INVERCLYDE’S newly elected MP has pledged to make bringing more green investment into the area his first priority as he arrives in Parliament for his first week at Westminster.

Martin McCluskey also singled out the cost-of-living crisis as an issue which was top of his agenda and said he would continue to call for Ferguson Marine in Port Glasgow to be directly awarded work to build new small vessels for Calmac.

Speaking to BBC Radio’s Good Morning Scotland Programme, Mr McCluskey claimed his new constituency of Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West had a ‘great opportunity’ to take advantage of his party’s plans to set up a new, publicly-owned company called GB Energy.

Senior Labour figures have said the new firm would be a ‘clean power company’ which would create jobs and cut bills.

Mr McCluskey said: “Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West is partly a coastal community. We have a great opportunity to take advantage of Labour’s plans for GB Energy, for renewables jobs, for investment in infrastructure.

“But I think other thing that I’ve heard repeatedly on the doorstep over the course of the election is obviously about the state of the economy, the cost-of-living crisis, the situation that people are finding themselves in – stretched even when they have jobs to go to.

“Labour’s new deal for working people and what we’re doing there in terms of improving rights and pay for people at work is going to be incredibly important.”

This week will be Mr McCluskey’s first in Westminster as an MP, having been elected with a majority of over 6,000 votes in last Thursday’s General Election.

The MP admitted to the BBC he had not received any guarantees on whether Inverclyde would benefit from GB Energy, but vowed to make the case for money and resources to come into the area.

He added: “Labour has come into government with a manifesto that’s fully costed, we’ve got plans for the Green Energy fund that we’ve got but we’re not in a position at the moment to have made promises to individual MPs.”

“I’ve already had Keir Starmer and Ed Miliband during the election campaign at the port in Greenock looking at the opportunities which are available.

“What was very clear there was that those are the kind of opportunities that the government would look to invest in, but there’s still a long way to go before the government starts to make any commitments to individual projects.

“As the local MP for Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West I’ll be making the case for why some of that investment should come our way.”

The Inverclyde and Renfrewshire West MP was also asked whether he would use his new role to push for UK involvement or orders to be brought into Ferguson Marine.

He said:  “I think that’s certainly something we’d be looking at, the priority with Fergusons is to get the direct award of the CalMac small boats fleet that we’ve been calling for as the Labour party in the Scottish Parliament for some time, and that’s something we will continue to do and I will continue to do as the local MP.

“But any opportunity to advocate for further investment in Fergusons is something I’ll be doing.

“The yard needs a sustainable future, but I think the first priority for Fergusons is that the Scottish Government makes that direct award so those boats that we know are going to be ordered over the next period of time actually go to the yard.”