SHADOW Scottish secretary Lesley Laird has just been elected the new deputy leader of Scottish Labour after standing for the position unopposed.
But who is she?
READ MORE: Lesley Laird to become Scottish Labour's new deputy leader
Lesley Laird has been holding the deputy leader role on an interim basis since the resignation of Fife MSP Alex Rowley in December last year.
As well as being shadow Scottish secretary and now deputy leader, Laird is also an MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath and a Fife councillor.
That's a lot of jobs for one person, and she has come under fire for neglecting council duties in the past. In April it was reported that Laird had only turned up to two Fife Council meetings since being elected to Westminster in June 2017.
Laird faced being ousted from the local authority under a rule that demands each councillor attends at least one meeting or committee every six months. But her presence at an area committee on April 4 avoided that.
However, Roger Mullin, the former SNP MP, said Laird should have resigned as a councillor when she unseated him in Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath last year. He also said it was "ridiculous" for Laird to "hold down two important representative jobs".
It is unclear whether Laird will hold on to all of her three additional roles as deputy leader.
She is still listed as a councillor and an MP on Fife Council and the UK Parliament's websites.
After being elected interim deputy leader of Scottish Labour, Laird stopped taking her £23,000-a-year councillor salary.
A Scottish Labour spokesperson said Laird also received no additional salary for her role as Shadow Scottish Secretary or interim deputy leader.
Labour’s ruling National Executive Committee banned MPs from holding two elected positions in March.
They made an exception for Dan Jarvis, a South Yorkshire MP in the running to be the mayor of Sheffield, after he argued that he campaigned for his seat on the basis of having the dual mandate.
But this exception does not apply to councillors.
Laird was recently branded “clueless”, after demanding the UK Government publish a key list of Brexit powers hours after it had already done so. She used her address to the Scottish Labour conference in Dundee to demand “transparency” about the powers at the heart of a dispute between London and Edinburgh.
“We need the shroud of secrecy lifted by the Scottish and UK Government,” she said.
The only problem was that the UK Government had already published the list of 24 contested powers more than two hours before her speech, and the Scottish Government had already responded in full.
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