Spending a third of her life at Westminster ‘turns my stomach’ – Mhairi Black

Having spent at third of her life at Westminster “turns my stomach”, the SNP’s depute leader in the House of Commons has said.

Mhairi Black announced last month she will stand down at the next election, saying Westminster is “one of the most unhealthy workplaces you could ever be in”.

Speaking at an In Conversation With… event at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Ms Black said: “It’s a human decision rather than a political one. I want to enjoy my life when I realised that I’ve now spent a third of my life in Westminster, it’s just – it makes my stomach turn.”

Responding to questions from event host, journalist Graeme Spiers, where he said she was seen to “thrive” in the Chamber, she said: “You’re only seeing a three-minute clip. You don’t see the other 23 hours a week that I’ve had to spend surrounded by arseholes.”

She said her honeymoon was interrupted by Boris Johnson resigning and a second trip away as compensation was then disrupted as “the second day in there’s a tent put up outside Nicola Sturgeon home”.

She said the first thing she would do with Westminster if she was in charge, is shut it down and “build another functional parliament”.

Ms Black said at least twice bits of the UK Parliament building crumbling have nearly hit her, and it is treated as being part of life in Westminster.

“That’s a bit of concrete out of the roof. It needs somebody to deal with that.” she told the audience.

“There’s mice running about all over place,” she added, saying on her first day a woman with a falcon was in the central lobby to hunt for rodents.

She said: “Nobody else was reacting… This is insane. This is the place that makes health and safety laws.

“There’s a lot of things I think could be made better about the place, not least the people in it.”