Patricia Marwick (née Lee; born 5 November 1953) is a Scottish politician who served as
Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament
sco, Preses o the Scots Pairlament
, body =
, member_of = Scottish Parliamentary Corporate BodyScottish Parliament
, insignia = Scottish_Parliament_logo_purple_vertical.png
, insigniasize = 150px
, insigniacaption = Logo used to represent ...
from 2011 to 2016. She was a
Member of the Scottish Parliament
Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP; gd, Ball Pàrlamaid na h-Alba, BPA; sco, Memmer o the Scots Pairliament, MSP) is the title given to any one of the 129 individuals elected to serve in the Scottish Parliament.
Electoral system
The ad ...
(MSP) from
1999
File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...
to
2016
File:2016 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Bombed-out buildings in Ankara following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt; the impeachment trial of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff; Damaged houses during the 2016 Nagorno-Karabakh ...
. Elected as a member of the
Scottish National Party
The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...
(SNP), she suspended her membership in 2011 upon her election as presiding officer, following the tradition of the presiding officer being nonpartisan.
Born in
Cowdenbeath
Cowdenbeath (; sco, Coudenbeith) is a town and burgh in west Fife, Scotland. It is north-east of Dunfermline and north of the capital, Edinburgh. The town grew up around the extensive coalfields of the area and became a police burgh in 18 ...
and raised in Fife, she worked for
Shelter Scotland before becoming a politician. In the
first ever Scottish Parliament election, Marwick ran as an SNP candidate for the
Central Fife constituency, but came second to
Henry McLeish
Henry Baird McLeish (born 15 June 1948) is a Scottish politician, author and academic who served as First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Labour Party in Scotland from 2000 to 2001. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Central Fife from ...
. Although she failed to win the seat in
two elections, she was elected as an
additional member for the
Mid Scotland and Fife region. In the
2007 Scottish Parliament election
The 2007 Scottish Parliament election was held on Thursday 3 May 2007 to elect members to the Scottish Parliament. It was the third general election to the devolved Scottish Parliament since it was created in 1999. Local elections in Scotland fe ...
, she defeated
Scottish Labour
Scottish Labour ( gd, Pàrtaidh Làbarach na h-Alba, sco, Scots Labour Pairty; officially the Scottish Labour Party) is a social democratic political party in Scotland. It is an autonomous section of the UK Labour Party. From their peak of ...
's
Christine May, and was elected to served as the MSP for Central Fife.
Following the
2011 election to the
4th Scottish Parliament
This is a list of members (MSPs) returned to the fourth Scottish Parliament at the 2011 general election. Of the 129 MSPs, 73 were elected from first past the post constituencies with a further 56 members being returned from eight regions, ea ...
, Marwick was elected to the newly drawn
Mid Fife and Glenrothes constituency. With the SNP's outright majority, she was elected as the fourth
Presiding Officer of the
Scottish Parliament
The Scottish Parliament ( gd, Pàrlamaid na h-Alba ; sco, Scots Pairlament) is the devolved, unicameral legislature of Scotland. Located in the Holyrood area of the capital city, Edinburgh, it is frequently referred to by the metonym Holyro ...
. Marwick is the first woman to hold the position of office. As the Presiding Officer is a non-partisan role, she was forced to relinquish her party affiliation. She stood down from the Scottish Parliament in the
2016 election and the from 2016 to 2020, she served as chair of the
NHS Fife
NHS Fife is an NHS board which provides healthcare services in Fife, Scotland. It is one of the fourteen regions of NHS Scotland.
Hospitals
The board runs two main hospitals:
* Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy
* Queen Margaret Hospital in D ...
board.
Early life and career
Patricia Lee was born on 5 November 1953 in
Cowdenbeath
Cowdenbeath (; sco, Coudenbeith) is a town and burgh in west Fife, Scotland. It is north-east of Dunfermline and north of the capital, Edinburgh. The town grew up around the extensive coalfields of the area and became a police burgh in 18 ...
and was brought up in
Fife
Fife (, ; gd, Fìobha, ; sco, Fife) is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross (i ...
, one of seven siblings.
She worked as
Public Affairs Officer for
Shelter Scotland, a charity for homeless people, from 1992 to 1999.
Member of the Scottish Parliament
At the
1999 Scottish Parliamentary election, Marwick was elected as a member for the
Mid Scotland and Fife region. She served on the SNP
opposition frontbench team as Deputy Business Manager (1999–2000), Shadow Minister for Local Government (2004), Business Manager and Chief Whip (2004–2005) and Shadow Minister for Housing (2005–2007). Marwick served as a member of the Scottish Parliament's Standards, Justice and Home Affairs, Equal Opportunities, Local Government and Communities committees and as convenor of the Waverly Railway (Scotland) Bill committee (2004–06).
At the
2003
File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...
