LIBERAL Democrat candidate Jack Clark wants to empower local communities in Paisley and Renfrewshire South.

The 20-year-old prospective MP said he would use the position in Westminster to give communities in the constituency a strong voice on a national level.

“The first job of an MP is to be the local representative,” he told The Gazette.

“Politics for me is about helping people out. It’s not all about Westminster, a lot of it is about what happens locally.

“In the House of Commons, they can go from talking about Brexit to talking about a local hospital.

“So, if I can get important issues from this area debated down in Westminster, that’d be an even better way to highlight them.”

Mr Clark feels that people should be made more aware of their powers at a local level and is concerned by the dwindling number of active community councils.

He continued: “I’ve been to a couple of community councils and was nearly co-opted onto them, as the only young person there.

“But I don’t think a lot of people will know about community councils, where they meet or when they meet.

“If that was advertised better, that’d be great, just so that people know what the community council does and how it can help them.”

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