“Disappointing, concerning and confusing for disabled people” is how the CEO of Young Lives vs Cancer described the Universal Credit Bill, which sent Westminster into chaos when several Labour MPs refused to vote for it in July. Chris Kane, Labour MP for Stirling and Strathallan, was not one of those MPs.
Chris Kane started his career as an unaffiliated political journalist. “I never really got into party politics. I stayed away from it because I always thought that, as a journalist, it wasn’t the thing to do.”
That changed when he was elected to Stirling Council in 2017, joining as the candidate for Labour. Despite this, he doesn’t want party lines to limit his outreach.
“I think that the mainstream parties, Labour included, have to find a way to listen to the concerns of our electorate. I’m the MP for Stirling and Strathallan. I’m not the Labour MP for Stirling, I was the Labour candidate, but I’m now the MP for everybody”.
This includes the 517 voters who voted for Reform UK in Stirling’s recent council by-election. Despite beating both the Scottish Liberal Democrats and the Scottish Greens, Kane is adamant that the party are “a bad answer to a good question”.
“People are frustrated that life is not as good as it needs to be.
“I think we all know that. Everything’s just a little bit more expensive, people are going about their day-to-day life, and things are just a little bit worse than they need to be. Labour in Westminster is working hard to fix that.
“I’m not seeing the same outcomes in Holyrood with the SNP government.
“They [Reform UK] have an interesting proposition that is definitely resonating with the electorate, but as soon as you put them in the position where they’re asked to deliver, it’s all falling apart. Now I think that the people of Scotland are pretty wise to people who are selling them a lot of nonsense”.
Despite working for all residents of Stirling and Strathallan, party loyalty is a factor in some decision-making. Most notably, Kane’s decision to vote for the Government’s controversial Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill.
“I’m trying not to be too careful with my answer here, I’m trying to be honest with you.”
He continues: “I am not a rebellious person. I will go with my principles, but I recognise that I was elected as a Labour MP, so I have to help the government deliver on its values or on its manifesto.
“I think that we’re in an interesting position with welfare, which is that we have too many people who could work and want to work who are unable to work, because the system is making it very difficult or indeed impossible to do so.
“So, when we talk about welfare reforms, we have to reform the system and make sure that people who can work, do work. I think for those who can’t work, the system also needs reform to make sure that these people are given the financial support that they need.
“But the welfare system, the welfare bill, what we have, is growing. The number of people who are on welfare who are not working is also growing. Now that’s not healthy. That’s not a sign of a society that is in a healthy position when it comes to its workforce.”
As a former community councillor and later the head of Stirling Council, Kane was a believer in being more pragmatic about the bill rather than simply saying no. “I’m a very policy-led person more than a politically-led person. I like sitting there and saying, ‘Well, if the policy’s not working, what do we do about the policy?’
“So, when I looked at the policy, there were elements to it that I didn’t like, there were elements that made me very, very uncomfortable, but there were also imperatives I knew we had to deal with, and one of which was a welfare bill that was going to become unaffordable.
“So, you either make a welfare system that is sustainable, and works to Labour values, or you have a system that’s unsustainable and works to Labour values, and then collapses at some point in the future because there’s not enough money in it.”
When pressed further about whether or not fixing these imperatives is worth voting for a bill that made him somewhat uncomfortable, the answer was complicated: “’Worth’ is the word in your question that gets us all into trouble.”
“To deliver a sustainable welfare system, that is deliverable and sustainable with the resources we’ve got, was requiring tough decisions. That was the bill, and I think probably, without rebelling, I could tell you what I think about the process; I think probably what the government did that I’m really, really glad they walked back on now, is that rather than saying “Let’s cut the money out and then put it into employability to get more people into work” in that order, I would much rather if they’d said “Let’s front load it and put money into people getting into work”, and then the welfare bill will naturally fall away. So I think that the order that they did it was not the best way to do it, and I think they’ve recognised that.”
Despite the major rebellion that Labour faced in regards to this bill, and the shockwaves that occurred when his neighbouring Labour MP, Brian Leishman, lost the whip for voting against the bill as he believed: “It is not my duty as an MP to make people poorer”. Kane stands by his decision.
“I think that the easiest thing in the world would be to stand up and say, ‘This is a really difficult decision, therefore I’m not going to engage with it, I’m just going to tell you that I can’t vote for it.’ It was a really difficult problem, and I engaged with it, and I did what was best.”
Featured Image Credit: Chris Kane MP
4th year Politics and Journalism student.
Secretary for Brig
The Herald Student Press Awards Columnist Of The Year 2024 (which sorry i’m still not over)
