What do you think is your biggest achievement so far?
It’s quite difficult to say what my greatest achievements are partly because politics is a collaborative business and there are usually a number of people who work to make things happen. I’d like to mention two examples. When I was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999 I was given the challenging job of being Convenor of the Parliament’s Health and Community Care Committee. Our cross party Committee decided that we wanted to look at the issue of care of the elderly and effectively dust down Sir Stewart Sutherland’s Royal Commission report which had been put to one side by the UK Government. After a year long inquiry the Committee published a unanimous report saying that Scotland should introduce free personal care for the elderly even though the largest party in Parliament, the Labour party, hadn’t had this as a policy. Having heard the evidence from across Scotland we believed this was a fair way forward in caring for older people. That was the beginning of a Scottish Parliamentary campaign that ultimately saw the acceptance of this policy by all parties and the passage of legislation which means that Scottish pensioners in need of care in their own homes and in care homes have a level of financial assistance from the state which is better than elsewhere in the UK.
More recently I welcomed the fact that the UK and Scottish Governments have been working together to change the law on Fatal Accident Inquiries to allow Scots military personnel who have died on service overseas to be the subject of an FAI in Scotland rather than their families having to travel hundreds of miles to Coroner’s inquests in England. I originally raised my concerns about this when I was a Justice spokesperson and made enquiries about the possibility of bringing a Members Bill to Parliament. However, it’s a very complex issue and I eventually accepted assurances from the Justice Minister that the two governments would take this on. Coroner’s legislation is now going ahead to make this very welcome change and I’m just pleased that I could play a small part in tackling this issue.