Emma Roddick (born 30 July 1997) is a

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic party. The party holds 61 of the 129 seats in the Scottish Parliament, and holds 9 out of the 57 Scottish seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, ...

(SNP) politician. Emma served as the Minister for Equalities, Migration and Refugees between 2023 and 2024; stepping down when

John Swinney John Ramsay Swinney (born 13 April 1964) is a Scottish politician who has served as First Minister of Scotland, first minister of Scotland since 2024. Swinney has served as Leader of the Scottish National Party, leader of the Scottish National ...

was appointed first minister She has been a

Member of the Scottish Parliament Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP; ; ) is the title given to any one of the 129 individuals elected to serve in the Scottish Parliament. Electoral system The additional member system produces a form of proportional representation, where ...

(MSP) for

Highlands and Islands The Highlands and Islands is an area of Scotland broadly covering the Scottish Highlands, plus Orkney, Shetland, and the Outer Hebrides (Western Isles). The Highlands and Islands are sometimes defined as the area to which the Crofters' Act o ...

since May 2021.

Early life

Roddick was born to Sue, a social worker, and Davy Roddick and lived in

Alness Alness (, ; ) is a town and civil parishes in Scotland, civil parish in Ross and Cromarty, Scotland. It lies near the mouth of the River Averon, near the Cromarty Firth, with the town of Invergordon to the east, and the village of Evanton to ...

from an early age. She moved to Inverness as a teenager to work in a temporary position at

University of the Highlands and Islands The University of the Highlands and Islands (UHI) () is an integrated, tertiary institution encompassing both further and higher education. It is composed of 10 colleges and research institutions spread around Inverness, the Highlands and Isl ...

, while also working on her bike for

Deliveroo Deliveroo is a British multinational online food delivery company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It operates in the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar. It formerly ...

. Both of her parents had died by the time she was elected in May 2021. She formerly worked for the

Scottish Ambulance Service The Scottish Ambulance Service () is part of NHS Scotland, which serves all of Scotland, Scotland's population. The Scottish Ambulance Service is governed by a NHS Scotland#Special health boards, special health board and is funded directly by t ...

. Roddick, who has Borderline personality disorder (BPD) and

PTSD Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that develops from experiencing a traumatic event, such as sexual assault, domestic violence, child abuse, warfare and its associated traumas, natural disaster, traffic collision, ...

, started a petition in 2017 to improve the available services from Scotland's NHS24 helpline. In 2020 the campaign proved successful, and NHS 24 added option 3 to their service.

Political career

In November 2019 she was elected in a

by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, or a bypoll in India, is an election used to fill an office that has become vacant between general elections. A vacancy may arise as a result of an incumben ...

as a

Councillor A councillor, alternatively councilman, councilwoman, councilperson, or council member, is someone who sits on, votes in, or is a member of, a council. This is typically an elected representative of an electoral district in a municipal or re ...

, representing the Inverness Central ward of the

Highland Council The Highland Council (' ) is the local authority for Highland, one of the 32 council areas of Scotland. The council is based at the Highland Council Headquarters in Inverness. History The Highland area had been created as an administrative a ...

. Shortly after starting her campaign, she became the target of mostly anonymous online death and

rape threats A rape threat is a threat of rape or sexual assault made against another person. Rape threats are often made against prominent celebrities such as high-profile writers, actors, comedians, journalists, businessperson and politicians, and may often ...

, and had her home broken into twice. The month before, she refused to sign a petition opposing the Gender Recognition Act reforms, claiming the petition had "transphobic undertones". On 8 May 2021 she was elected as a

(MSP) for

. She was one of the youngest candidates seeking election, and the youngest MSP elected. After her election in 2021, Roddick, who had experienced homelessness as a teenager, spoke about the financial burdens of running for office which provide barriers to young and working-class people running, and highlighted the initial cost of being an MSP. In 2023, she was appointed to the Yousaf government as Minister for Equalities, Migration and Refugees, before stepping down in 2024 In November 2024, Roddick criticised SNP Westminster leader

