Labour chooses new parliamentary candidate

Mr Hilland, who came within 360 votes of winning the seat for Labour in last year’s general election, was selected by a poll of local party members.

Born and raised in Lanark, Andrew hails from a proud Labour family: his uncle, grandmother and great-grandfather all represented the party in Lanarkshire.

In 2004, Andrew became the first person from his local state school to attend Oxford University. On graduating, he entered into a career as a lawyer and human rights activist.

His work has taken him from Louisiana, where he helped represent prisoners on death row, to the United Nations, for whom he wrote a report on what needs to be done in the 21st Century to fulfil the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Most recently, Andrew has been working on an international project to get children around the world into school.

Speaking after the selection, Mr Hilland said: “At the next election, the choice will be simple: a transformative Labour Government, led by Jeremy Corbyn, or more years of a Tory Government fixated on austerity and increasingly captured by the hard Brexiteers. Constituencies in Scotland – including this one – will determine the outcome.

“Lanark and Hamilton East desperately needs a Labour Government. After years of Tory cuts and SNP mismanagement, our health and social services are under pressure like never before. Almost seven per cent of people in this area are out of work; and for those in work, it’s often insecure or low paid, with 9,000 employees in the constituency earning below the living wage. And 4,400 children in Lanark and Hamilton East live in poverty - a shameful figure that’s set to rise to 5,900 to by 2022 as a consequence of further cuts to social security and the rollout of Universal Credit.

“The Labour Party offers a different way forward. Under our proposed spending plans, Scotland is set to receive additional investment of £70 billion over ten years. Between now and the next election, I will work tirelessly at the local level to show how a Labour Government will use that money to fully fund our NHS, create secure and well-paying jobs and ensure that no child has to grow up without basic necessities.

“It is only the Labour Party that will end austerity and build an economy that works for the many, not the few.”