The Rt Hon Ken Macintosh was elected to be the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament during the fifth session which ran from 2016 to 2021. Ken was first elected in 1999 to represent the constituency of Eastwood just south of Glasgow. He held the Eastwood seat in the 2003, 2007 and 2011 Scottish Parliamentary elections. He was a ministerial aide to the then First Minister Jack McConnell and, as a backbencher, he introduced a Member’s Bill designed to tackle skin cancer and proposing tougher regulation of sunbed parlours. In opposition, he has served as Shadow Minister for Schools and Skills; Culture and External Affairs; Education; Finance; Social Justice; and Community. In 2011 and again in 2015, Ken ran to be the Leader of the Scottish Labour Party. In 2016, Ken was returned as an MSP for the West Scotland region before being elected as the Scottish Parliament’s fifth Presiding Officer. He stood down as an MSP at May’s election.
Ken was born in Inverness and went to primary school in Portree then Oban before moving to the Royal High School in Edinburgh. He graduated from the University of Edinburgh in 1984 with a MA in History. Before entering Parliament in 1999, he was a television producer for BBC News working on programmes such as Breakfast with Frost, the Nine o’clock News and Election or Budget specials. He is married to Claire and the couple live in Busby with their six children.
