Hansard

As we have heard, the subject of international women’s day this year is #ChooseToChallenge, and challenge I will. In fact, I have been quite challenging all my life, as I am sure many people who know me would agree.

Presiding Officer, as you know, politics is a gey coorse game, and it seems to be especially challenging for women. Whatever we do, we have to work twice as hard to be seen as being even half as good. We have to balance having a thick skin with caring; giving ourselves up to the public with maintaining our privacy; staying loyal to our party with having good friends from other parties; and being a person with still being seen as an object. Being a councillor was a hard job, but being a member of Parliament is a different thing altogether. It is a tough role and a demanding role, but it is a rewarding role.

I have challenged and been challenged in return, but the biggest challenge for me—and, indeed, for some others, as we have heard and as we will hear—has been in trying to influence or, at least, to educate people on the difficulties of being present in the Scottish Parliament building for so many days every week.

In that sense, the Parliament has to have a long hard look at how it encourages people—especially women—to become elected members. There has to be more flexibility in work practices, and remote and virtual working—which I was told was not possible only a month before we were forced into that way of working by the pandemic—must become the norm. Otherwise, more people like me and others who will speak in the chamber and remotely will be forced into making a decision either to leave or not to stand at all. That is not good for our democracy.

This parliamentary session—the past five years—has been a rich tapestry of experiences. From speaking at the Presiding Officer’s Burns supper to writing poems in the style of Julie Andrews for a Holyrood Magazine event, such experiences have been made all the richer by the people who have surrounded me.

It would not be a final speech without a copious amount of thank yous. With your indulgence, Presiding Officer, I would like to address those thanks personally. I should say that, in addition to the women on the list, there are quite a few men who could be mentioned—just not today.

First, I thank my colleague and friend Rona Mackay for giving up her spot in the debate so that I could make this speech—my final speech—today.

I thank the people in my parliamentary team, who have been there to support me throughout the good times and the bad. They have enabled me to do the job. I owe them all—past and present members of the team—a huge debt of gratitude. Carrie, who had never worked for an MSP before, is now going on to be a trained counsellor. I am so proud of her. Kirsteen has not had an easy few years, but she has got me to the end, so I thank her. I say to Wee Kyla—you fair cheered up the office since you started, and you are never far from my thoughts.

I thank Christina McKelvie—a champion of equalities and human rights—for believing in me. Christina, I am thinking of you just now.

I thank Jeane Freeman, who has been mentioned already, for all that she has done. Quite simply, thank you.

To Emma Harper, I say that we did a good job of bookending the country at every event, agricultural show and meeting. We would tell people how we were working, north and south, at squeezing the central belt. We had some success and some very positive feedback.

Our First Minister and my boss, Nicola Sturgeon has been an inspiration to me for a lot of years—ever since a chance meeting in Glasgow Queen Street station in the 1990s. She asked me to open her event at Eden Court theatre in Inverness; I misunderstood her text, so I had to write a speech the night before it. It still went down well, though. Being her parliamentary liaison officer and attending First Minister’s question time preparation was an honour that will never be equalled for me. I never did manage to drop in a question about bus strikes in France, but I still reckon that she can take me out for that lunch. During the past year, in particular, her commitment and dedication to steering Scotland through the pandemic has been nothing less than superhuman. I have no doubt that the First Minister will lead Scotland to her independence. Thank you, First Minister.

I have more fond words for my two very special friends—the members of my coven—but I have been advised that the sort of language that I would use is not appropriate in the chamber, and we already know that it is offensive on Twitter, so I will stop there. Those friends are Jenny Gilruth and Mairi Gougeon. It is a special thing to get to this stage of life and make friends that you wish you had known years ago. I will miss our gatherings and making our spells. I have laughed more times with them in the past five years than the number of bottles of prosecco we have shared. As you might be aware, Presiding Officer, that is a lot of laughs.

I thank the security staff, especially Audrey, who helped me to clean my dress on the day of the kirking of Parliament, and I thank Nejra, for always stopping for a chat, and the rest of the people in the hospitality and events teams.

My thanks go to every single person who sent me a message of support when I announced that I was standing down, and to all my friends and colleagues and every member of staff.

I cannot conclude this part of my life without thanking the women in my family. They have been there to pop over with dinners, to send Max to school, to pick him up, to get him to after school clubs or to be there with support, so Max says, “Thank you, Granny Mo, Granny Ru, Ruthie and Jacquelyn.”

I have a confession to make: when I have sat in the chamber, I have written poems that were relevant to the subject that had been debated, then left them in the desk. I hope that when members have found them some made them smile and some made them think. This is the one that I would leave today, if I were in the chamber:

“No more will you see me
But you’ll know that I’m still there
Sat with you in Margo’s
Or passing on the stairs
Coffee in the Garden Lobby
Just won’t be the same
But remember this is not goodbye
It’s Til We Meet Again!”

The question remains: where is a woman’s place? A woman’s place is in the Scottish Parliament.

I wish the best of luck to everyone, for whatever the future may bring.