Maureen Watt

Maureen Elizabeth Watt (born 23 June 1951) In 1998 she was appointed to the Independent Commission on Local Government and the Scottish Parliament.

She was a Councillor on Grampian Regional Council and had served on the Visiting Committee of Aberdeen Prison.

Parliamentary career Watt stood a candidate in the 2003 Scottish Parliament election but was not elected. Before the term ended, Richard Lochhead resigned his seat to contest the Moray by-election. The next person on the SNP list from the 2003 election had been Alasdair Allan but he refused his place in Parliament as he had secured the SNP nomination for the Western Isles for the 2007 election. The next person on the list was Maureen Watt, who took up the place.

Watt was sworn in as MSP on 19 April 2006, becoming the first MSP to swear their oath of allegiance in Doric. On 21 November 2014 she was appointed Minister of Public Health, succeeding Michael Matheson who was promoted to the Cabinet.

Family Watt is the daughter of former SNP MP (1974–1979) Hamish Watt. She is married with two children. One of them, Stuart Donaldson, served as an SNP MP for Aberdeenshire West and Kincardine in the British Parliament between 2015 and 2017.