Robin Harper

Background, education and career

Harper was educated at St Marylebone Grammar School and Elgin Academy, Moray. He graduated in 1962 from the University of Aberdeen. He worked as a modern studies teacher at Boroughmuir High School, Edinburgh, and before that as an English teacher in Kenya.

Harper joined the Ecology Party's Scottish branch in 1985. At the time, the branch only had 35 members, and its AGM that year was held in his flat. He was elected unopposed as its convenor and secretary, and remained a leading figure as it became first the UK-wide Green Party, then the independent Scottish Green Party.

Harper is a patron of many organisations including LGBT Youth Scotland, an organisation dedicated to the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender young people in the life of Scotland. He is married. He is also an Honorary Vice-President of English-Speaking Union Scotland. He was elected as Rector of the University of Aberdeen in 2005, having previously served as Rector of the University of Edinburgh. Harper is also the Honorary President of the Edinburgh University Savoy Opera Group.

In 2008 he was appointed President of the Royal Scottish Society of Arts.

Scottish Parliament

Harper stood for election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, and was elected as an additional member for the Lothians region, becoming the first ever elected Green parliamentarian in Britain's political history. In an emotional speech, he promised to be a critical voice on the environment in the Parliament. He criticised the Scottish Executive's decision to split ministerial responsibility for the environment in 2001. He served as his party's sole representative in the first Parliament (1999–2003) until the 2003 election, when the Scottish Green Party won another 6 seats in the regional lists. He was the party's spokesman on education and young people. In 2004 he was a member of the Scottish Parliament team in the TV general knowledge show University Challenge: The Professionals. He and fellow team members Richard Baker (Labour), Jamie Stone (Lib Dem) who was captain, and Stewart Stevenson (SNP) beat a Welsh Assembly team by 110 points to 75.

In January 2007, The Scotsman reported that Harper was being considered for the next Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. Harper stated that he did not know of this story, but said "it would be an honour even to be considered". Following the 2007 elections to the Scottish Parliament, Harper was returned as a list MSP for the Lothians, this time one of only two Green Party members elected. After an agreement with the Scottish National Party, the party with the largest mandate from the election, the Green MSPs including Harper voted for Alex Salmond to become First Minister of Scotland but the Greens declined to enter a formal coalition with the SNP. As part of the deal, fellow Green MSP Patrick Harvie was nominated to head the Holyrood Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee. In 2009, Harper and Harvie voted to reject an SNP government budget. He did not seek re-election in 2011.

After Parliament

In September 2014, Harper became chairman of the Scottish Wildlife Trust.

At the beginning of December 2013, Harper announced that he would "absolutely vote No" in the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, going on to say that he would like to help the Better Together campaign and that there was a "significant minority" of Greens who were opposed to independence.