Meet the Black Country and Staffordshire's new political class of 2015

"There are about 100 staircases and they all look the same," says Conservative Mike Wood, who has been elected to Dudley South.

It is a similar story for Cannock Chase's Amanda Milling and Aldridge-Brownhills' Wendy Morton. Both are getting used to life in the historic, and it now appears crumbling, Houses of Parliament. MPs may yet have to move out for a multi-billion pound refurbishment.

Mr Wood and Mrs Morton, along with Labour's Rob Marris, were all chosen in the lottery to present their private members' bills – proposals for legislation that come from the backbenches rather than the government.

Staffordshire-born Milling is, however, also planning to speak today during Prime Minister's Questions.

She has a question about apprenticeships and will have to try to catch the eye of the Speaker.

As we meet in front of Parliament's Westminster Hall, Mr Marris introduces himself to the MPs from the rival party. He has never been an opposition backbencher before. But he is not a new MP either. He lost his seat in Wolverhampton South West in 2010 to Conservative Paul Uppal. Then he took it back again five years later, despite the Tories winning the majority that eluded them last time.

"I knew I was going to lose that year," he admits. "I closed my office in Parliament before the 2010 election. There were different factors but one was that after 13 years of Labour government people wanted a change and then there was the millstone of Gordon Brown." He describes himself as neither Blairite nor Brownite and speaks his own mind.

While the new intake made 'maiden speeches', 60-year-old Mr Marris is described as a 're-tread' MP – one of five in the Commons to have come back after a period away.

"That includes Alex Salmond," he says of the former SNP leader. "I saw him and asked 'what have you been up to for the past five years?'. He took it well and said 'a bit of this and that, a bit of international diplomacy and running a government on the side'."

On this day he is preparing to introduce his bill to legalise assisted dying. He is adamant it is about allowing terminally ill people the right to be prescribed medication to take to end their own lives. The Prime Minister has already said he is opposed and referred to his objection to 'euthanasia'.

"That's not what this bill is about," Mr Marris says. "It's up to me and those who support this legislation to persuade MPs that this is an important subject worthy of debate."

Another introducing a bill on this particular day is Tory Mr Wood. His is a way to reform the Riot (Damages) Act of 1886 which made the police liable for compensation to businesses in the event of looting. West Midlands Police had to seek a £5.3 million grant from the Home Office to cover the bill after the August 2011 riots.

Mr Wood's office is in Norman Shaw North – part of the old New Scotland Yard. The corridors have packing boxes – some from MPs moving in, some from retired or defeated ones moving out. Even after five weeks, it still isn't all back to business as usual.

He reveals his curtains are 'bomb proof'. He is not joking. "They're weighted in case there's an explosion and there are shards of glass. Obviously if the breaking glass is accompanied by a bomb, they wouldn't be much use."

The 38-year-old father of two also has his Black Country flag on the wall and is wearing it as a lapel badge. Does he get asked about it much?

"Only about four times a day," he says. "Someone asked me if the Black Country was just outside Manchester. It wasn't an MP."

He did not have much time for things to sink in after winning the election. Mr Wood had only five and a half months to get himself known as the candidate after his predecessor Chris Kelly stood down. On the day after polling day, he was waiting for the results of the council elections. Then two days later he was in Westminster as an MP, the post and the emails already coming in thick and fast.

"I want to help people into work and apprenticeships," he says.

He also takes a keen interest in education and says: "I want to make sure the requirements of children with special educational needs are taken properly into account and that special schools have a voice."

Already he may have found a sparring partner in the form of shadow education secretary Tristram Hunt.

"I asked him about improving schools and he said that Ian Austin (Labour MP for Dudley North) represented the best part of Dudley. But Ian actually lives in my constituency."

Amanda Milling managed to increase the Conservative majority in Cannock Chase, won from Labour by her predecessor Aidan Burley.

The businesswoman, who left her market research career after being selected as the candidate, has been getting texts from former colleagues who have seen her on TV during Prime Minister's Questions.

She stands up repeatedly during the half hour session but this week does not manage to get her question in. And it would have been a good one too.

"I was going to ask about Ladder for Staffordshire, the scheme backed by the Express & Star to create apprenticeships. I wanted the Prime Minister to say how important it is to support schemes such as this." Another day perhaps.

Miss Milling, like many Conservative MPs, tends to mention her intended questions to Gavin Williamson, the neighbouring MP for South Staffordshire who serves as David Cameron's parliamentary private secretary. Mr Williamson helps the Prime Minister prepare his responses for his weekly exchanges with MPs. "It means if I am called it gives me the best chance of getting a good answer as the Prime Minister has all the facts."

She is fast learning the other ways to get time with ministers. "One way is to arrange a meeting via their Parliamentary Private Secretary. But I find the best way is to talk to them in the voting lobbies. We all have to walk through them when we vote and someone nearly had to pick my jaw up off the floor the first time I saw the Prime Minister in there with the rest of us."

The days are long and Miss Milling will frequently not get home much before midnight.

She says being single has made it easier to adjust to the change in lifestyle.

For Wendy Morton, being chosen as a candidate and elected as an MP has meant changing where she and husband David spend their weekends.

He works in Yorkshire while she is in Westminster and the couple live in Aldridge the rest of the time. They set up an electronics business in Richmond, Yorkshire, 25 years ago after Mr Morton left the Royal Navy.

"We did it with a £40 a week enterprise allowance set up under the Thatcher government," Mrs Morton says. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, small businesses are high on her list of priorities.

"There wasn't a job description for being an MP," she says. "You have to be organised but also flexible. Things can and do change."

Mrs Morton's private members' bill is to help Great Ormond Street Hospital continue to benefit from the royalties from JM Barrie's Peter Pan stories after transferring to an independent charity.

Keeping on some of her predecessor Sir Richard Shepherd's staff has helped her to 'hit the ground running'. That was not easy to begin with, however. "When you first arrive you don't have an office and you're hot desking. But you have to establish a reasonable level of service for your constituents. I was getting requests straight away to visit things in the constituency, to speak at schools and case work. You would not believe the variety of things that come my way. It can be anything from local council matters to issues about government departments, people having difficulties with the DVLA, and so on. I make it a point of seeing every bit of case work. You have to understand what's going on."

It has taken Mrs Morton, aged 47, a long time to get to the Commons. She was the Tory candidate elsewhere in two General Elections before being chosen to replace Sir Richard – a Eurosceptic and one of the most rebellious Conservative MPs. Even though Aldridge Brownhills is considered a safe seat for the Tories, she takes nothing for granted.

"By the end of this five year term I hope people will think I've done a good job representing them. Sir Richard represented the constituency for a long time (since 1979) and people will understandably want to get the measure of me. He had his views and I will have mine."