Presiding Officer, at August’s memorial service for Sir Alex Fergusson, which you attended along with your predecessors, the Deputy First Minister and many others who are here today, we came together to commemorate a life well lived—a life of public service, of duty and of profound decency.
Today, we come together again, and it is right and fitting that Parliament should meet to remember one of its own—our third Presiding Officer; the first whom we have lost, and a politician who served here for 17 years and who was, I think it is fair to say, not just respected, but loved.
At that remarkable memorial service in Kirkcudbright parish church six weeks ago, it was impossible not to be very moved by the stories that came flooding from people whose lives had been touched by Alex. David Mundell, the Secretary of State for Scotland, described him as “the most thoroughly decent” man he had had the good fortune to meet, to befriend and to have instruct him in the ways of sheep farming.
The wonderful eulogy by Alex’s brother, John, captured not just the panic of Manchester United fans on social media at the announcement of Alex’s passing, but all the humour, humanity and truly terrible driving habits of the man. We heard from Alex himself, who told us, in his own words, to belt out the hymns that he had chosen for the service and how, in his final days, he was without regret or bitterness. He had gone but, on that day, his humanity breathed on gloriously.
For me, the most telling contribution was the comment that was relayed from one of Alex’s medical staff, who said that they had watched the family around him in his final days and had seen a great closeness and love between them. What a legacy.
We are so pleased to be able to welcome to the Parliament his wife, Merryn; his mother, Auriole; his brother, JG; his sister, Henrietta; and his youngest son, Christopher. We thank you for lending Alex to us, even for a short time. It was time well spent.
For the Scottish Conservatives, Alex’s death has left a huge hole, but it is right to say that he was first and foremost a parliamentarian, and today all in this Parliament mourn him together.
It is fitting, too, that today we welcome 60 pupils from Dalbeattie high school, which is in Alex’s patch. As a champion of the region and of young people’s interest in politics, he would have loved to have seen them all here.
Alex was not a career politician. He was a farmer, who took over management of the family farm in Barr in Carrick in 1971, but he soon got involved in life beyond the farm gate. As former MSP Murray Tosh, his close colleague and friend, has observed, he felt that his beloved south-west of Scotland had its own distinct interests that needed to be represented more effectively, so it was from his lived experience that his political career began.
Characteristically for a Scottish Conservative, his first attempt to get into politics failed when he stood for the South Carrick ward in 1995, but he had got the bug, and when, in 1997, the devolution referendum was passed, he decided to stand for this new Parliament. He was always a committed devolutionist. It was something that he was to pursue all his career, including as a member of the party’s Strathclyde commission, which, in 2014, recommended a series of wide-ranging increases in the Parliament’s powers.
In the 1999 election, he did not win his constituency, but was elected on the party list. As one of 129 new MSPs, he soon stood out. The Scotsman diarist Rab McNeil coined for him the name “Hercules”, thanks to his fine public bearing and his star turn alongside Alex Johnstone in the annual tug of war. The ribbing was always affectionate, and when Alex retired in 2016, Rab was to declare:
“It’s a great shame he is retiring because, for a Tory, he came heavily disguised as a human being.” [Laughter.]
I couldn’t possibly comment.
Alex stood out in other ways, too. He did not go in for personal attacks and had fine relations with Alasdair Morgan, the Scottish National Party MSP who had beaten him to the Galloway and Upper Nithsdale constituency. However, people soon learned not to mistake his personal courtesy for weakness. On the issues that mattered to him, he was tough and uncompromising. As David Mundell said last month, when foot-and-mouth disease hit in 2001, Alex emerged as the most dogged and best-informed challenger of the Scottish Executive’s handling of the crisis. That was because, in private, he spoke every day to individual farmers and businesses from all over Scotland, listened to their concerns, offered support and connected them to people in power.
In 2003, that hard work paid off when he won the Galloway and Upper Nithsdale seat. Four years later, after another session putting the interests of his constituents first, he increased his majority from 99 to 3,333. It was 2007, the SNP had just won the election by a single seat, and neither the SNP nor Labour was able to give up an MSP for the vacant post of Presiding Officer, so Alex was sounded out. His first concern was whether, in that job, he would still be able to represent his constituents. Having been assured that that was the case, he took the job on.
Faced with an unprecedented minority Government, his courtesy, wise judgment and steeliness were to stand him in good stead, whether in reprimanding the then Labour MSP George Foulkes for unparliamentary behaviour—there are always small pleasures in politics—or in dealing with SNP ministers to ensure that the business of government kept going.
Alex Fergusson was a fine representative of Parliament outside it, too. In 2009, he took a delegation of MSPs to New Zealand. During the visit, the group was informed that it was due to go to a marae—a sacred place in Maori culture—where it is standard practice for the Maori hosts to sing to their guests and for the guests to respond in turn. As a man of music and a folk singer of some renown, Alex was not going to let that challenge go missing. I am told that he hustled Ted Brocklebank, Ross Finnie, Rhoda Grant and Sandra White into a kind of “Scotland’s Got Talent” outfit, with Alex demanding that they spend the entire evening practising how to sing psalm 23—because he always did like a shepherd. I am told that the Scottish Parliament choir’s rendition the following day was, indeed, spectacular.
Typically, Alex did not see the role of Presiding Officer as a full stop, so in 2011 he insisted on staying on as a constituency MSP. His personal connection and affinity with the south-west ensured that, in an election in which the SNP swept the board, Alex was re-elected for a third time.
As a former head of the Blackface Sheep Breeders’ Association, he was appointed as president of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland in 2012—something in which I know he took immense pride. Two years ago, fittingly he was knighted in the Queen’s birthday honours for a life of unceasing public service.
Even as he was falling ill earlier this summer, that service continued. As a patron of the Galloway National Park Association, he continued to campaign for Scotland’s third national park, and I very much hope that, with the campaign continuing, the creation of such a park in Galloway might be a legacy for him.
Three weeks before he died, he was still commentating. When two of our Scottish Conservative group wrote a joint piece from opposite sides of the debate, backing a compromise deal on Brexit, Alex took to Twitter to declare:
“What a welcome and sensible dose of straight up no-nonsense common sense. More please!!”
He knew full well at that point that he would not see the Brexit negotiations conclude, but he was still engaged, still passionate and still urging the practical and realistic way forward. My word! We could do with more Alex Fergussons, right now.
For all his titles and honours and appointments, Alex was simply a good man. He was a lover of sport; of music; of Burns; of a decent meal, glass of wine and a whisky; of family and friends; and of his community. He was a man who knew that we are nothing unless we uphold the ties that bind us, and who understood that common courtesy is important, that passionate debate is vital and that politics is about service to others, and not to one’s self.
At the wonderful memorial service in August, we were all reminded that he was also a family man who was so proud of his three sons and of his wider family—a family who gave him a send-off to remember.
The example and the humanity of Sir Alex Fergusson will stay in our hearts for some time to come. We offer his family our deepest condolences in their loss.
I move,
That the Parliament expresses its deep sadness at the death of The Rt Hon Sir Alex Fergusson DL; offers its sympathy and condolences to his family and friends; appreciates his wide contribution to public life, particularly his distinguished tenure as Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, and recognises the high esteem in which he was held by colleagues from all parties and the principled, dedicated and considered way he represented the people of Galloway and West Dumfries.
[Applause.]
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