PETER Grant held on to his Glenrothes seat for the SNP after fending off competition from Labour.

He emerged from the count with 17,291 votes, with Altany Craik registering 14,024 for Labour.

The voter turnout was down to 60.9% from 68.2% in 2015.

Mr Grant was honoured to have been given the opportunity to serve his constituents once again.

He told the Times following the result: “I’m very pleased. It’s a huge privilege for any politician to be trusted with people’s votes. To be re-trusted for a second time around means a lot to me on a personal level.

“My team have been such a huge support to me. They’ve had to deal with some very difficult cases from citizens who have been very badly let down by the UK Government in terms of tax credits, benefit sanctions and so on.

“It’s important as an MP to ensure I understand communities such as Cardenden and surgeries are vital to ensuring I keep in touch with local community organisations.

“The issues that are within the remit of an MP tend to be national issues that affect individual families.

“The level of poverty in areas such as Cardenden is still too high. The number of people who rely on DWP benefits, who are simply being let down, is too high.

“I expect to be in the office on Monday morning with my constituency team to sit down and plan for what we need to do in the next few years.

“I know members of the SNP team will be a bit downhearted over the seats we haven’t won. I think in the next few days we will look at the seats we have won and realise they are ones we would have thought to be impossible a few years ago, like Glenrothes.”

Labour’s Altany Craik remarked proudly after cutting the SNP majority in the Glenrothes constituency.

“I was happy to get close this time. Although in saying that, I would have liked to have got closer and won!

“Cutting the majority down in the way we have is a huge step forward. Next time we’re in the game.

“If we had another couple of weeks to campaign, who knows what would have happened?

“You’re focused on your own seat. You can only affect one. I didn’t want to wake up thinking what could I have done. We tried our best and that’s where we got to.

“What we have seen is seats changing hands over not many votes. It’s a massive result for Lesley (Laird) in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath. She’ll be a great MP.

“I’m tinged with a little bit of sadness that I’m not joining her in Westminster.

“I’m not going to London, though. I’m just glad I never picked out any curtains!”

The Glenrothes result:

SNP, Peter Grant: 17,291
Labour, Altany Craik: 14,024
Conservatives, Andrew Brown: 7,876
Lib Dem, Rebecca Bell: 1,208