Karen Whitefield
| Karen Whitefield | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Member of the Scottish Parliament for Airdrie and Shotts |
|
|
In office 6 May 1999 – 22 March 2011 |
|
| Preceded by | new constituency |
| Succeeded by | Alex Neil |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
8 January 1970 Bellshill |
| Political party | Scottish Labour Party |
Karen Whitefield (born 8 January 1970, Bellshill) is a Scottish politician and former Member of the Scottish Parliament for the Airdrie and Shotts constituency.
Prior to her election as MSP, she worked as a personal assistant to Rachel Squire MP.
She was elected as MSP for Airdrie and Shotts at the 1999 Scottish Parliament general election. As an MSP she chaired the Parliament's Education Committee where she used her casting vote to reject the student graduate endowment bill, a Scottish National Party (SNP) flagship policy. It had the backing of the Liberal Democrats and SNP members, however not the Labour or Conservative members of the committee The bill was eventually passed through the Scottish Parliament by a vote of 67 to 61. Whitefield was Scottish Labour's shadow Minister for Children in the Scottish Parliament, and Convener of the Cross-Party Group on Diabetes under Iain Gray. At the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, she lost her seat to the SNP's Alex Neil, one of nine Labour MSP's to lose their constituency seats after holding them since the first elections to the Scottish Parliament in 1999.
Following the resignation of sitting MP Eric Joyce, and the controversial and flawed 2013 Labour Party Falkirk candidate selection, in a re-run in which all the previous candidates were excluded on 8 December 2013 Whitefield was selected to contest the Falkirk constituency at the 2015 UK general election.
...
Wikipedia