Margaret Ferrier

Ferrier was born on born 10 September 1960[2] and brought up in the King's Park district of Glasgow, attending Holyrood Secondary School.[3] After living with her family in Mallorca for two years, she moved to Rutherglen from 1972 to 1990 and then resided in Darnley. 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 Party member).[3]

Before her election to Parliament, she was a commercial sales supervisor for a manufacturing construction company in Motherwell.[4]

Prior to her successful election to Westminster, she had previously been a defeated candidate for the Rutherglen South ward of South Lanarkshire Council 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 of Scottish Labour.[5]

She became the Member of Parliament (MP) for Rutherglen and Hamilton West after winning the seat at the 2015 United Kingdom general election;[6][7] 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;[3] Winnie Ewing had previously served a short spell as representative of the original Hamilton constituency for the same party.[8]

Ferrier narrowly lost the seat in the June 2017 election to Ged Killen by 265 votes.[9][10] In May 2019, Ferrier stood as a candidate in the European Union elections.[11]

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%.[12]

On 1 October 2020, Ferrier made a public statement apologising for serious breaches of COVID-19 regulations. On 26 September, she first noted symptoms of COVID-19 and took a test. On the same day as taking the test, she visited a gym, beauty salon and a gift shop.[13][14] 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.[15] The same evening, she received a positive test result, but returned to Scotland the next morning, again by train, having told her party whip that a family member was unwell.[15] Following her public statement, Ferrier was suspended from the SNP, and referred herself to the police and the Parliamentary standards authorities.[16] On 2 October, SNP leader and Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon said that she had told Ferrier that she should step down as an MP.[17] Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House of Commons, described her actions as "reckless".[18] The Scotsman's Gary Flockhart criticised Ferrier for hypocrisy in calling for government advisor Dominic Cummings to resign after he travelled to County Durham during the national lockdown before being found to have broken the rules herself.[19]

On 7 October 2020, Ferrier's Rutherglen constituency association announced that they had asked Ferrier to resign her seat over the scandal.[20] On 11 October, Ferrier indicated she would not resign due to the incident.[21] On 15 October, the Metropolitan Police confirmed they would be taking no further action into the matter.[22]

On 12 November 2020, Ferrier made her first appearance in the Commons since breaching COVID-19 regulations.[23] In view of the circumstances, Richard Leonard, the Leader of the Scottish Labour Party, described Ferrier's Commons appearance as "a gross insult to her constituents."[24]

On 4 January 2021, Ferrier was arrested and charged by Police Scotland[25] with "culpable and reckless conduct."[26]

On 3 February 2021 she appeared at Glasgow Sheriff Court. No plea or declaration was made and she was given bail.[27]