With 50 working days as Congleton’s MP under her belt, Sarah Russell squeezed in a sit-down with the “Chronicle” in between a final round of interviews to recruit her new team.
In the airy Brightwell Suite at Congleton Leisure Centre, Mrs Russell spoke about the “intensity” of her time in Government so far, her plans to be an influence in Parliament and her priorities for the constituency.
She said she was “excited” to be in the final stages of putting together her small team “from scratch”.
She said: “We have some great people coming on board. It’s going to be fun.”
Addressing negative comments on social media about delays in getting back to people via email, she said: “I would like to say, thank you for people’s patience. I had to learn the systems and what the potential roles were from scratch, before we could start recruiting.
“Some people have had notice periods as well, so it has taken a bit of time but I don’t want people to think it’s not for the want of trying on my part. We have also been prioritising very personal and time-sensitive case work where there is a risk of life or limb.
“Absolutely everyone will get a reply, and we are really excited about having the full team in place and being able to develop projects, run constituency events and have surgeries – I can’t wait to do that.”
While building her team behind the scenes, Mrs Russell said she had made a start in being the “visible” MP she promised to be, in the run-up to the election.
She said she had so far met Coun Nick Mannion, the newly-appointed leader of Cheshire East Council, plus members of the National Farmers’ Union and attended a meeting of the Trussell Trust – an anti-poverty and foodbank charity.
With police and crime commissioner Dan Price she discussed rural crime and violence against women and girls – an issue raised by a constituent.
During a tour of Congleton War Memorial Hospital over the summer, she discussed the opening of its new diagnostics centre, as well as its long-term vision for the future with the chief executive of the local NHS trust.
She said: “I’ve met a group of GPs and talked to them about what they may need in the town. I met with the owner of Bench in Congleton yesterday and I’ll be having lunch at Bromley Farm Wellbeing Hub tomorrow.
“I’m trying to meet a combination of community groups, businesspeople and public sector people. I want to maximise my presence and be strategic about covering everyone.”
In her short time as MP, she said she had already attended two Pride events.
She said: “That was really important to me, because we’ve never had an MP who was prepared to attend a Pride event before.
“For some of our local community it was really touching for people to see that I was there. It was really important to people that they felt seen.”
As well as spending time getting around the constituency, Mrs Russell said she had also attended events in Parliament, including a debate around children with special educational needs (Send).
She said: “I’m very interested in Send provision and it will be a focus for me, working with local parents.
“The important thing about being an MP, is your ability to influence upwards into Government and make meaningful change.”
She said she planned to start an engagement plan with local parents, to talk about their experiences, adding: “I want to be that conduit for taking parental experience back to Westminster and making real change there.
“I seem to be at events in Parliament a lot. It is intense; the day starts very early and ends very late, which I’m certainly not complaining about, you are there to work. I worked a lot of hours as a lawyer, too, so that’s not a surprise to me.”
Surgeries, she explained, would be held across the different towns and villages within the constituency to make sure everyone had a chance to attend.
She said: “We will have combination of surgeries, some specific to Send, or to pension credit assistance and some general surgeries.
“The number we hold will depend on demand, but I can also meet people virtually, online if they need a quicker response.”
Security
After a decade in politics, Mrs Russell said she was not “naïve” to the volume of work she would be faced with as an MP.
She said: “I knew it would be intense but quite the intensity of it has probably surprised me slightly, and of the implications for my family.
“The discovery of how much security MPs require, and being abused in the street, was a bit of a surprise.
“I am grateful to say that most people in Congleton constituency are extremely decent and even if they disagree with you, they will do it in a constructive, polite way. That has been the majority of my experience, but there are people who are not so nice about it.”
With three children of primary school age, Mrs Russell said it was “crucial” that their lives were as unaffected by her role as possible.
She said: “You do have to be pretty thick-skinned. There are WhatsApp groups of female Labour MPs and I am a member of the Fabian Women’s Network as well, so I do have supportive colleagues and allies and have had for a long time.”
