Nicola Sturgeon

Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon (born 19 July 1970) is a Scottish politician who served as First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) from 2014 to 2023. She has served as a member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) since 1999, firstly as an additional member for the Glasgow electoral region, and then as the member for Glasgow Southside (formerly Glasgow Govan) from 2007.

Born in Ayrshire, Sturgeon is a law graduate of the University of Glasgow. She worked as a solicitor in Glasgow before her election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. She served successively as the SNP's shadow minister for education, health, and justice. Sturgeon entered the leadership of the SNP but later withdrew from the contest in favour of Alex Salmond, standing instead as depute leader on a joint ticket with Salmond. Both were subsequently elected; as Salmond was still an MP, Sturgeon led the SNP in the Scottish Parliament from 2004 to 2007. The SNP emerged as the largest party following the 2007 election and Salmond headed the first SNP minority government, with Sturgeon as his deputy. From 2007 to 2012, she served as health secretary, overseeing the scrapping of prescription charges and the 2009 swine flu pandemic. Following the SNP's landslide majority in 2011, she was appointed Cabinet Secretary for Infrastructure, Capital Investment and Cities, which saw her in charge of the legislative process for the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. The defeat of the Yes Scotland campaign resulted in Salmond's resignation as SNP leader.

Sturgeon was elected unopposed as SNP leader in November 2014 and was subsequently appointed as first minister, becoming the first woman to hold either position. She entered office amid a rapid surge in membership of the SNP, which was reflected in the party's performance in the 2015 general election, winning 56 of the 59 Scottish seats and replacing the Liberal Democrats as the third-largest party in the House of Commons. The SNP continued to enjoy electoral successes throughout Sturgeon's eight years in office, but lost 21 seats in the 2017 general election. Despite losing her majority, Sturgeon secured a second term in office in 2016, forming a minority government.

Sturgeon led the Scottish Government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic, implementing a series of restrictions on social gatherings and the rollout of the vaccine programme. A seat short of a majority in 2021, Sturgeon became the only first minister to serve a third term, and she subsequently entered a power-sharing agreement with the Scottish Greens. The calls from Sturgeon's government and the wider independence movement for a second referendum were unsuccessful, as successive Conservative prime ministers refused to grant a Section 30 order. From 2022, Sturgeon received heavier criticism for her positions on gender reforms. On 15 February 2023, Sturgeon resigned the leadership of the SNP claiming occupational burnout; she was succeeded by her health secretary, Humza Yousaf, the following month. In March 2025, she announced she would stand down as an MSP at the next Scottish Parliament election, expected to be held in 2026.

Early life and education

Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon was born in Ayrshire Central Hospital in Irvine on 19 July 1970. She is the eldest of two daughters born to Joan Kerr Sturgeon, a dental nurse, and Robin Sturgeon (born 28 September 1948), an electrician. Her younger sister, Gillian Sturgeon, is an NHS worker. Her family has some roots in North East England; her paternal grandmother, Margaret Sturgeon (née Mill), was from Ryhope in what is now the City of Sunderland. Sturgeon grew up in Prestwick and in the village of Dreghorn, in a terraced council house, which her parents bought through the right-to-buy scheme.

Sturgeon was a quiet child and has been described by her younger sister as "the sensible one" of the two. Sturgeon was shy and has said that she "much preferred to sit with my head in a book than talking to people". She developed a passion for books and reading which continued into adult life. She has described herself as being an "austere" teen whose style tended towards goth, adding that "if you see pictures of me back then, you would struggle to know whether I was a boy or a girl". Sturgeon was a fan of Wham! and Duran Duran, and enjoyed spending Saturday nights at Frosty's Ice Disco in Irvine.

Sturgeon attended Dreghorn Primary School from 1975 to 1982 and Greenwood Academy from 1982 to 1988. She later studied law at the University of Glasgow School of Law, graduating with a Bachelor of Laws (Hons) in 1992 and a Diploma in Legal Practice the following year. During her time at the University of Glasgow she was active as a member of the Glasgow University Scottish Nationalist Association and the Glasgow University Students' Representative Council.

