Alex Neil
Airdrie & Shotts
Alex Neil is Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Communities and Pensioners Rights.
Alex was born in Irvine in 1951. Brought up in Patna in Ayrshire, he was educated at Ayr Academy and Dundee University where he graduated with MA Hons in Economics.
He lives in Ayr and is married with one son and was elected as a Central Scotland MSP in 1999, and won the seat of Airdrie and Shotts in 2011.
He was a co-convenor of the Parliament’s Cross Party Group on the Scottish Economy, and deputy convenor of the Scottish Parliament’s Cross Party Group on Construction.
Alex is also proprietor of his own Economic Consultancy business and is a member of the Institute of Economic Development.
A former Chairman of a Scottish & National organisation of Labour students, he left the Labour party in 1976 to help form the Scottish Labour Party. After a period working in America, he returned to Scotland and joined the SNP in 1985.