Katy currently serves as an MSP for the West Scotland Region, having been re-elected in the 2026 Scottish Parliament elections. She also currently serves as the Deputy Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament.
She was first elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2021 and was the MP for North Ayrshire and Arran from 2005 to 2015.
Katy is a campaigner for social justice, greater investment in communities, for well-funded public services, against privatisation and for increased public ownership. She fights for the Scottish Parliament to use all its powers to deliver on these issues.
The West Scotland region continues to suffer the effects of deindustrialisation. Katy campaigns for an industrial strategy which would deliver well-paid and secure jobs and ensure that local communities benefit from the growth in new industries. She fights for strengthened rights for trade unions and workers.
As an MSP, Katy has exposed the failures of the Scottish Government to deliver improvements in our public services like the NHS and schools, the neglect of social housing, cuts to local government funding, the extent of the use of private companies to deliver public services with little accountability and the tragically high levels of drugs-related deaths in Scotland.
She has been a strong advocate for action to address violence against women and girls, to tackle sexism and misogyny, for independent legal advice and representation for rape survivors, for better funding for rape crisis and women’s aid services, and for investment in our fire service to reduce response times to incidents which have risen due to cuts by the Scottish Government.
Katy was appointed as a Peer in the House of Lords in 2020 on a platform of abolishing the unelected Lords. She voted to abolish the Lords while serving as an MP. She initially took a leave of absence from the Lords to take up her seat as an MSP in 2021, and is now resigning her position in the Lords to continue to serve as an MSP following her re-election this year.