Scottish Parliamentary election she contested the Central Fife seat and, although she narrowly failed to win the seat, she was re-elected to serve as a member for Mid Scotland and Fife. Marwick contested Central Fife again in
2007
File:2007 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: Steve Jobs unveils Apple's first iPhone; TAM Airlines Flight 3054 overruns a runway and crashes into a gas station, killing almost 200 people; Former Pakistani Prime Minister of Pakistan, Pr ...
and was elected as the constituencies MSP after defeating the
Labour
Labour or labor may refer to:
* Childbirth, the delivery of a baby
* Labour (human activity), or work
** Manual labour, physical work
** Wage labour, a socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer
** Organized labour and the labour ...
incumbent,
Christine May, with a majority of 1,166 votes.
Following the 2007 election Marwick was appointed as the SNP's representative on the
Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body
The Scottish Parliamentary Corporate Body (SPCB) is a body of the Scottish Parliament responsible for the administration of the parliament. It also has a role in provision of services to commissioners and other statutory appointments made by the ...
, and oversaw parliamentary access and information issues.
Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament
In the
2011 election, Marwick was elected for the Mid Fife and Glenrothes constituency, essentially a redrawing of her old Central Fife seat. On 11 May 2011, when Parliament reconvened, Marwick was elected to serve as the 4th Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, having won support from the majority of members in the second round of voting. She became the first woman and second SNP member to serve in the position. In October 2012, Marwick accepted a nomination to join the
Privy Council
A privy council is a body that advises the head of state of a state, typically, but not always, in the context of a monarchic government. The word "privy" means "private" or "secret"; thus, a privy council was originally a committee of the mon ...
, meaning that she is styled the
Rt Hon.
''The Right Honourable'' (abbreviation: ''Rt Hon.'' or variations) is an honorific style traditionally applied to certain persons and collective bodies in the United Kingdom, the former British Empire and the Commonwealth of Nations. The term is ...
Tricia Marwick MSP.
On 29 May 2015, it was announced that Marwick would stand down as Presiding Officer at the
2016 election. She also left elected politics as a whole. Upon standing down, she was made an offer to have her name put forward for an honour from the Queen but turned the offer down.
After Parliament
Marwick was announced as the new chair for the
NHS Fife
NHS Fife is an NHS board which provides healthcare services in Fife, Scotland. It is one of the fourteen regions of NHS Scotland.
Hospitals
The board runs two main hospitals:
* Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy
* Queen Margaret Hospital in D ...
board in November 2016, replacing Allan Burns who resigned from the post in August 2016. Her appointment as chair ran from 1 January 2017 until 31 December 2020.
In 2021 Marwick tweeted journalist
Fraser Nelson
Fraser Andrew Nelson (born 14 May 1973) is a British political journalist and editor of ''The Spectator'' magazine.
Early and personal life
Nelson was born in Truro, Cornwall, England but raised in Nairn, Highland, Scotland. He attended Nairn A ...
, who had published articles critical of the Scottish Government, that, "We see you Fraser. We see what you are trying to do. Have never seen you challenge Westminster Governments. Scottish birth not alone does a Scotsman make, sometimes it signifies a Scotsman on the make." Nelson replied, “While raised in the Highlands I guess I was never quite properly Scottish. How could you tell?”
The Scottish Conservatives said Marwick "should clearly have known better than to pander to the most extreme wing of her party" and she deleted the tweet.
In 2022 a student newspaper at St Andrew's University ran a satirical article in which it criticised Nicola Sturgeon as "too scary" for Hell and suggested that England “boot Scotland out of the union”. Marwick denounced St Andrew's as “not a Fife university” and described students as “pathetic wee trolls”. “I regret the Saint run by the University of St Andrews students just buys into every stereotype we Fifers have of them," she tweeted. “Poor souls who failed to get into Oxbridge display every prejudice; anti Scottish and anti women.” Local MSP Willie Rennie and MP Wendy Chamberlain said: “It was one article, published by one student out of several thousand students and staff at St Andrews. It does not represent the views of staff and students. It was therefore wholly unacceptable for the chair of NHS Fife to trash the whole university with offensive remarks too.” Marwick later deleted the tweet.
Personal life
Marwick's niece is
Natalie McGarry
Natalie McGarry (born 7 September 1981) is a Scottish former politician who served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Glasgow East from 2015 to 2017. She was elected as a Scottish National Party (SNP) candidate in the 2015 general election bu ...
, the former MP for
Glasgow East.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Marwick, Tricia
1953 births
Living people
Members of the Scottish Parliament 1999–2003
Members of the Scottish Parliament 2003–2007
Members of the Scottish Parliament 2007–2011
Members of the Scottish Parliament 2011–2016
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
People from Cowdenbeath
Presiding Officers of the Scottish Parliament
Scottish National Party MSPs
Scottish public relations people
Female members of the Scottish Parliament
20th-century Scottish women politicians