Meeting of the Parliament 26 January 2017
I am honoured to have joined the Parliament as a list member for the North East Scotland region. However—it is a big however—I am sure that we all wish that the event that led to my becoming a member had not happened. I pay tribute to the late Alex Johnstone, who served his constituents so well after becoming a member of the Scottish Parliament. [Applause.] There are many here who knew him for longer and better than I did but, in the time that I knew him, he was supportive, encouraging and always approachable. I hope that I can be like that, too.
Now, about me. I was born in Glasgow. When I was 11, my family moved east—from a Glasgow perspective, it seemed a long way east—to Kirkcaldy in Fife, where I lived while a teenager and growing up.
On graduating from the University of Edinburgh, I studied to become a chartered accountant and, having passed my exams, I became a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, which I regarded then and regard now as the gold standard of chartered accountancy institutes.
I joined KPMG, and I spent five years with it in Edinburgh. Then, I moved to its Aberdeen office, where I spent the next 20 years. I learned a lot about the north-east region there. I audited and advised companies and organisations in many industries, such as the oil and gas industry, naturally, and the farming, fishing, food processing, engineering, transport, shipping and hospitality industries. That was not just in Aberdeen, but throughout the region.
After 20 years there, I moved east again, but a little bit further this time. I went to Romania, where I continued my professional activities with KPMG for the next 10 years, with a focus on helping companies to grow and develop their accounting and reporting, as well as training and developing the generation of auditors and accountants who were required to meet that emerging country’s growing need for such people. That was the most rewarding part of the work.
I then came back to Scotland and entered front-line politics. I had the time, desire and opportunity and—thanks to listening to Ruth Davidson at one of our Scottish conferences—I decided to stand in the 2015 Westminster election in the Dundee East constituency. Having of course not succeeded in that, in 2016 I stood in the Scottish Parliament election in the Dundee City East constituency.
Dundee and the adjoining Angus area have a long and illustrious history. They have world-class educational institutions and the Dundee waterfront development is showing how to prepare today for the future needs of a city. The V&A building will be an iconic symbol that will be recognised far and wide, and people will think of Dundee when they see it.
Perhaps the waterfront development is an example of how planning can bring together the regeneration of an area that had fulfilled its original use and had no immediate other use with commercial and retail developments, and arts and culture, through the V&A and related projects. The ultimate measure of the waterfront’s success will be the wealth and jobs that it creates in the area. I hope that it will yield a social dividend for constituents in the area, who need and deserve that.
Such a social dividend should be at the heart of our planning system. Planning and the developments that flow from our planning system, such as the construction of new schools, leisure facilities and housing developments stimulate economies in the local area and the jobs that are created in that process mean that more people can go home satisfied that they are able to provide for themselves, their families and dependants after a hard and honest day’s work. I am sure that all members agree that there is no better feeling than that.
North East Scotland is as diverse a region as it is big, from the Banff and Buchan coast in the north through to Angus and Dundee in the south and all the places in between. I look forward to representing the people of that vast area in the chamber to the best of my ability.
One thing that I have learned from the debates that I have attended is that it is best for members to keep within their time—members do not usually get a telling off for that—so, with that, I will draw my speech to a conclusion. I thank members for listening. [Applause.]