"If I can do those two things I will feel really proud of that.” If a week is a long time in politics, 50 days could be described as a lifetime, but that is how long it has been since Wirral West MP, Matthew Patrick was elected to Parliament. Speaking to the Liverpool ECHO from a Hoylake coffee shop in his constituency, Matthew spoke about his first few weeks in Westminster, what his priorities are, and how he feels about representing his home area.
He said: “I’m really proud to be representing Wirral West, I love the Wirral, it’s my home and I think it’s an incredibly beautiful place. I'm never going to get sick of saying I’m your Labour Member of Parliament, they are nice words to say, not because they are nice words to say but because of what you can do with them, and the changes you can make. Starting a new job always involves having plenty to learn, and being an MP is no different, Matthew explains.
“I get this real sense that there are so many competing priorities of every hour of every day and it’s a real lesson in prioritisation and making sure you’re focused on what’s important and what you need to deliver. “For the start when you walk into Parliament, you’re handed a laptop, and they log you into an email account, you’ve already got issues that have been brought up by constituents in your inbox, but you haven’t got an office, you don’t have any staff to help you with the hundreds of emails you get a day; it’s intense but I am enjoying it. I think I’m really going to enjoy the bits where I can feel like I’ve started to deliver.
” Matthew who now has an office in Parliament said there has been over 350 applications from people wanting to work alongside him and he is happy to have "made a number of appointments". He is also throwing himself in to casework and trying to help people who have raised issues. He said: “There are very varied issues that come to your desk, there’s the hyper-local such as the potholes outside your house,” he said.
I want to provide a Rolls-Royce service to my constituents, that's really important to me. Even if it’s something that the council have a responsibility to deal with, I want the person contacting me to feel that we’ve taken that seriously, and we’ve helped get that to the right place. “There was a terrible incident of a woman in a council property, who was dealing with awful conditions, and we’ve been speaking to the housing association, and I’m pleased to say that will be sorted imminently.
" Matthew said he has two top priorities for Wirral West which includes the NHS and another that is particularly close to his heart. “I’m still struck by quite harrowing stories on the campaign trail of people waiting up to three years for an operation on the NHS, and the stress of that adding to their life. If I can play my role in bringing down those waiting times, in making it easier to see a GP or a dentist, and that is felt here in Wirral West, I’ll feel really proud.
“There’s an issue really close to my heart as well; I’m doing a lot of work at the moment about economic abuse. This is about people in an abusive relationship, which can take many forms, but often there will be financial controls as part of that. “That is termed as economic abuse.
I think it’s wrong that a survivor of economic abuse coming out of that relationship will have a poor credit score because their abuser controlled the money, didn’t allow them to pay the bills, take loans out in their name, a whole range of problems. I don’t think it’s right that they are left with a bad credit score, and I want to work to restore the credit scores of survivors of economic abuse. If I can do those two things I will feel really proud of that.
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