Presiding officer Ken Macintosh to quit Holyrood at May election

Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh has announced he is to leave Holyrood at next year’s elections, after more than two decades as an MSP.

Mr Macintosh said that “after much reflection” he had decided not to stand again.

He said it had been an “honour” to have been an MSP since the devolved Scottish Parliament had been established – adding that the institution had “grown in confidence and maturity”.

But he said there were also “clearly many challenges which lie ahead”.

He stated: “The privilege of being presiding officer in this, my now final term, is something I will never forget and I will continue to do what I can to support the Parliament and the hopes and ambitions it sustains for our democracy.”

Mr Macintosh was voted in as the MSP for Eastwood in 1999, holding the seat in the next three Holyrood elections.

When the Scottish Conservatives enjoyed their best ever election result in 2016 he lost the seat to Jackson Carlaw but was still returned to the Parliament as an MSP for the West of Scotland region.

After that Mr Macintosh, who was elected as a Labour MSP, took on the politically neutral role of being Holyrood’s presiding officer.

In his time in the Scottish Parliament, Mr Macintosh, who was a television producer with BBC News before being elected, has served as a ministerial aide to former first minister Jack Mcconnell, and also successfully introduced a Member’s Bill bringing in tougher regulations for sunbed parlours in a bid to help tackle skin cancer.

He ran twice to be leader of the Scottish Labour Party, standing for the post unsuccessfully in 2011 and 2015.