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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Politics
James Cain & Dan Bloom

New MP will work his old job on Christmas Day 'to avoid dropping the lads in it'

A new MP is planning to work his old job at a chemical plant on Christmas Day - to avoid "dropping the lads in it" at work.

Tory Brexiteer Jacob Young made the pledge after his shock election to Redcar on December 13 - turning the seat blue for the first time in its 45-year history.

The 26-year-old, one of the youngest MPs in Parliament, is a lead technician at a petrochemicals firm - which he has not named - at the 2,000-acre Wilton International chemical plant on Teesside.

He told ChronicleLive: "I should have been working a three month notice but my employer has been really generous and said I can leave any time.

"But if I didn't do Christmas Day it I'd be dropping the lads at work in it.

Jacob Young ousted Labour's Anna Turley in the general election (Teesside Live/Katie Lunn)

"My last shift is on January 1 - New Year, new me."

Mr Young ousted Labour 's Anna Turley by more than 3,000 votes in the general election as part of a 'blue wave' that seized traditional Labour heartlands in the north east.

Redcar was held by the Lib Dems during Coalition but was otherwise Labour since 1974.

The new MP admitted: "I've lived in Teesside my whole life and I didn't think change would come so quickly in our area."

MPs are paid £79,468 a year but are allowed to hold down second and third jobs as long as they declare them in the Commons register of interests.

Labour's Rosena Allin-Khan, a doctor, continued to work night shifts in her local A&E in Tooting, south London, long after she was elected to Parliament.

But others have been slammed for keeping a portfolio of lucrative outside work - including when Tory George Osborne took a string of jobs after quitting as Chancellor.

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