Mhairi Black

Early life and views

Born in Paisley in 1994, Black was educated at Lourdes Secondary School, Glasgow, and the University of Glasgow, where she was awarded a first-class honours degree in Politics and Public Policy in June 2015. At the time of her election on 8 May 2015, she had not yet completed her undergraduate degree, with a final exam on Scottish politics still to be undertaken.

Along with other LGBT MPs from the SNP, she expressed her support for same-sex marriage prior to the referendum in Ireland. Asked about her decision to "come out", she replied "I've never been in".

Black "is not religious but reads her Bible", and describes herself as a "traditional socialist" citing Tony Benn as her enduring political hero. Her other political inspirations include Keir Hardie and Margo MacDonald.

She is a supporter and season-ticket holder of Partick Thistle. She plays the piano, as was revealed in a Channel 4 News interview with Jon Snow, on 18 September 2015, during which she played theme music from the film Titanic.

Political career

Black became a member of parliament for Paisley and Renfrewshire South in the 2015 general election while still a final year undergraduate student at the University of Glasgow. Her defeat of Douglas Alexander, a Labour MP and Shadow Foreign Secretary, has been described as unexpected and an example of a collapse of popularity for the Labour Party in Scotland at the 2015 election.

Although she was reported to be the youngest MP since Christopher Monck, Earl of Torrington, who entered the House of Commons at the age of 13 in 1667, Monck was followed by other teenagers until the Parliamentary Elections Act 1695 established 21 as the minimum age of candidacy. Furthermore, until the Reform Act 1832, underage MPs were seldom unseated, with Viscount Jocelyn being 18 when elected in the 1806 general election. Since the Electoral Administration Act 2006 reduced the age of candidacy from 21 to 18 years, Black is the first person to be elected under its provisions.

On 1 July 2015, it was announced that Black had been appointed to the Work and Pensions Select Committee. She made her maiden speech on 14 July 2015 and this included some criticism of the government's approach to unemployment in her constituency and the growing need for food banks. She said, "Food banks are not part of the Welfare State. They are a symbol that the welfare state is failing." Black also criticised the government over cuts to housing benefit. Her speech was praised by SNP Parliamentary Group Leader, Angus Robertson, who described it as outstanding, principled and passionate. Within five days of her giving this speech, it had been viewed over 10 million times on various media. Black was later made aware of the change in the state pension through her constituents, and has since endorsed Women Against State Pension Inequality (WASPI) on several occasions.

Black is a longstanding critic of Westminster. Two months after her election, she commented that the practice of making MPs vote in person, instead of electronically, was "outdated and wasted time". In an 2016 interview with Owen Jones, Black labelled Westminster as an "old boys' club" and "so excluded from reality", while expressing concern about the arrogance and sexism from other MPs.

In 2017, Black considered not standing for a second term in the next general election due to the fact that "so little gets done". Despite this, Black decided to stand at the 2017 general election and was re-elected with a much smaller majority. She told BBC Scotland that she's "glad to be re-elected to go back down and continue to batter into whoever is in government that austerity is not working, it's not benefiting people's lives whatsoever. The people it is benefiting, you could argue, are the ones who need it least."