Kate Forbes, Scotland’s Deputy First Minister, has opened up about wanting more children after announcing last week that she will be leaving politics in 2026.
The MSP for Highlands constituency Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch already shares Naomi, three, with husband Alasdair MacLennan, who has three daughters from a previous marriage.
Kate, 35, who revealed on August 4 that she would be stepping down at next year’s elections, said ‘she couldn’t have more children whilst doing this job’.
She revealed that she is mindful of her biological clock when she pointed out that she would be 41 by the time the next parliament concluded, adding that she wanted to avoid inflicting on a second child what she inflicted on her daughter Naomi.
Reflecting on motherhood in the interview with The Sunday Times, she said: ‘I feel like it’s a great thing, and I’m not doing a terribly good job of it. So I wanted to do a better job of it.’
Kate, who has come under fire for her religious views, specifically, her opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage, rebuffed the view that raising children is less significant than being in high office.
She described how she’s had to drive four hours from her home in Dingwall to Edinburgh and four hours back every week, often with Naomi in tow.
Even with the help of family members and childminders, Kate has sometimes struggled to keep everything running smoothly, she admitted.
‘There were lots of situations I thought were just impossible, in terms of being on Zoom calls with a one-year-old and then going back into the deputy first minister role,’ she said.
‘Being so far from home, I could fill a library of books with the number of close calls and close shaves where I was seconds away from cancelling something.’
The Scottish National Party is thought to be in disarray after Kate announced she will quit at next year’s elections, with some claiming she is deserting a ‘sinking ship’.
She announced her decision not to seek re-election as her daughter turned three, saying she did not want to ‘miss any more of the precious early years of family life’.
Her allies claimed that her decision to quit may have been partly down to ‘disgraceful’ treatment during her leadership contest against Humza Yousaf, when senior figures including current first minister John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon raised concerns about her stance on issues like same-sex marriage.
Her announcement is a further blow to Mr Swinney ahead of the election, as she is widely regarded as one of his most capable ministers, and has helped try to repair the SNP’s relationship with the business community.
Scottish Conservative MSP Meghan Gallacher said: ‘Despite our political differences I completely understand and appreciate Kate Forbes reasons for standing down. I wish her and her family well for the future.
‘However, the departure of his Deputy First Minister will come as a hammer blow to John Swinney ahead of next year’s election.
‘He made the choice to bring her back into the heart of the government last year and would have wanted her to play a key role in the campaign.
‘Kate Forbes is the latest senior figure to desert the SNP’s sinking ship and clearly has no wish to hear voters’ anger after 18 years of the nationalists failing Scots on so many issues.
‘If Scotland is to move on from the SNP’s never-ending obsession with independence, then we must remove them from office next year and get the focus back on Scotland’s real priorities.’
Fergus Ewing, who backed Kate’s previous leadership bid and is now an independent MSP, suggested that her treatment by senior figures in the previous contest, including Mr Swinney questioning whether her opposition to same-sex marriage made her an appropriate candidate to be first minister, had played a part in her decision.
Mr Ewing said: ‘With Alex Salmond’s death the SNP lost the best leader it has ever had, with Kate Forbes’ decision to stand down the SNP has lost the best leader it should have chosen.
‘As a dear friend of Kate’s, I absolutely understand her decisions to bring up her family but the way that Kate was treated during the leadership election between herself and Yousaf was disgraceful.
‘Yet despite being attacked by John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon during that campaign because essentially they argued her Christian beliefs somehow disqualified her from being SNP leader, Kate turned the other cheek and did so with astonishingly good grace.
‘The SNP has now lost the outstanding talent of her generation and perhaps that loss resulted from the SNP ceasing to be a broad church, tolerant of different views, and latterly descended into a form of cult or sect where dissent was unacceptable and rational argument was almost absent from debate.’
