Patricia Gibson

Patricia Gibson (born 12 May 1968) is a Scottish National Party (SNP) politician serving as SNP Attorney General Spokesperson since September 2023. She served as the SNP Shadow Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government since 2021 to 2022. She was the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Ayrshire and Arran 2015–2024.

Early life and career
Patricia Gibson was born and educated in Glasgow. She received a BA (Hons) and MA (Hons) in English and Politics from the University of Glasgow. After graduation, she taught English for over twenty years.

Political career
In 2007, Gibson was elected to the Glasgow City Council as a councillor for the Greater Pollok ward, on which she served until 2012. While on the council, she was the SNP's spokesperson for education on the Glasgow city council.

At the 2010 general election, Gibson stood as the SNP candidate in North Ayrshire and Arran, coming second with 25.9% of the vote behind the incumbent Labour MP Katy Clark.

Parliamentary career
At the 2015 election, Gibson was elected to Parliament as MP for North Ayrshire and Arran with 53.2% of the vote and a majority of 13,573.

Between July 2015 and May 2017 Gibson was a member of the Procedure Committee.

Gibson was re-elected as MP for North Ayrshire & Arran at the snap 2017 general election with a decreased vote share of 38.9% and a decreased majority of 3,633.

In June 2017 she was appointed the SNP spokesperson for Consumer Affairs. Between September 2017 and 6 November 2019, Gibson was a member of the Backbench Business Committee.

At the 2019 general election, Gibson was again re-elected, with an increased vote share of 48.5% and an increased majority of 8,521.

Since March 2020, she has been a member of the Backbench Business Committee.

In July 2023, Gibson was re-selected to stand as the SNP's candidate in North Ayrshire and Arran at the 2024 general election.

Sexual misconduct allegations
In March 2021 an SNP member of staff at Westminster complained that Gibson had sexually harassed him in a Parliamentary bar. Gibson said the accusations were "malicious" and "without any foundation". It was reported that Gibson threatened legal action against newspapers that had considered identifying her in coverage over the allegations.

On 16 April 2022, The Times reported that the complaint of sexual harassment against Gibson had been "provisionally upheld" by Parliament's Independent Complaints and Grievance Scheme (ICGS). On 23 June 2022, the report on the complaint was published. The complaint of sexual harassment was initially upheld, but her appeal against the finding, on the grounds that the investigation had made some technical clerical errors, succeeded. It found the complaint was not malicious.

In June 2022, Gibson admitted she was too drunk to recall exactly how she acted around the SNP member of staff who accused her of sexual harassment.

In August 2022, it was revealed that Gibson had claimed in a submission that it was "discriminatory" to claim that the impact of the sexual harassment of a man by a woman was the same as that of a woman by a man.

Personal life
Gibson lives in Kilbirnie, North Ayrshire which is within her parliamentary constituency.

She is married to Kenneth Gibson, a Member of the Scottish Parliament.