Legal career

Following her graduation, Sturgeon completed her legal traineeship at McClure Naismith, a Glasgow firm of solicitors, in 1995. After qualifying as a solicitor, she worked for Bell & Craig, a firm of solicitors in Stirling, and later at the Drumchapel Law Centre and a Money Advice Centre in Glasgow from 1997 until her election to the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

Early parliamentary career

Early political years

In her early teens, Sturgeon joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and in 1986, at the age of 16, she became a member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), quickly becoming the party's Youth Affairs Vice Convener and Publicity Vice Convener. She joined the SNP following an assumption by her English teacher, who was a Labour councillor, she would be a Labour supporter. In the 1987 UK General election, Sturgeon got her first taste of campaigning, going door-to-door to get her local SNP candidate, Kay Ullrich, elected to Westminster. Despite Ullrich failing to win the seat, Sturgeon ploughed her political energy into the Young Scottish Nationalists (now Young Scots for Independence), joining its national executive when she was 17.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour, Sturgeon revealed that it was Margaret Thatcher who inspired her to enter politics, because, due to rising unemployment in Scotland at the time, she developed "a strong feeling that it was wrong for Scotland to be governed by a Tory government that we hadn't elected".

Thatcher was the motivation for my entire political career. I hated everything she stood for.

Sturgeon became the youngest ever parliamentary candidate in Scotland in the 1992 general election. Aged 21, Sturgeon was selected as the SNP candidate in the Glasgow Shettleston constituency. She was unsuccessful, having been beaten by almost 15,000 votes by Labour. Sturgeon also stood unsuccessfully as the SNP candidate for the Irvine North ward on Cunninghame District Council in May 1992, for the Baillieston/Mount Vernon ward on Strathclyde Regional Council in 1994, and for the Bridgeton ward on Glasgow City Council in 1995.

In the mid-1990s Sturgeon and Charles Kennedy went together on a political study visit to Australia.

The 1997 general election saw Sturgeon selected to fight the Glasgow Govan seat for the SNP. Boundary changes meant that the notional Labour majority in the seat had increased substantially. However, infighting between the two rival candidates for the Labour nomination, Mohammed Sarwar and Mike Watson, along with an energetic local campaign, resulted in Glasgow Govan being the only Scottish seat to see a swing away from Labour in the midst of a Labour landslide nationwide. Sarwar did, however, win the seat with a majority of 2,914 votes. Shortly after this, Sturgeon was appointed as the SNP's spokesperson for energy and education matters.

SNP in opposition

Sturgeon stood for election to the Scottish Parliament in the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999 as the SNP candidate for Glasgow Govan. Although she failed to win the seat, she was placed first in the SNP's regional list for the Glasgow region, and was thus elected as a Member of the Scottish Parliament. The SNP emerged as the second largest party and sat in opposition to the Labour-Lib Dem coalition. In Alex Salmond's shadow cabinet, she served as Shadow Minister for Children and Education from 1999 to 2000.

As Shadow Education minister, Sturgeon backed Labour's efforts to repeal Section 28 – a Westminster law that banned the promotion of homosexuality in schools. There was, however, significant public opposition to repeal and an unscientific postal vote on the issue – organised by SNP donor Brian Souter – suggested most Scots wanted to keep the clause. Acknowledging this, Sturgeon suggested: "That is why the SNP have urged a policy for many months that we believe can provide people with the necessary reassurance, by providing a statutory underpinning to the guidelines, and resolve this difficult debate. We believe that the value of marriage should be clearly referred to in the guidelines, without denigrating other relationships or children brought up in other kinds of relationship." The compromise had the support of Souter but an amendment to that effect was voted down by MSPs who expressed concerns it would stigmatise children from single parent and unmarried families.

Sturgeon served as Shadow Minister for Health and Community Care from 2000 to 2003, and Shadow Minister for Justice from 2003 to 2004. She also served as a member of the Education, Culture and Sport Committee and the Health and Community Care Committee.