John Home Robertson

John Home-Robertson (born December 5, 1948) is a Labour politician in Scotland. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Berwick and East Lothian and East Lothian from 1978 to 2001 and a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for East Lothian from 1999 until 2007.

Family

He was born at 18 Eglinton Crescent, Edinburgh, the son of John Wallace Robertson, Lieutenant-Colonel of the King's Own Scottish Borderers regiment, who assumed the additional surname in 1933, by Scottish Licence, of Home following his marriage that year to Helen Margaret (1905-1987), elder daughter and heiress of David William Milne-Home (1873-1918), of Wedderburn & Paxton, Berwickshire. [ "Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed, and Official Classes", 69th edition, London, 1943: 944]

John Home-Robertson was educated at Farleigh School in Hampshire, the Roman Catholic Ampleforth College in Yorkshire, and at the West of Scotland Agricultural College. He married Catherine, née Brewster, in 1977, and they have two adult sons. Before his election to Parliament, he ran his family farm in Berwickshire. In 1988, Home-Robertson placed his maternal family's historic home and grounds, Paxton House, in a Historic Buildings Preservation Trust, and opened it to the public. It is managed for the public by the Paxton Trust, which is a Partner Gallery of the National Galleries of Scotland.

Political career

He was a member of Berwickshire District Council from 1974-78, and of the Borders NHS Health Board 1975-78. One of his Home forebears was a Member of the (original) Parliament of Scotland, for Berwickshire, in 1707 who opposed the Act of Union. As a delegate to the Labour Party Conference in 1976, Home-Robertson moved the resolution which committed the Party to devolution for Scotland, and throughout his career at Westminster he campaigned for the establishment of the Scottish Parliament.

Home-Robertson was the successful Labour candidate at the Berwick and East Lothian by-election in 1978, following the death of Labour MP John P Mackintosh. He represented Berwick and East Lothian until the 1983 general election, when the constituency was abolished and he was elected for the new constituency of East Lothian. He was re-elected at subsequent general elections before standing down at the 2001 election, when he was replaced by Anne Picking.

At Westminster, Home-Robertson served on the Scottish Affairs (1979-83) and Defence (1990 -) Select Committees, and was Chairman of the Scottish Group of Labour M.P.s, 1982-83. He also spent time as Opposition Scottish Whip, 1983-84, as Labour's Opposition Front Bench Spokesman on: Agriculture (1984-87), Scottish Affairs (1987-88), Agricultural and Rural Affairs (1988 -), and on Food (1989 -) [ "Dod's Parliamentary Companion 1991", 172nd edition, Hurst Green, East Sussex, ISBN 0-905702-17-4 : 484 ] . He was also Parliamentary Private Secretary to Dr Jack Cunningham at the Ministry of Agriculture and then at the Cabinet Office.

After his election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999, Home-Robertson was the Scottish Executive Deputy Minister for Rural Affairs, with responsibility for fisheries and forestry in the late Donald Dewar's administration. In 2001 he took on convenership of the Holyrood Progress Group, which had responsibility for overseeing the completion of the Scottish Parliament Building project. He was a member of the Communities Committee and the European and External Relations Committee in the Parliament.

He has announced he would stand down from the Scottish Parliament at the May 2007 election [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6136904.stm] , and the seat was taken by Iain Gray.

See also

* List of Scottish Executive Ministerial Teams

External links

* [http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/msp/membersPages/john_home_robertson/index.htm Scottish Parliament biography]
* [http://www.scotland.gov.uk Scottish Executive]