Family comes first for former Wolverhampton Tory MP Paul Uppal

Now Paul Uppal is doing what any politician does when they leave public life - 'spending more time with his family'.

Speaking to the Express & Star he revealed his fears that he was a 'bad dad' to his children in his five years as MP and was now determined to make it up to them.

And he spoke of how he believed he lost his seat because of Tory supporters moving out of his constituency into South Staffordshire as well as how he was considering whether or not to offer his services to his party as a candidate again in 2020.

He has the option of going back to the Dudley-based real estate business he founded, Pinehurst Securities.

"At the moment, I'm doing the one thing I didn't do that concerned me the most when I was an MP - spending time with my family," he said.

It is something of a cliché used whenever politicians step down from something or resign but in Mr Uppal's case it happens to be the truth.

"The best thing I've done in the past few months is I've taught Zara to ride a bike."

Zara is Mr Uppal's youngest child, aged 8, with wife Kashmir, a Birmingham-based solicitor.

Their eldest, Cameron, is 18 and has taken his A-Levels while daughter Anisha, 16, has also had exams.

A pretty stressful year all round then.

But losing his seat representing Wolverhampton South West to Rob Marris, the Labour MP he himself defeated in 2010, had a silver lining.

"I was playing snooker with Cameron and he said 'it's made your a nicer person'.

"Being in Parliament is increasingly becoming a job for single people. You're away from your family a lot. And I'm worried I was a bit of a bad dad because of how much I was away."

Mr Uppal's place in political history was secured the second he was elected.

He became the first minority ethnic MP ever to win Wolverhampton South West - the seat once held by Enoch Powell. Symbolically, his majority of 691 votes was exactly the same as Powell's was when he first won.

He was also the only British Sikh MP in Parliament. His predecessor and successor Mr Marris is now chairing the all-party parliamentary group for British Sikhs.

He lists his accomplishments including running jobs clubs to help unemployed people meet employers, working with Wolverhampton College, supporting the creation of the Nishkam Primary School (formerly Anand Primary) as part of the free schools programme and campaigning to get so-called 'chuggers' - clipboard holding charity fundraisers - to agree to limits on how many of them could be on the streets. It was at a time when the gauntlet of fundraisers was considered one of the main reasons people gave for avoiding coming in to the city centre.

Mr Uppal accompanied the Prime Minister on a trade mission to India.

He also put aside party differences to work with Wolverhampton's Labour MPs to encourage Jaguar Land Rover to build their £500 million engine plant at the i54 business park, meeting with the Tata family that owns the luxury car maker.

"On a visit to Delhi a little boy came up to me and I spoke to him in broken Hindi," Mr Uppal recalled.

"He asked what I did and I told him I was a British MP. He was amazed and said 'but you look like me'.

Throughout the General Election campaign it was clear the effort the Tory party went to to keep Mr Uppal's seat.

The Prime Minister and Chancellor made a high profile visit to Marston's Banks's Brewery together. Transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin sung his praises. The then chief whip, now justice secretary, Michael Gove went out delivering leaflets with him.

Yet while Tories elsewhere in the Black Country and Staffordshire held on and in most cases increased their majorities, Mr Uppal lost by 801 votes.

However, more people actually voted for him this time around than when he was elected in 2010, 16,573 compared with 16,344.

UKIP did a lot better in May than in 2010 but it was perhaps the collapse of the Liberal Democrat vote, from 6,430 down to a tiny, fifth place 845, that made the real difference.

Mr Uppal has thought a lot about it.

"There was a Saturday morning where I think my problem became clear," he said.

"We were in Penn knocking doors of people who we knew had supported us last time.

"There were three in a row which had new people.

"The first, we were told the former owner had passed away. The new occupants were teachers and said because of what was going on nationally they'd vote Labour. The next two households, the former owners had moved to South Staffordshire.

"I talked to people at Marston's who said they thought we were doing a great job. But while they worked in Wolverhampton, they lived in South Staffordshire."

He is quick to point out that he does not believe this to be the only reason he lost, but wonders how much it played a part.

Mr Uppal would have liked to have seen the new Tory majority government do more for small businesses. He was on Mr Cameron's policy board and were he still there he would have stressed that, as well as cutting corporation tax, business rates needed to come down.

"We need to encourage young people to stay here by setting themselves up in business, opening shops, cafes, restaurants and more. Wolverhampton is well known for empty shops and that has to change."

It sounded as though Mr Uppal might want another shot. Will he become Mr Marris's opponent for the third time in 2020?

He is not ruling it in or out.

"Whatever I do next, I need to take about it with my family and discuss what they want me to do.

"It was a real privilege to represent Wolverhampton South West, an honour, particularly with my background.

"But my family will come first. I put them on the back burner for a long time. I'm not going to be that sort of dad any more."