Kate, who narrowly lost a fractious leadership contest to Humza Yousaf in 2023 but was brought back into government last year as Mr Swinney sought to heal divisions in the party, said she has ‘consistently put the public’s needs ahead of my family’s’ and now does not want to ‘miss any more of the precious early years of family life’.
Including Fergus Ewing and John Mason, who were both elected as SNP candidates in 2021 and have since left the party, Kate becomes the 25th Nationalist to step down from the party at next year’s elections.
Others include former First Ministers Nicola Sturgeon and Humza Yousaf.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn and a score of former failed MPs have been accepted as potential candidates for the 2026 election. Anne McLaughlin, Kirsten Oswald, Anum Qaisar and Tommy Sheppard have also been named on the approved list.
It comes after the SNP suffered a damaging defeat in the recent Hamilton by-election. Labour’s Davy Russell won the SNP seat with 8,559 votes, a majority of 602 over the Nationalists.
The vote followed the death of SNP MSP Christina McKelvie, who had represented the constituency since 2011.
Kate came under attack from a range of SNP MSPs during the 2023 leadership contest for her position on same-sex marriage and other beliefs she holds as a member of the Free Church of Scotland.
In a radio interview in 2023, Mr Swinney, then the Deputy First Minister, urged party members ‘to decide if someone who holds those views would be an appropriate individual to be SNP leader and first minister’.
She had been expected to put her name forward as a candidate to be Mr Yousaf’s successor when he resigned but instead agreed to join Mr Swinney’s team rather than standing against him, in what opponents billed as a ‘stitch-up’.
Kate was a prominent critic of the proposed gender reforms when Ms Sturgeon was First Minister, signed a letter raising concerns about them and said she wouldn’t have voted for them. She also recently confirmed that she ‘unequivocally’ backs the protection of single-sex spaces.
Other prominent internal opponents of the SNP’s self-ID agenda included Joanna Cherry, who lost her seat in last year’s general election and does not intend to stand for Holyrood next year, Ash Regan, who defected to the Alba Party, and Fergus Ewing, who will stand for election as an independent candidate for Inverness and Nairn.
Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie thanked Kate for her service over a decade in parliament and wished her well in future endeavours and spending time with her family, but added: ‘But it cannot have escaped the notice of voters that many of the SNP’s former rising stars are abandoning the stage, often to be replaced by defeated names of yesteryears and anonymous party apparatchiks.
‘Kate Forbes was the future once – but now, like many of her counterparts in the SNP, she can see the writing on the wall. The truth is this is a tired government with no vision and no ideas.’
In a statement which shocked Scottish politics yesterday morning, Kate said she had informed her local constituency association that she would not seek re-election next year.
She said she is ‘wholly supportive’ of Mr Swinney and will campaign for the SNP in next year’s election.
But the Deputy First Minister, who is also Economy Secretary, said: ‘I have grown up in the public eye, getting married, having a baby and raising a young family. I have consistently put the public’s needs ahead of my family’s during that time.
‘I am grateful to them for accommodating the heavy demands of being a political figure. Looking ahead to the future, I do not want to miss any more of the precious early years of family life – which can never be rewound.’
In his letter responding to her resignation, Mr Swinney said he is sorry she has taken the decision ‘but recognise and understand the reasons for doing so’.
He said: ‘You have made a huge contribution to public life in Scotland and have been instrumental in making progress on economic issues for my Government.
‘You have much to be proud of in all of the work you have undertaken but I am especially heartened by the effect of your leadership on advancing support for the Gaelic language.
‘We all wrestle with the inevitable conflicts between family and public life and I sympathise with the dilemmas you have faced. I wish you, Ali and your family well and much happiness in the years ahead.’
At an event in June, Kate admitted she was ‘unsuccessfully’ trying to juggle bringing up her daughter and her Cabinet job and raised fears that childcare issues may have contributed to many female MSPs leaving politics.
She also urged the Scottish Parliament to follow the lead of the House of Commons and set up its own nursery.
