Michael Shanks | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Official portrait, 2023 | |||||||
| Minister of State for Energy | |||||||
| Assumed office 6 September 2025 | |||||||
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer | ||||||
| Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Energy | |||||||
| In office 9 July 2024 – 6 September 2025 | |||||||
| Prime Minister | Keir Starmer | ||||||
| Preceded by | Andrew Bowie (Nuclear and Networks) | ||||||
| Member of Parliament forRutherglen Rutherglen and Hamilton West (2023–2024) | |||||||
| Assumed office 5 October 2023 | |||||||
| Preceded by | Margaret Ferrier | ||||||
| Majority | 8,767 (20.6%) | ||||||
| |||||||
| Personal details | |||||||
| Born | Michael Graeme Shanks (1988-03-04)4 March 1988 (age 37) Ayrshire, Scotland | ||||||
| Political party | Scottish Labour (until 2019; since 2020) | ||||||
| Education | University of Glasgow | ||||||
Michael Graeme Shanks (born 4 March 1988) is aScottishLabour Party politician and former teacher who has served as theMember of Parliament (MP) forRutherglen, previouslyRutherglen and Hamilton West, since2023.[1] He has served asMinister of State for Energy since 6 September 2025.[2]
Michael Shanks was born on 4 March 1988 inAyrshire.[3][4] He has a degree in history and politics from theUniversity of Glasgow, and worked for a charity before retraining as a teacher in his late 20s, taking aPGDE at Glasgow.[5] He was employed as amodern studies teacher atPark Mains High School inErskine,Renfrewshire.[6] He has also been involved in community and charity initiatives for disabled people[7][8] and ran ascout group for disabled children.[9][10]
Shanks was an unsuccessful candidate in the2012 Glasgow City Council election,[11] standing forScottish Labour in the ward ofPartick West and finishing fifth in thesingle transferable vote process.[12] Four councillors were elected for the ward, making Shanks the only Labour Party candidate inGlasgow not to be elected.[13][14]
At the2016 Scottish Parliament election, Shanks contestedGlasgow Kelvin. He came third with 21% of the vote behind the incumbentSNPMSP,Sandra White, and theScottish Greens, candidatePatrick Harvie.[15][16][17]
Shanks contestedGlasgow North West at the snap2017 general election, coming second with 35.9% of the vote behind the incumbent SNP MPCarol Monaghan.[18][19][20]
Shanks resigned from the Labour Party on the day of the2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom, citingBrexit andantisemitism in the party duringJeremy Corbyn's leadership, but rejoined whenKeir Starmer became leader.[21][14]
He is a member of theFabian Society.[22]
Having moved toRutherglen from western Glasgow a year earlier,[4] Shanks was selected to contest theRutherglen and Hamilton West constituency in May 2023,[14] in anticipation thatMargaret Ferrier, the incumbent MP who had been sanctioned for breaches ofCOVID-19 restrictions,[23] would lose her seat via arecall petition. Following her suspension from theHouse of Commons, Ferrier was unseated by a successful recall petition on 1 August.[24] Inthe subsequent by-election on 5 October, Shanks was elected to Parliament as MP for Rutherglen and Hamilton West with 58.6% of the vote and a majority of 9,446.[25][26][27][28]
Prior to his election to Parliament, Shanks "said that he wasn't 'against' rejoining the EU and insisted he has not changed his principles over Brexit but that now was not the right time for a debate on the issue".[29] During his by-election campaign Shanks said he would vote to abolish thetwo-child benefit cap.[30] Despite this, in July 2024 he voted with the incoming Labour government to keep the benefit cap.[31][32] He supported theGender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill but said that "it could be much, much better".[29]
Shanks sat as the Shadow Minister of State for Scotland in theStarmer shadow cabinet, junior toShadow Secretary of StateIan Murray, the only other Scottish Labour MP at the time.[33] His promotion made him the MP who had served for the shortest length of time before being promoted to the Labour frontbench.
He is a member ofLabour Friends of Israel[34] as well asLabour Friends of Palestine and the Middle East.[35] On 16 November 2023, a motion was tabled in Parliament calling for aceasefire in theGaza war, with Shanks abstaining.[36]
Due to the2023 review of Westminster constituencies, Shanks' constituency of Rutherglen and Hamilton West was abolished, and replaced withRutherglen. At the2024 general election, Shanks was elected to Parliament as MP for Rutherglen with 50.5% of the vote and a majority of 8,767.[37][38] After the general election, Shanks was appointed as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in theDepartment for Energy Security and Net Zero, underSecretary of StateEd Miliband.[39] In the2025 British cabinet reshuffle, Shanks was promoted toMinister of State for Energy, a role jointly across theDepartment for Business and Trade andDepartment for Energy Security and Net Zero.[40]
In January 2022, Shanks received news coverage for running along all ofGlasgow's 6,143 streets.[41][42] He began running during the firstCOVID-19 lockdown in March 2020, having been motivated by an American athlete who had run every street inSan Francisco in 30 days.[42] Shanks described it as an "adventure" as opposed to a fitness challenge and completed it on 5 January 2022, when he ran down the city centre'sGeorge Square, which he had saved for last.[43] Whilst running he gathered information about the area from people for a book he is planning on the social history of Glasgow inspired byHugh MacDonald's 1854 bookRambles Round Glasgow,[43][44] and created an online journal of the project.[45]
I was in fact born in 1988
| Parliament of the United Kingdom | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Member of Parliament forRutherglen and Hamilton West 2023–2024 | Constituency abolished |
| New constituency | Member of Parliament forRutherglen 2024–present | Incumbent |
