Richard Lochhead

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Richard Neilson Lochhead (born May 24, 1969) is a Scottish politician and Scottish National Party (SNP) Member of the Scottish Parliament for Moray. He was an MSP for North East Scotland from the 1999 election and re-elected at the 2003 election, but resigned in March 2006 in order to fight the Moray by-election. A native of Paisley, Lochhead graduated in politics from the University of Stirling. He worked for the SNP leader, Alex Salmond, as his Office Manager in 1994-1998. He was the SNP candidate in Gordon in the 1997 UK General Election, where he finished third. He subsequently fought the Aberdeen Central constituency in both 1999 and 2003, but came second to Lewis Macdonald each time.

He is a former convener of the European and External Relations Committee of the Scottish Parliament. He currently holds the SNP's portfolios on Environment, Energy, Fishing and Rural Affairs in the Scottish Parliament.

Lochhead is married to Fiona, and they live in Elgin with their young son Angus.

[edit] By-election

On 2 April 2006 he was selected as the SNP candidate for the Moray by-election, 2006. In January 2006 he had already been selected as the SNP candidate for Moray for the 2007 Scottish Parliament elections, following the announcement that Margaret Ewing MSP would be retiring. He beat Margaret Ewing's sister-in-law, former MP Annabelle Ewing in the selection.^[1] He resigned his regional seat on 7 April 2006, before his nomination as a by-election candidate. The by-election was held on 27th April 2006, and Richard Lochhead was returned as MSP for Moray on an increased majority, with a greater number of votes and a greater share of the vote compared with 2003. This was notable for the fact that it was the first time since the war that an incumbent party had retained a by-election seat without losing votes or having their majority or share of the vote lowered.