok, one thing you probably don’t know about
Parliament is that there are three ladies rooms that are dotted around. At least three,
there may be more I haven’t discovered. They’re Lady Members’ rooms so you can
only go in there if you’re a woman MP and they have a little sofa, a TV where you can
get what’s going on in the Chamber, a phone and an intercommunicating door to a loo, one
of them has a shower. There’s another intercommunicating door with a bed in it so if it all gets too
much you can have a lie down. The other day I was in one of those rooms making some phone
calls after I’d been in the Chamber, because my office is quite far from the Chamber, and
I heard this strange noise. It was someone snoring who really was having a kip. I didn’t
find out who they were because I think the bell was ringing and we had a vote.