The canny political operator who is Scotland’s new health secretary

Humza Yousaf's forced reshuffle last week following Michael Matheson's resignation from Cabinet for falsely claiming £11,000 of expenses for his parliamentary iPad propelled a key ally of the first minister into the spotlight.

The previous weekend there had been reports that the former finance secretary Kate Forbes and close rival in the SNP leadership contest may be made Mr Matheson's successor as health secretary.

But instead Mr Yousaf appointed Neil Gray, his campaign manager in the leadership contest and perhaps his closest political ally to the role, regarded as the most challenging in government.

Mr Gray, the MSP for Airdrie and Shotts, is the fourth Scottish health secretary in little over five years and his appointment follows Jeane Freeman, Mr Yousaf himself and of course Mr Matheson holding the job for fairly short stints.

Patients, doctors and nurses will no doubt be hoping that Mr Gray will bring some stability to the post. And with the next Holyrood election not due until May 2026, it's likely he will be in the job until at least that date.

So who is Scotland's new health secretary?

Born and raised in Kirkwall, Orkney, Mr Gray, 37, is married to his teenage sweetheart Karlie, who also grew up on Orkney.

Mrs Gray is a teacher and the couple have four young children including twins.

He studied journalism and politics at Stirling University, graduating with a first class honours degree.

After graduating, he worked as a reporter and producer for Radio Orkney before moving to work for the SNP.

In the SNP's backroom operations in Holyrood, he was seen as bright, likeable and hard-working and when a post became available as the constituency manager for Alex Neil, the former health secretary, Mr Gray got the job, working for Mr Neil for seven years.

Mr Gray was first elected as a parliamentarian to Westminster, becoming the MP for the Airdrie and Shotts in the SNP's election tsunami in 2015 following the 2014 independence referendum.

He was returned as the MP in 2017 and 2019, before surprising many by standing down from the Commons ahead of the 2021 Holyrood election in a bid to get elected to the Scottish Parliament.

His decision followed a controversial move by the SNP  to change a rule which had allowed parliamentarians to sit in both the House of Commons and Holyrood.

Before the rule was changed, an MP could continue sitting in Westminster while standing for election to Holyrood. The argument in favour of allowing someone to be an MP and MSP was that it protected someone keen to switch, perhaps for personal or family reasons, from the risk they could quit their Commons seat and not get elected to Holyrood. Not only would the MP be out of a job, but so too would the MP's staff.

Many believe the change was brought in to hamper Joanna Cherry's Holyrood ambitions which could have seen her challenge Angus Robertson to be the party's candidate for Edinburgh Central.

Faced with the risk of not getting selected for Edinburgh Central, and putting herself and her staff out of jobs, Ms Cherry decided against a Holyrood bid.

Mr Gray had no such qualms.

When his old boss Mr Neil announced he would not be standing in May 2021 Holyrood election, Mr Gray announced his decision to stand down from Westminster.

He was swiftly selected as the candidate to succeed Mr Neil in Airdrie and Shotts and won the seat for the SNP in May 2021.

The episode clearly marked out Mr Gray as a canny political operator.

Once elected to Holyrood, his career made rapid progress.

Just seven or eight months after taking his seat in the Scottish Parliament, he was appointed Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development in January 2022. Two months later he was also given a new ministerial responsibility for refugees from Ukraine following the full scale Russian invasion of the country.

Despite being a relative new comer to Holyrood, Mr Gray was seen by political observers as a possible successor to Nicola Sturgeon following her shock resignation on February 15, last year.

But he ruled himself out of the race early on and instead threw his weight behind Mr Yousaf becoming the then Health Secretary's campaign manager.

Following Mr Yousaf's victory, Mr Gray was promoted to the Cabinet in March last year with his first job at the top of government as Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy.

His tenure in his ministerial roles to date, both junior and senior, have been free of controversy.

But in moving into the post of Health Secretary Mr Gray will face challenges of a much greater scale than in his previous posts.

The NHS faces a significant backlog, exacerbated by the pandemic, for both treatment and diagnostic tests, while it also faces difficulties in recruiting more hospital consultants to deal with increased patient demand.

As he starts his new role, Mr Gray's mentor Mr Neil described his own career as health secretary, from 2012 to 2014, as "the most challenging" post he had held in government, but also "the most rewarding".

He noted, that unlike other ministerial positions, its a role where you have to "put out fires every day".

And he gave some words of wisdom to his former constituency office manager.

"Neil knows how much pressure will be on him as Health Secretary," said Mr Neil.

"He knows if he doesn't perform by six months, the party, the parliament and the people will make up their minds about him. He will have to hit the ground running and if he doesn't they will decide 'you are not up to the job' and it is very difficult to recover from that."

The task in hand is a big one.

If Mr Gray is successful, not only will many patients facing long waits finally receive their treatments and return to better health, but with an election expected in the autumn, Mr Gray's performance will be crucial in helping to boost his own party's recovery after a difficult period.