MP for Loughborough

Jeevun Sandher, aged 33, became Loughborough’s MP on July 4th having stood as a Labour Party candidate. He won the seat with a 4,960 majority. As a new Member of Parliament, his life is extremely busy but he found time to give Barrow Voice an interview when working here in the constituency.

Jeevun is of Indian Punjabi heritage and a Sikh. Although a Sikh he doesn’t wear a turban, as he says most of his generation have abandoned the practice. His parents came to England as children; his mother was nine and his father fourteen. The children grew up in independent households, met and married in England. As children, Jeevun’s parents had no choice in the matter of moving to Britain, however their own parents, Jeevun’s grandparents, thought there would be greater opportunities in Britain (Luton) than in Jalandhar in the Punjab. Jeevun’s grandfathers, maternal and paternal, had the right to settle in Britain as they had both served in the British Colonial Indian Army during the war.

Jeevun is the youngest of five and the path the family thought he would follow would be into the world of business. That was the world they knew and had prospered in. His family were not deeply political, although the news was discussed around the dinner table and his mother’s side was more interested than his father’s, yet it was business matters that were most frequently the topic of conversation. But Jeevun had other ideas! He had been attracted to politics from about the age of 14 and had begun to realise that although he could have become a businessman, and even perhaps become very rich, he felt that it wouldn’t be as deeply rewarding as being able to bring about major changes that would help many people. This you can only do through politics.

When reading through Jeevun’s impressive CV – a BA (Economics and Philosophy) and an MSc from Nottingham University as well as a doctorate in Political Economy from King’s College London – the years that jump out are those spent in Somaliland. What was Jeevun doing in Somaliland for two years before embarking on his PhD? Well, it seems he was working in the Ministry of Finance on their National Development Plan. This covered the economy, health, education, water, the whole caboodle. There had been a terrible drought in 2015 and Jeevun was influential in getting the Somaliland government to set up a sensible budgeting system, he crunched the numbers, which set aside resources to cope with any future times of desperate need. When the drought struck, the coffers had been bare and thousands had suffered from desperate poverty. Jeevun worked to try to stop this from happening again.

But from Somaliland in the past to England now – what’s it been like over the first few weeks of being a new MP? Incredibly busy, is the answer, as there’s so much to get to grips with and when you start you are without staff. But now Jeevun has employed two people and two more will join them soon to help with the workload and deluge of emails – over 100 every day. As I write (August 1st) Jeevun is still in the phase of setting up the office, discovering where the printers are and preparing to get into longer pieces of work. I asked Jeevun if he’d had any surprises as a new MP. He said he’d felt surprised and disappointed by the lack of help he’d received in the transitioning period. MPs always have case-work files relating to constituents in dire need of immediate help. Normally, such files are handed over immediately by the former MP but Jeevun said this didn’t happen. Despite many requests he was simply told to “Call the office” and this did cause delays with the case work.

And Barrow – what does Jeevun see as priorities for our village? The answers are two: flooding and buses. He talked about being able to feed information into the newly set up Flood Resilience Task Force which is a new Cabinet-based COBRA style body to coordinate central government, local government, local communities and the emergency services in relation to flooding.

As for buses the Labour government will allow local authorities to franchise bus services. This means decisions about routes, frequencies, hours and days of operation and fares are no longer at the whim of operators but are taken by a Transport Authority which is answerable to the public. This differs from the present model which is based on the private sector. Jeevun has already spoken to Leicestershire County Council on the matter and their initial discussion was positive.

Finally, I asked Jeevun where he thought he’d finally end-up. His answer was, “The Treasury would be a good fit.” But will he get there? Many in Barrow will be watching his progress…...

Gaynor Barton