Out with the old...and in with the young: New MPs begin to arrive in Westminster after Labour's election landslide (and naturally they were delayed by the trains
Hundreds of new MPs began to descend on Westminster today as Parliament started to sort itself out following the upheaval of the General Election.
Scores of Labour politicians as well as new groups from the Green Party and Reform are expected to start setting themselves up ahead of the King's Speech and the State Opening of Parliament on July 17.
Some managed to arrive from across the UK smoothly, with Rosie Wrighting, 26, the new Labour MP for Kettering, posting a selfie in front of Big Ben, saying: 'First day in the new office. I am looking forward to getting everything set up and being ready to serve the people of Kettering.'
And the Green Party's quartet of new MPs posed for pictures on College Green.
However some newly-elected Labour MPs criticised the reliability of train services after suffering disruption during journeys to take their seats in the House of Commons.
The politicians took to X to complain as they travel to London ahead of the Parliament sitting on Tuesday for the first time since the General Election.
Some managed to arrive from across the UK smoothly, with Rosie Wrighting, the new Labour MP for Kettering, posting a selfie in front of Big Ben, saying: 'First day in the new office. I am looking forward to getting everything set up and being ready to serve the people of Kettering.'
And the Green Party's quartet of new MPs posed for pictures on College Green.
However some newly-elected Labour MPs criticised the reliability of train services after suffering disruption during journeys to take their seats in the House of Commons. Henry Tufnell, MP for Mid and South Pembrokeshire, posted: 'Unfortunately the journey involves no direct trains from £Pembrokeshire and a delayed @GWRHelp train via Gloucester.'
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer stands with all 411 Labour Party MPs at Church House in Westminster
Henry Tufnell, 32, MP for Mid and South Pembrokeshire, who travelled to the capital on Sunday, posted: 'Heading to London and excited to begin work as the MP for Mid & South Pembrokeshire.
'Unfortunately the journey involves no direct trains from £Pembrokeshire and a delayed @GWRHelp train via Gloucester. Lots of work to be done...'
Paul Foster, MP for South Ribble, added: 'Day One on my way to Parliament and guess what... @AvantiWestCoast go and cancel my train just as I get to Preston station.
'To make matters worse, the train actually pulls into the station! Utter shambles.'
He posted an image of a departures board showing the cancellation of a 6am train to London Euston.
Another disgruntled Avanti West Coast passenger was Claire Hughes, MP for Bangor Aberconwy, who wrote: 'In news that will shock absolutely no-one, my @AvantiWestCoast train down to London for my first day in Westminster has been cancelled.'
Andrew Ranger, who was elected to represent Wrexham, replied: 'That'll be my train too!! Well we have another thing to add to the list of things to tackle. £avantifail.'
During the election campaign, Transport Secretary Louise Haigh said that, if Labour won, the party would urgently consider stripping Avanti West Coast of its contract due to its 'woeful service' on the West Coast Main Line.
She has pledged to bring all train services on Britain's railways into public ownership.
Josh Fenton-Glynn, MP for Calder Valley, suffered disruption while travelling with Northern, which is already controlled by the Department for Transport.
He posted an image at 9.24am on Monday of himself at Hebden Bridge station with the caption: 'On my way to London! I'm so excited to be starting a journey to be the voice in Westminster for the Calder Valley communities I love.'
In a subsequent post eight minutes later, he added: 'In news that will shock absolutely no one, my @northernassist train is delayed.'
Kirith Entwistle, 33, who represents Bolton North East, posted an image of the town's railway station with the caption: 'Day 1 and my train into Manchester to get to London is cancelled. Off to a great start!'
Meanwhile Green co-leader Carla Denyer, 38, urged Labour to scrap the two-child benefit cap and revoke the licence for the Rosebank oil field as she arrived at Parliament as one of four newly elected Green MPs.
'We'll be pushing Labour to, especially in these first 100 days, take some swift actions on those low-hanging fruit that they could take to help make this country a fairer, greener place straight away,' she said.
'So for example, the Labour Party supports the Conservative policy of a two-child benefit cap.
'They want to keep that in place even though it holds 250,000 children into poverty unnecessarily. It's not even that expensive to lift it and it would be a massive single policy intervention they could make to help deal with inequality in this country.
'On climate, it's great that Ed Miliband has said that they will lift the de facto ban on onshore wind, that is long overdue.
'I think he also needs to look at Labour's previous promises to keep the brand new licence for the Rosebank oil and gas field.
'The climate science is clear, we cannot be creating new oil and gas wells at this stage in the climate emergency. So we will be pushing the Labour Government to reconsider on that, and on other measures that they could take right away to help fix the issues in this country.'