Set up by Labour MP Seema Malhotra in 2005, the Fabian Women’s Network is a voluntary group that aims to support women in government with a mantra of “sisterhood, solidarity and service”.
Mrs Russell said: “Anyone normal finds (being shouted at in the street) a pretty uncomfortable experience, and I am a normal person. Two months ago, I was doing the school run every day and balancing family life with work.
“In many respects I am still that, which is quite grounding and helpful and enables you to stay focused. But enabling political change and defending vulnerable people has always been very important to me.”
Housing
Responding to concerns on how the Government’s plan to build 1.5m new homes across the country within the next five years would affect the borough, Mrs Russell wanted to reassure the community.
“We’re not proposing to just abolish planning law. I think some publicity around this has been misleading to say the least,” she said.
“It’s not, ‘let’s plough all over the green belt’. Planning laws and the local plan will still apply. Labour’s plan is absolutely brown belt sites first, then we’re looking at grey belt, which are areas where there has already been some development.”
She said she knew that there were “significant numbers” of people within the constituency who could not afford to get onto the property ladder and older people whose children had been living with them for much longer than expected.
“The reality is that this country desperately needs housing-building and it is a key part of our development policy,” she said.
“It needs to be looked at in a balanced way which takes into account local views and wishes – Labour is not proposing to get rid of that.”
Mrs Russell said she did not have a “set view” on the number of houses needed locally, or where they could be built.
As we recently reported, a former worker at the sewage treatment plant between Barn Road and the river Dane, alleged that the sewerage system was “knackered” and could not cope with the level of new housing.
When asked if infrastructure including road networks and local schools could handle an increase in housing, she said: “We need to take a nuanced approach.
“Housing needs are different in different parts of the constituency. Labour has been saying that it will look at infrastructure, and we have always been all about investment in the public sector and services.
“There will need to be infrastructure development. I don’t think anyone is saying otherwise, but equally, for instance, not all of the schools in Congleton are full, so there are some aspects of the system that are not currently creaking.”
Voting record
Out of the 12 votes held during the new Government’s first 50 days, Mrs Russell has so far aligned herself with the Whip every time, including on the high-profile winter fuel allowance cuts and against a proposal to scrap the two-child benefit cap.
As previously reported, seven newly-elected Labour MPs were punished by having the whip removed for six months, when they voted in favour of scrapping the two-child benefit cap in July.
A report in the “Guardian” on Tuesday, said that 12 members, who skipped the vote on removing the winter fuel payment from pensioners without prior permission, had been sent a letter warning that their future behaviour would be monitored and that they would be denied privileges such as help to get places on select committees.
The one Labour MP who voted against the party, Jon Trickett, of Normanton and Hemsworth, does not appear to have had sanctions imposed so far.
It also emerged that whips warned Labour MPs not to discuss the winter fuel vote and its aftermath with journalists.
The “Chronicle” asked Mrs Russell if she would be prepared to vote against the Government, if a Bill or motion did not align with her own principles.
She said: “It would be a sad day for me if the Labour party put forward something that I really could not get behind, but if that was the case, then I would do it.
“For me, voting against your Whip is a failure of influence. If it’s got that bad, you’ve not managed to convey what your views are and why they were right, properly through the system.
“That is why spending time in Westminster creating networks and building relationships, is really important. You’ve got to use your influence up front to avoid that situation.”
She said she had recently co-sponsored an early day motion to look at the thresholds on pension credit.
When asked how she intended to vote in an upcoming proposal to change laws around assisted dying, as campaigned for by broadcaster and fund-raiser Dame Esther Rantzen, she said: “It depends on the exact wording and what safeguards are going to be put in place.
“Within the system at the moment, we have some significant problems with people’s care, and it is very important that this could never become a way to avoid dealing with those problems.
“If I was comfortable that we had got that into a really good place, where people are being properly taken care of, which they haven’t for the last 14 years, then I would and will vote in favour of assisted dying.”
To make an appointment to attend a surgery with Mrs Russell on any issue, constituents can email sarah.russell.mp@parliament.uk.
(Photo: Gareth Lindop).
