Fiona Grace McLeod (born 3 December 1957) is a Scottish politician who served as acting Minister for Children and Young People from 2014 to 2015. A member of the

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), she was

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 Strathkelvin and Bearsden constituency from

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

, having previously represented the West of Scotland region from

1999 1999 was designated as the International Year of Older Persons. Events January * January 1 – The euro currency is established and the European Central Bank assumes its full powers. * January 3 – The Mars Polar Lander is launc ...

2003 2003 was designated by the United Nations as the International Year of Fresh water, Freshwater. In 2003, a Multi-National Force – Iraq, United States-led coalition 2003 invasion of Iraq, invaded Iraq, starting the Iraq War. Demographic ...

Background

She was born on 3 December 1957 in

Glasgow Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...

, Scotland. She studied

History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

University of Glasgow The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals; ) is a Public university, public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the List of oldest universities in continuous ...

, before gaining a

Postgraduate Diploma fILE:Prédio Pós Graduação IMECC Unicamp.jpg, The State University of Campinas, as well as many Brazilian universities, offer Postgraduate courses in Brazil A postgraduate diploma (PgD, PgDip, PGDip, PG Dip., PGD, Dipl. PGD) is a postgraduat ...

Librarianship Library and information science (LIS)Library and Information Sciences is the name used in the Dewey Decimal Classification for class 20 from the 18th edition (1971) to the 22nd edition (2003). are two interconnected disciplines that deal with inf ...

University of Strathclyde The University of Strathclyde () is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal charter in 1964 as the first techn ...

. She worked as a librarian at Glasgow North College of Nursing and the Marie Curie Huntershill Hospice. She was appointed to

Ofcom The Office of Communications, commonly known as Ofcom, is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, internet, telecommunications and mail, postal industries of the United Kingdom. Ofcom has wide-rang ...

's Scottish Advisory Committee from 2004 to 2006, and was a founding member of Westerton Junior Youth Club.

Scottish Parliament

In the 1999 election she stood as a constituency candidate in Strathkelvin and Bearsden, where she was runner-up to Labour candidate Sam Galbraith. She had been placed fourth on the SNP's West of Scotland list, and was elected as a MSP through this route. She served as Deputy Party Spokesperson on the Environment. Galbraith resigned his seat in 2001 but McLeod did not stand in the subsequent by-election as this would have meant resigning her seat. However she did contest the seat in the 2003 election but finished fourth, behind

Jean Turner Jean McGivern Turner (born 23 December 1939) is a Scottish medical doctor and former independent (politician), Independent politician. She was the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Strathkelvin and Bearsden (Scottish Parliament con ...

(an independent), Brian Fitzpatrick (who had won the by-election) and

Jo Swinson Joanne Kate Swinson (born 5 February 1980) is a former British politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from July to December 2019. Swinson was Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for East Dunbartonshire ( ...

(who would later become MP for part of the seat). She also only placed 7th on the SNP list for West of Scotland and so also lost her top-up place in parliament. In the 2011 Scottish Parliament general election she won the constituency of Strathkelvin and Bearsden following the SNP landslide victory, defeating David Whitton on a swing of 7.7%. She served as acting Minister for Children and Young People, from 18 December 2014 until 31 August 2015, during Aileen Campbell MSP's maternity leave. This was the first time that a Minister of the Scottish Government had taken maternity leave. In May 2015, Mcleod announced that she would not be standing for re-election to Parliament the following year.

After Parliament

In 2004, she became one of the first members of

's Advisory Committee for Scotland. In November 2016 she was announced as a member of the

Commission on Parliamentary Reform The Commission on Parliamentary Reform was an independent group, established in October 2016 by Ken Macintosh, the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament. It is chaired by John McCormick and published its report, with recommendations, on 2 ...

, having been nominated to represent the SNP. In August 2017, the Scottish Book Trust appointed her as a member of its Board of Trustees.

Personal life

McLeod is married with one son.

References

External links

* *
Strathkelvin & Bearsden SNPFiona McLeod MSP
on TheyWorkForYou.com {{DEFAULTSORT:McLeod, Fiona 1957 births Living people Politicians from Glasgow Alumni of the University of Glasgow Alumni of the University of Strathclyde Scottish women librarians Scottish librarians Scottish National Party MSPs Female members of the Scottish Parliament Members of the Scottish Parliament 1999–2003 Members of the Scottish Parliament 2011–2016 20th-century Scottish women politicians