Stephen Flynn Stephen Mark Flynn (born 13 October 1988) is a Scottish politician who has served as the leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) in the House of Commons since December 2022. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberdeen South si ...

for his decision to stand for a Holyrood seat at the

next Scottish Parliament election The next Scottish Parliament election is required to be held no later than Thursday 7 May 2026, to elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament. It will be the seventh general election since the parliament was re-established in 1999. Six partie ...

while still holding his Westminster seat. Party rules introduced in 2020 require SNP MPs to resign their seat at Westminster before seeking selection to Holyrood. Roddick wrote in a tweet that she hoped Flynn "rethinks" his plans to stand in both houses. Roddick's unconventionally-worded tweet was interpreted as an

acrostic An acrostic is a poem or other word composition in which the ''first'' letter (or syllable, or word) of each new line (or paragraph, or other recurring feature in the text) spells out a word, message or the alphabet. The term comes from the Fre ...

referring to Flynn as a "

prick Prick may refer to: * Prick (manufacturing), a style of marking tool * Goad or prick, a traditional farming implement * Fingerprick, a wound for blood sample * ''Prick'' (slang), vulgar slang for human penis or a derogatory term for a male * ''P ...

". In return, Roddick was subjected to negative press briefing by an unnamed SNP source to the ''

Daily Mail The ''Daily Mail'' is a British daily Middle-market newspaper, middle-market Tabloid journalism, tabloid conservative newspaper founded in 1896 and published in London. , it has the List of newspapers in the United Kingdom by circulation, h ...

'', accusing her of "rank hypocrisy" for previously " double-jobbing" as an MSP and councillor from 2021 until resigning her local authority seat in 2022, and describing her as "a rubbish MSP who has achieved nothing and has everything to lose from a more talented class of SNP politicians coming through to shake up Holyrood and inject a bit of imagination and life where lazy MSPs like her have so badly failed." The public dispute prompted an intervention by SNP Social Justice Secretary

Shirley-Anne Somerville Shirley-Anne Somerville (born 2 September 1974) is a Scottish politician who has served as Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice in the devolved Scottish government since 2023. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), she has been the Membe ...

, who issued a warning against negative briefings to the press and asked members to "leave yer 'sic''ego to the side for the benefit of a cause much bigger than any of us." In February 2025, Roddick was reported to be on an all-female "hit list" of SNP MSPs that were to be asked to stand down from the Scottish Parliament to make room for ex-MPs who had lost their seats in the

2024 UK general election The 2024 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday, 4 July 2024 to elect all 650 members of the House of Commons. The opposition Labour Party, led by Keir Starmer, won a landslide victory over the governing Conservative Party unde ...

. The alleged list was reported to have been drawn up at Stephen Flynn's direction by Aberdeenshire North and Moray East MP

Seamus Logan Seamus Logan (born 4 January 1958) is a British politician who has served as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East since July 2024. Born in Northern Ireland, Logan became active in Scottish politics in 2022. Ear ...

Personal life

Roddick plays the fiddle. She lives in

Merkinch Merkinch (from the Scottish Gaelic: ''Marc-Innis'', meaning "The Horse Island") is an area of the city of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. Originally an island separated from the rest of the city by a small river to the south known as The A ...

Inverness Inverness (; ; from the , meaning "Mouth of the River Ness") is a city in the Scottish Highlands, having been granted city status in 2000. It is the administrative centre for The Highland Council and is regarded as the capital of the Highland ...

and identifies as

bisexual Bisexuality is romantic attraction, sexual attraction, or sexual behavior toward both males and females. It may also be defined as the attraction to more than one gender, to people of both the same and different gender, or the attraction t ...

References

External links

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at Highland Council {{DEFAULTSORT:Roddick, Emma 1997 births Living people People from Alness Members of the Scottish Parliament 2021–2026 Scottish National Party MSPs Scottish National Party councillors Councillors in Highland (council area) Female members of the Scottish Parliament People with borderline personality disorder Bisexual women politicians Scottish bisexual women Scottish bisexual politicians LGBTQ members of the Scottish Parliament Women councillors in Scotland Women members of the Scottish Government Women government ministers in the United Kingdom