Euan Stainbank's rise was unusually fast. He moved from Falkirk Council to Parliament in two years, winning Falkirk from the SNP in 2024 at the age of 24. He entered the Commons without government experience but with one overriding political problem already waiting for him: the threatened closure of Scotland's last oil refinery at Grangemouth.

That crisis has defined his record. Stainbank argued for an interventionist industrial policy in which government protects strategically important production, directs investment towards replacement industries and gives displaced workers a route into new jobs. This put him broadly in step with Labour's green investment plans, but often at odds with the speed and scale of the government's response.

He did not save the refinery.

Petroineos ended refining in April 2025. Around 400 jobs were lost, with the workforce reduced to approximately 75 at the replacement import terminal. Thousands more jobs in the supply chain were potentially exposed. Ministers said the refinery was commercially uncompetitive and had been losing about $500,000 a day. Unions argued that government intervention had come too late.

Stainbank repeatedly pressed ministers, supported demands for public investment and argued that Grangemouth should remain an industrial site rather than be managed through decline. That pressure helped keep the constituency at the centre of government industrial policy, but it did not produce the result workers initially needed.

There was more success elsewhere on the Grangemouth complex. In December 2025, the UK government backed a £150 million package for Ineos's separate ethylene plant, including more than £120 million through a grant and government-backed loan. The agreement protected 500 existing jobs, with Ineos required to continue operating and invest at least £30 million itself.

Stainbank cannot claim to have negotiated that agreement. It was concluded by ministers, officials, Ineos and its lenders. He can reasonably claim a supporting role: he kept raising the plant's strategic value, worked with unions and pressed his own government to intervene rather than dismiss closure as a commercial matter. The rescue matched the approach he had advocated.

The replacement industries remained much smaller and less certain. Governments provided up to £3 million for MiAlgae's proposed biotechnology plant. Construction began, with the project expected to create about 130 direct jobs at Grangemouth and support another 180 across Scotland over five years. These were forecasts, not 310 people already employed. A further £200 million from the National Wealth Fund was available for viable Grangemouth projects, but most of it had not been invested by July 2026.

The worker transition programme produced some measurable activity. By late 2025, close to 300 workers had received individual support and most were undertaking or had completed training. Eligibility was also widened to workers providing shared services to the refinery. Gaps remained. In June 2026, Stainbank raised cases involving workers who began retraining early but were refused support because they fell outside the guarantee's rules. The minister agreed only to review the cases and meet him. There was no completed remedy by the cutoff date.

His other major industrial campaign concerned Alexander Dennis, the bus manufacturer with operations in Falkirk and Larbert. Stainbank argued that public subsidies for zero-emission buses should give greater weight to employment, apprenticeships and domestic production instead of helping operators buy cheaper vehicles manufactured abroad.

The campaign exposed a genuine contradiction. Governments were subsidising electric buses while British production fell and manufacturers faced redundancies. It did not save the Falkirk facility. By March 2026, Alexander Dennis proposed closing it and concentrating Scottish production at Larbert, retaining about 350 Scottish jobs but placing as many as 115 roles at risk. Stainbank secured debates and political attention, but neither Westminster nor Holyrood had adopted the domestic procurement rules he wanted.

Inside Labour, he proved less compliant than his lack of seniority might suggest. He declined to support the restriction of winter fuel payments, joined the rebellion against Labour's disability-benefit legislation and voted against the bill at its final Commons stage. The wider revolt forced ministers to remove their immediate changes to Personal Independence Payment, although Stainbank was one of dozens involved rather than its leader.

He nominated Bell Ribeiro-Addy for Labour's deputy leadership in 2025, aligning himself with demands for higher taxes on wealth, stronger welfare protection and a harder line over Gaza. In May 2026 he joined Scottish Labour figures calling for Keir Starmer to resign. These choices place him on Labour's economic left, but his politics are rooted as much in local industry as in Westminster factionalism.

Stainbank has shown persistence, independence and an ability to make himself useful in a constituency crisis. The ethylene-plant rescue is a substantial result achieved by a government he helped pressure. The refinery still closed, replacement jobs remained largely promised rather than filled, and his bus-manufacturing campaign had not prevented further losses. His record supports a judgement that he is an energetic constituency advocate with some political influence. It does not yet show that he can personally design, administer or deliver an industrial transition.