Gillian Martin: I will absolutely not be SNP leader – but there are other women who could be

Gillian Martin would “absolutely not” put herself forward to lead the SNP in the future, the MSP has said.

Speaking exclusively to Holyrood, the cabinet secretary said such a role was “not for me” but argued there are other women in her party who could step up.

Her comments follow those made at the end of last year by former first minister Nicola Sturgeon, who said she could not see another woman becoming the leader of one of the main political parties “any time soon”.

Sturgeon become Scotland’s first female first minister when she succeeded Alex Salmond in 2014. By the time of the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, all three of the major political parties were led by women, with Ruth Davidson for the Tories and Kezia Dugdale for Labour.

Now, the only female leader in the Scottish Parliament is co-leader of the Greens, Gillian Mackay.

Speaking at the St Andrew’s Book Festival in London in November, Sturgeon said: “If I’m honest, if I look round the Scottish Parliament right now, I can’t really say with any certainty that there will be another female leader any time soon.”

Asked about these comments, Martin said: “Do I think there are women in parliament who could lead? Yes, there are women in there, but I’m not one of them… absolutely not. I give what I’m prepared to give at cabinet secretary level and absolutely hats off to anyone that wants to go to be a party leader but it’s not for me.”

However, she admitted one of the reasons she is seeking re-election again in May is because she feels a “responsibility” as a woman to show she can stay at the top of politics.

Martin became Scotland’s energy secretary in June 2025 and is tasked with ensuring there is a just transition to the net zero economy.

She said: “I feel it’s important that, as a woman, you’ve reached cabinet secretary level and you’ve got that experience in government, I feel a responsibility to stay there.”

Women outnumber men in the current Scottish Cabinet, with nine female cabinet secretaries and just two male cabinet secretaries, plus the first minister. Among junior ministers, there are six male ministers and five female.

Martin says “no one really talks about” that because Swinney “doesn’t make a song and dance about it”. “It just is,” she adds.

However a number of her female colleagues have made the decision to step back from politics, including those with long careers in politics like Sturgeon and relative newcomers such as Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes and children’s minister Natalie Don-Innes.

Of the 13 female SNP MSPs newly elected in 2016, only five are standing again.

Asked whether the high number of women retiring would impact the parliament, Martin said it could create the perception things were going backwards. She said: “It makes a difference in terms of the perception of the parliament more than the actual nuts and bolts because I think policies and the way people conduct themselves are the most important thing, not necessarily their gender or otherwise.

“But I think in terms of the perception of the parliament more widely, particularly to women that might want to come into politics, I think that if we do see a tailing off of women in the next cohort and more men appearing, people might feel like things are going back the way.”

The MSP also spoke of her time in the Women For Independence (WFI) movement, through which she met her future parliamentary colleague Jeane Freeman, who passed away earlier this month.

She credits WFI for pushing her to enter politics in the first place: “I loved it and I just loved the way we lifted each other up. Women do that. Wonderful women like Jeane Freeman, who obviously later became my colleague in parliament, but at that stage was such a generous mentor to me politically. I was in awe. I still am of people like Jeane. I just felt like it was a really supportive, empowering, wonderful, formidable, gang of women, my gang, and I loved it.”