{"id":961071,"date":"2026-05-15T07:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T07:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/961071\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T07:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T07:38:18","slug":"kenneth-gibson-elected-as-holyroods-presiding-officer-the-nen-north-edinburgh-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/961071\/","title":{"rendered":"Kenneth Gibson elected as Holyrood\u2019s Presiding Officer \u2013 The NEN \u2013 North Edinburgh News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nen.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/holyrood-ken-gibson-scaled.png?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"660\" height=\"318\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/holyrood-ken-gibson.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-229509\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.scot\/msps\/current-and-previous-msps\/kenneth-gibson\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Kenneth Gibson MSP<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u00a0has been elected as the Scottish Parliament\u2019s seventh Presiding Officer.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Upon election, the new Presiding Officer said: \u201cIt is a huge privilege to be elected as the Parliament\u2019s Presiding Officer, and I want to thank MSPs for placing their trust in me.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cAs Presiding Officer I will be bold, innovative and imaginative and will work in the interests of all Members.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cIt\u2019s clear that Parliament needs to reform and to renew its relationship with the people. Scotland needs a Parliament that is vibrant, relevant and trusted. I will play my part in delivering that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nen.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ken-gibson-presiding-officer.jpg?ssl=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"600\" height=\"799\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/ken-gibson-presiding-officer.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-229510\"  \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"\"><strong>In his acceptance speech, Kenneth Gibson MSP, Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament added: \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to working with every single Member in this Chamber to take this Parliament forward.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"\">\u201cI think there is so much more we can be as a Parliament than we have been in the past and I will certainly do my utmost in taking us forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The election took place following a secret ballot of newly elected Members. Other nominees included\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.scot\/msps\/current-and-previous-msps\/clare-haughey\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Clare Haughey MSP<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.scot\/msps\/current-and-previous-msps\/liam-mcarthur\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Liam McArthur MSP<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.scot\/msps\/current-and-previous-msps\/stuart-mcmillan\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Stuart McMillan MSP<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">Kenneth Gibson MSP has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Cunninghame North since 2007, having previously represented the Glasgow electoral region from 1999 to 2003, as a Scottish National Party MSP. <\/p>\n<p class=\"\">He was Convenor of the Finance and Public Administration Committee in the fourth and sixth sessions of Parliament and was the first MSP to lodge plans for a ban of smoking in public places.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\">The outgoing Presiding Officer,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.parliament.scot\/msps\/current-and-previous-msps\/alison-johnstone\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Alison Johnstone MSP<\/a>, presided over the Presiding Officer election.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kenneth Gibson MSP\u00a0has been elected as the Scottish Parliament\u2019s seventh Presiding Officer. Upon election, the new Presiding Officer&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":961072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-961071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116577457171155794","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/961072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}