Green MSPs 2007 - 2011
Robin Harper
First elected MSP for Lothians in 1999
Robin Harper's election success in May 1999 saw him returned as Britain's first Green Parliamentarian, and he was re-elected as MSP for the Lothians in 2003 and again in 2007. He stood down from Holyrood at dissolution in 2011, but he quotes Tony Benn: I'm leaving Parliament to spend more time on politics.
Robin was born in 1940 in Thurso, Caithness, and is a graduate of both Edinburgh and Aberdeen Universities. He taught English in Kenya, then Modern Studies at Boroughmuir before entering Parliament. He took part in the 1959 Aldermaston March against nuclear weapons, and joined the Ecology Party (as the Green Party was then) in 1985, the same day the French secret service sank the Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland harbour. He has been enthusiastically involved for what seems like every day of his life since.
He has served as the Scottish Green Party's Principal Speaker and then Co-Convenor until 2008. He sat on Parliament's Public Petitions Committee, and supported many of the Parliament's Cross Party Groups, particularly the CPG Renewables and Energy Efficiency, CPG Architecture, CPG Learning Disability, and the CPG Children and Young People.
Between 2000 and 2003 Robin served as Rector of Edinburgh University, and between 2005 and 2008 as Rector of Aberdeen University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and both President and a Fellow of the Royal Scottish Society for the Arts.
Robin is a patron or a member of the Board of five arts organisations: Communicado; Sounds of the Future; the Savoy Theatre; the Aberdeen University Gilbert and Sullivan Society and the Forth Children's Theatre, and previously served on the boards of WHALE Arts and the Traverse Theatre.
He is a keen musician, playing the guitar and the trumpet, including with the Scottish Parliament's Brass Ensemble. He is a moderate Munro-bagger, and has run five Edinburgh marathons as well as the Glasgow and London marathons.
Patrick Harvie
First elected MSP for Glasgow in 2003
Born in the Vale of Leven, Dunbartonshire, Patrick Harvie was elected as Glasgow's Green MSP in 2003 and has been Co-convenor of the Scottish Green Party since 2008. During the 2007-2011 Parliamentary session, Patrick was Convener of the Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee.
He is also Convener or Co-convenor of Cross Party Groups on subjects including Sexual Health, Refugees and Asylum Seekers, Food and International Development. He is also the Green spokesperson for Finance & Sustainable Growth, Health & Wellbeing and Justice.
Patrick’s political career includes involvement in the Campaign to Repeal Section 28 in 1999-2000; various roles at regional and national level in the Scottish Green Party; and the Scottish Coalition for Justice Not War 2001-2003.
Before his election to Parliament, Patrick was employed with the Gay Men’s Project at the sexual health agency PHACE Scotland (now known as THT Scotland), initially as a youth worker and then as Development Worker (Lanarkshire). Working at PHACE, Patrick was involved in research, groupwork, one-to-one support work, resource development, fundraising, equality policy work and training in assertiveness, sexual health, equality and discrimination issues.
Patrick retains an interest in sexual health which developed during his work at PHACE Scotland. Other interests include media & technology (particularly in relation to freedom of information, copyright issues and the Free Software movement), citizenship, global justice issues, food culture, equality and ecological issues with a focus on the urban environment. Patrick’s spare time interests include food & drink, science fiction and exercise. He once solved the Rubik’s cube in a minute and a half, but takes a little longer these days.
