Roseanna Cunningham

Early life

Cunningham was born in Glasgow and spent her early years living in East Lothian and Edinburgh. In 1960 she emigrated with her family to Perth in Australia, and completed her schooling at John Curtin High School in Fremantle. She became interested in politics while still a teenager and joined the SNP in 1969 as an overseas member. Cunningham graduated from the University of Western Australia in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in politics, before returning to Scotland.

She worked as a researcher at SNP headquarters from 1977 to 1979 and was a member of the left-wing 79 Group inside the SNP during the early 1980s, but avoided expulsion as she was not a member of its steering committee (future SNP leader Alex Salmond by contrast who served on the 79 Group committee was expelled, whilst Margo MacDonald resigned from the party in protest before she could be expelled).

Cunningham returned to university in 1980, graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 1982 with a Bachelor of Laws degree, followed by a Diploma in Legal Practice from the University of Aberdeen in 1983. She worked as a solicitor for Dumbarton District Council and Glasgow District Council. After a brief period in private practice, she became an advocate in 1990.

Political career

In the 1992 general election Cunningham stood in the Perth and Kinross constituency, only losing by around 2,000 votes.

In 1995 when she won the bitter Perth and Kinross by-election to replace the Conservative MP, Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, who had died. She had initially been left off the SNP's candidate shortlist over her brief relationship in the 1970s with Donald Bain, the former husband of SNP stalwart Margaret Ewing, on the grounds that the issue could prove an embarrassment to the party. She was put back in contention following an intervention by the then party leader Alex Salmond, and after Ewing made clear she had no objection to Cunningham's candidature.

In the 1997 election, she stood for the Perth constituency and was elected.

In 1999 she became the MSP for Perth and continues to represent the area in the Scottish Parliament to this day. In 2000 she was elected the SNP Senior Vice-Convener (depute leader). Also in that year she helped establish the Scottish Left Review publication. She stood down as an MP in 2001, to concentrate on the Scottish Parliament.

John Swinney announced his resignation as leader of the SNP on 22 June 2004, and on the same day Roseanna Cunningham announced that she would be a candidate in the subsequent election for the party leadership. In the early stages of the campaign she appeared to be the clear front-runner, but the entirely unexpected decision of the popular former leader Alex Salmond to enter the race just before nominations closed changed everything, and Cunningham ultimately finished a distant second.

She is sometimes known as "Republican Rose" for her well-known support for the replacement of the monarchy with an elected head of state.

In December 2006 she led an unsuccessful attempt to prevent same-sex couples gaining the right to adopt children, despite having previously been named ScotsGay Parliamentarian of the Year in 1998. When legislation to introduce same-sex marriage in Scotland was passed by the Scottish Parliament in February 2014, she had voted against the bill.

In the first reshuffle of the SNP Government in February 2009, Cunningham was appointed as Minister for the Environment. In December 2010, she also took on portfolio responsibility for climate change, becoming Minister for the Environment and Climate Change. After the 2011 election, which saw a SNP landslide, she was appointed Minister for Community Safety and Legal Affairs with special responsibility for tackling sectarianism.

In Nicola Sturgeon's first reshuffle in November 2014, she was promoted to Cabinet as Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, Skills and Training.