John Home Robertson

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John Home Robertson (born December 5, 1948) is a Labour politician in Scotland. He is currently a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for East Lothian after having served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1978 to 2001.

Home Robertson was born in Edinburgh and educated at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire and at the West of Scotland Agricultural College. He married Catherine Brewster in 1977 and they have two grown-up sons. Before his election to Parliament, he ran his family farm in Berwickshire, and he was a member of Berwickshire District Council from 1974-78. As a delegate to the Labour Party Conference in 1976, he 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 and Defence Select Committees. He also spent time as an Opposition Whip, as Labour Front Bench Spokesman on Agriculture and Scottish Affairs and as the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Dr Jack Cunningham at the Ministry of Agriculture and then at the Cabinet Office.

One of Home Robertson's forebears was a Member of the (original) Parliament of Scotland, for Berwickshire, in 1707 who opposed the Act of Union. In 1988, Home Robertson gave his family's historic home, Paxton House, to the nation. It is managed for the public by the Paxton Trust, and is a Partner Gallery of the National Galleries of Scotland.

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 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 is now a member of the Communities Committee and the European and External Relations Committee in the Parliament.

He has announced he will stand down from the Scottish Parliament at the May 2007 election. [1]

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by John Mackintosh	Member of Parliament for Berwick and East Lothian 1978–1983	Succeeded by constituency abolished
Preceded by new constituency	Member of Parliament for East Lothian 1983–2001	Succeeded by Anne Picking