About Me

I was first elected to represent Glasgow Baillieston at the inception of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, and then re-elected in 2003 and again in 2007. Before entering the Scottish Parliament I was a lecturer in community education at the University of Strathclyde and before that a community worker. Although I had been active in Labour Party politics for a time before, becoming an elected politican was somewhat daunting. It makes me very proud and excited to be a Member of the Scottish Parliament for Glasgow Baillieston, an area that is both challenging and exciting and very close to my heart.

Since 1999, I have held several posts. I started out as the Convener of the Housing, Social Justice & Voluntary Sector Committee and was later promoted to the position of Deputy Minister for Social Justice in 2001.

A few years later, I was again promoted by Jack McConnell to Cabinet rank when I became Minister for Communities. I held the position of Minister for Parliamentary Business from 2004 until 2007. Unfortunately, the last Scottish Parliament election intervened and I lost that position because Labour was put out of power!

I remained on the Front-Bench as Shadow spokeperson for Health and Wellbeing before Iain Gray asked me to be a Cabinet Member with responsibilities for Policy Development. In this most recent role, I have worked hard to develop the policies of the Scottish Labour Party, setting up policy forums and commission, where ordinary people and those with an interest can help us create better policy for Scotland.

I have left my role in Policy Development to concentrate more seriously on issues affecting my constituency and to campaign in Glasgow East, for which I have been selected as the Labour Party Candidate at the next General Election.

My priorities for the people of Glasgow Baillieston include making streets in the East End safer and reducing the incidents of violent crime in the area and creating better educational facilities and job opportunities.

I also work closely with organisations such as the Glasgow East Women’s Aid, which supports victims of domestic abuse in the area and I am looking into securing Scottish Government funding to allow this organisation to do more for victims in the area.

Ongoing local campaigns include finding and securing adequate social housing in the area, particularly for local families with young children and getting improvements to local roads and transport services.

If you have any issue that you wish to raise with me then please contact my office, I would love to hear from you!