FOR THE second time within a score of years Greenock’s reigning MP has been appointed secretary of state for Scotland.

Mr Hector McNeil has now been given the honour by Mr Attlee and takes his place in the newly constituted cabinet announced today.

Mr McNeil, formerly a minister of state, with a salary of £3,000 a year, now becomes a full member of the cabinet with a salary of £5,000.

(Image: archive) Sir Godfrey Collins, Greenock’s MP for 26 years, who died in 1936, was secretary of state for Scotland from 1932 until his death, but he was not a member of the cabinet, holding only cabinet rank.

Sir Godfrey accepted the post from the late Mr Ramsay MacDonald.

Mr McNeil succeeds Mr Arthur Woodburn at St Andrew’s House. His appointment is invested with a certain piquancy as Mr Woodburn was the author of the new township scheme at Houston, opposed by Greenock Corporation.

When the plan was announced Mr McNeil said: “I share the doubts expressed by Provost Boyd and I mean to associate myself with that attitude.

“I considered that this Is not the most appropriate time to be planning new towns.”

The new secretary of state is 40 years of age and was returned unopposed as Greenock MP in the 1941 by-election which followed Mr Robert Gibson’s appointment to the chairmanship of the Scottish Land Court.

He was successful at the 1945 election when he secured an 8000 majority over his conservative opponent, Lord Malcolm Douglas Hamilton.

From 1942 Mr McNeil served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr P J Noel-Baker at the ministry of transport and on the formation of the government after the 1945 general election he became parliamentary under-secretary of state at the foreign office.

In November, 1946, he became Minister of State in succession to Mr Noel-Baker, who was promoted to the office of Secretary of State for Air.

Mr McNeil headed the British delegation to the second session of the United Nations’ General Assembly at Lake Success in September, 1947, and to the Freedom of Information Conference at Geneva early in 1948.

Early in 1949. he took part in the UNO debate on the Italian peace treaties in America, and he also attended UNO conferences in New York later in the year.

This article was first publish in the Greenock Telegraph in June 1975.