Roseanna Cunningham
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Mairi Gougeon (Land Reform)
Roseanna Cunningham (born 27 July 1951) is a retired Scottish National Party (SNP) politician who served as Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform from 2016 to 2021. She was previously Cabinet Secretary for Fair Work, Skills and Training from 2014 until 2016.
She served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Perth from 1999 to 2011, and then for Perthshire South and Kinross-shire from 2011 to 2021. She was formerly Member of Parliament (MP) for Perth and Kinross from 1995 to 1997, then for Perth from 1997 to 2001.
Cunningham was born on 27 July 1951 in Glasgow to Catherine and Hugh Cunningham,[1] and spent her early years living in East Lothian and Edinburgh. In 1960, she emigrated with her family to Perth in Australia, and completed her schooling at John Curtin High School in Fremantle. As a teenager she became interested in politics, and in 1969 joined the SNP as an overseas member. In 1975 Cunningham graduated from the University of Western Australia with a BA Hons in politics.[1] She returned to Scotland in 1976.
She worked as a research assistant at SNP headquarters from 1977 to 1979,[1] and was a member of the left-wing 79 Group inside the SNP during the early 1980s, but avoided expulsion as she was not a member of its steering committee (future SNP leader Alex Salmond by contrast who served on the 79 Group committee was expelled, while Margo MacDonald resigned from the party in protest before she could be expelled).
Cunningham returned to university in 1980, graduating from the University of Edinburgh in 1982 with a Bachelor of Laws degree, followed in 1983 by a Diploma in Legal Practice from the University of Aberdeen.[1] She worked as a solicitor for Dumbarton District Council and Glasgow District Council. After a brief period in private practice, she was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1990.[1]
