Long and illustrious career for the MP with strong Donegal roots

When an MP stood up during a debate in the House of Commons on October 11 to talk about mortgage rates and the Bank of England, little did anyone think he would preface his remarks by sending condolences to the families of all those killed in the tragic accident in Creeslough four days earlier.

It became clearer when he added: “My parents came from quite nearby. It is a beautiful place with a close community, and they are very much in our prayers right now.”

This was no ordinary MP -  it was Pat McFadden, a man with close connections to Creeslough and his family roots in Falcarragh. He has enjoyed a busy career and is currently holding the Tory Party to task on its strategies.

Pat was born in Scotland in 1965 and grew up in Glasgow as the youngest of seven children but he never forgot his Donegal connections.

His parents, Jimmy Den McFadden and Annie (Cooper) Gallagher were originally from Dunmore, a townland out the Muckish Road about two miles from Falcarragh. 

Like many young couples at that time they were in search of a better life.

“When my parents got married, like a lot of young couples in those days back in 1951 the conversation was: ‘Where are we going to live? Where are we going to go?’ 

There wasn’t a lot of work in Ireland then and many young couples had to identify where they were going to leave to, would it be England, Scotland or America.

“They thought about going to America because my Dad already had relatives there, two sisters and a brother. He came from a family of nine but they decided that was too far and went to Scotland instead.

“We could have grown up with Brooklyn accents but we grew up with Glasgow accents instead,” he says.

In Scotland, his father worked as a labourer and his mother in a local authority children’s home.

Pat was educated at Holy Cross RC Primary School on Calder Street and Holyrood Secondary School in Crosshill, south-east Glasgow. 

He studied Politics at the University of Edinburgh, gaining an undergraduate Master of Arts (MA Hons) degree in 1988, and was chair of Scottish Labour Students in 1986–87 before becoming a researcher in 1988 for Donald Dewar MP, then Labour's Scottish affairs spokesman. In 1993 he left this role to become a speechwriter and policy adviser to the Labour leader John Smith.

“I was always interested in politics as a boy growing up and I studied politics at Edinburgh University back in the 1980s. I joined the Labour party then and when I graduated I got a job as a parliamentary researcher.”

He gained valuable experience as a researcher and as a speechwriter before becoming an adviser to Tony Blair, both in opposition and later in 10 Downing Street.

“I was working for John Smith but he died in 1994. Tony Blair became the new leader. He asked me to stay on as part of his office. I worked for him in the run-up to that big Labour victory in 1997. I went to 10 Downing Street with him and did several jobs there. I was part of the policy unit, I was deputy chief of staff at No 10 and the political secretary, which was a kind of hinge between the government party and No 10.

"In 2005 he was elected as MP for Wolverhampton South East with a majority of 10,495 after the sitting MP Dennis Turner retired. In his maiden speech he pledged to fight for education and opportunity for all regardless of their background.

“I was secretary for quite a few years when a parliamentary seat came up in Wolverhampton when Dennis Turner retired. 

“The Wolverhampton connection was blurred, I didn’t have any family connections with it but former MP Bruce Grocott, who was Tony Blair’s key guy on the backbenches, encouraged me to go. He was MP for a neighbouring seat so I did without any real connection for the place and I’ve been MP there for the past 17 years.”

Busy Time

It’s been a busy time for Pat since then.

In 2006 he joined the Labour Government as a parliamentary undersecretary at the Cabinet Office.

The following year he was appointed minister of state at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and remained as minister of state in its successor department, the Department of Business Innovation and Skills.

Following the 2010 election he was appointed shadow secretary of state for business innovation and skills and in September 2010 returned to the backbenches.

In 2011 Pat was appointed to the Treasury select committee.

In October 2014, Pat was appointed Labour’s shadow minister for Europe, a position he held until January 2016.

Pat sat on the select committee for exiting the European Union. Its role examined the work of the department and held the Government to account on the arrangements for leaving the European Union.

He was re-elected as the Labour MP for Wolverhampton South East in the general election held on December 12, 2019.

“That last election was a pretty close run thing. It was a very bad result for Labour. It was my fifth election.”

Following the election of Keir Starmer as leader of the Labour party in April 2020, Pat was appointed to the Labour shadow front bench Treasury team in the role of shadow economic secretary.

He believes the current UK Government made a very bad mistake with their mini-budget a short time ago which caused a lot of disruption in the financial markets and believes the new leader of the Conservative Party, Rishi Sunak, who was elected to the position on October 24, following his unopposed victory in the party’s leadership election has got some big challenges on his hands.

Pat is continuing his work in the House of Commons talking about things like the affordability of housing for first-time buyers, economic responsibility and plans for growth and public expenditure. 

He served his local community in a variety of ways too, never far from fighting their causes.