Angus MacKay (Scottish politician)

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Angus MacKay (born 10 September 1964) is a Scottish politician from the Labour Party. He was the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Edinburgh South from 1999 to 2003 and served as Minister for Finance and Local Government from 2000 to 2001.

Early life and education
MacKay was born in Edinburgh. He went to St Augustine’s High School and studied at the University of Edinburgh, where he earned an MA in Politics and Modern History.

Career before politics
He worked for Shelter Scotland (1987–1990). He was a parliamentary researcher for MPs Adam Ingram and Mo Mowlam, and a political adviser to Henry McLeish. He also served as Press Co-ordinator for George Robertson during the 1997 UK General Election.

Local government
MacKay was elected to the City of Edinburgh Council in 1995 and became Convenor of Finance in 1997. He left local government when he was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

Scottish Parliament and government roles
In the 1999 election, Labour formed a coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Donald Dewar appointed MacKay as Deputy Minister for Justice, with responsibilities for land reform and the Scottish Executive’s drugs policy. In 2000 he announced a ten-year plan to tackle Scotland’s drug crisis, aimed at very young users. He faced calls to resign after claiming the sex offenders register was Westminster business, a point he later acknowledged was devolved. He also worked on measures to allow asset seizure of drug dealers, within human rights rules.

Minister for Finance and Local Government
After Donald Dewar’s death in 2000, Henry McLeish became First Minister and promoted MacKay to Minister for Finance and Local Government. He served in that role until 2001, when he was removed from the cabinet in a reshuffle by Jack McConnell.

Later life
In the 2003 Scottish Parliament election, MacKay was not re-elected, losing Edinburgh South to Liberal Democrat Mike Pringle. In 2003 he and Gail Hannah founded MacKay Hannah Ltd in Edinburgh to influence policy making, inform policy development, connect with decision makers, and build networks.