Who is Kate Forbes, defeated SNP leadership candidate?

Kate Forbes, who finished second to Humza Yousaf in the SNP leadership race, has announced that she is leaving the Scottish government.

Scotland's finance secretary was on maternity leave after the birth of her daughter when Nicola Sturgeon suddenly announced that she was quitting as SNP leader and Scotland's first minister.

Within a couple of days of confirming she would be standing in the contest to succeed her, Ms Forbes found herself at the centre of a political storm.

Her views on issues such as gay marriage, abortion, trans rights and having children outside of marriage were savaged by Deputy First Minister John Swinney, who had been standing in for the deeply religious Ms Forbes since last July.

Ms Sturgeon herself also made thinly-veiled barbs at the woman she had appointed finance secretary at the age of 29, just hours before she had to deliver a budget speech.

Scotland is a progressive country, Ms Sturgeon stated, and the views of the next first minister therefore matter.

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Ms Forbes saw several supporters desert her campaign in response to the furore, which was ignited when she told journalists that she would not have voted for gay marriage had she been an MSP at the time.

She subsequently told Sky News that she believed that having children outside of marriage is "wrong" according to her faith as a member of the evangelical Free Church of Scotland, while stressing that: "In a free society you can do what you want."

Ms Forbes has never hidden her religious beliefs, leaving pundits wondering why they had appeared to come as a shock to some of her supporters.

The Free Church, of which she is a devout follower, has strongly opposed gay marriage since it was legalised in Scotland in 2014.

Ms Forbes and her husband Ali celebrated the birth of daughter Naomi last year

In 2018, Ms Forbes spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast for Scotland a day after a Westminster debate on abortion, when she called on politicians to "recognise that the way we treat the most vulnerable - whether the unborn or the terminally ill - is a measure of true progress".

She was among the 15 SNP politicians who wrote an open letter to Ms Sturgeon the following year asking for a delay to gender recognition reforms that would allow people in Scotland to self-identify their sex.

The final vote on the proposals was held when Ms Forbes was on maternity leave, but when she launched her leadership campaign she made clear that she still had significant concerns about self-identification and would not have been able to vote for the legislation in its current form.

Several senior figures within the Scottish government reacted with fury to her comments, with Mr Swinney saying he profoundly disagreed with her views despite also having deep Christian faith.

Humza Yousaf warned that independence could only be won if the SNP sticks to "progressive values" and avoids a "lurch to the right".

The bubbling tensions boiled over in a televised STV debate, when Ms Forbes launched an attack on Mr Yousaf in which she slated his performance as a government minister.

Ms Forbes told Mr Yousaf: "You were transport minister and the trains were never on time, when you were justice secretary the police were stretched to breaking point, and now as health minister we've got record high waiting times.

"What makes you think you can do a better job as first minister?"

Ms Forbes presumably did little to endear herself to the SNP hierarchy watching at home - although Ms Sturgeon says she didn't tune in for the debate - when she declared that it was time for a new generation to lead the party and that "more of the same is not a manifesto - it is an acceptance of mediocrity".

The remark could be read as a dig at Mr Yousaf, who to some extent pitched himself as the "continuity candidate", and the record of Ms Sturgeon herself.

She later doubled down by saying she would potentially have space for Mr Yousaf in her cabinet if she won the contest - but not as health secretary.

Ms Forbes was born in Dingwall in the Highlands, but was partly raised in India as her parents travelled there twice as missionaries, the first time when she was four years old.

Her parents are reported to have been members of the more liberal Church of Scotland, with Ms Forbes claiming that she had chosen to join the Free Church after returning from India as it was "just down the road".

Ms Forbes (centre) had two spells in India during her childhood

She went to a Gaelic school while in Scotland and became a fluent speaker of the language as a child.

When she returned to India at the age of 10, she studied at Woodstock School - an international residential school in the foothills of the Himalayas.

She went on to complete degrees at Cambridge University and Edinburgh University and became a chartered accountant for Barclays in London.

She worked as an assistant to the SNP MSP for Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch, Dave Thompson, for two years before being selected to replace him when he stood down.

On the backbenches, the then 26-year-old campaigned to ban plastic straws and delivered a speech in the Holyrood chamber entirely in Gaelic.

In 2018 she entered government as public finance minister working alongside Derek Mackay, who she would go on to succeed as finance secretary when he was forced to stand down just hours before delivering his budget speech after it emerged he had sent inappropriate text messages to a 16-year-old schoolboy.

Ms Forbes became Scotland's first female finance secretary and was widely praised for delivering the budget speech with just a few hours' notice, having only received the call from Ms Sturgeon at 7am that morning.

She has said the SNP needs to win over No voters by using the Scottish Parliament's existing powers to show that Scotland can flourish if it is to secure independence.

Ms Forbes had only a few hours to prepare for a budget speech after being appointed to the finance brief

Ms Forbes told the Guardian: "We keep holding ourselves as hostages to fortune by setting a timetable rather than by focusing on what is really going to shift the dial.

"So day one, I would start the campaign for independence. But I would do that through gentle persuasion, making the economic case and earning people's trust back. The more successful and effective we are at that, the shorter the timetable becomes."

She has said she would not raise income tax for higher earners and would instead focus on growing the economy and expanding the tax base by cutting red tape for businesses, improving transport infrastructure and having a "cautious" transition away from North Sea oil and gas.

Ms Forbes has also described the government's bottle return scheme as well-intentioned but "badly executed".

During a Channel 4 debate, presenter Krishnan Guru-Murthy told Ms Forbes that her views on taxation and economic growth sounded "a bit like Liz Truss".

The three candidates were Ash Regan, Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes

Little of this would be popular with the Scottish Greens, whose power-sharing deal with the SNP would have been very unlikely to survive under Ms Forbes - particularly because of her views on social issues.

The SNP's social justice secretary, Shona Robison, said she would have to think long and hard about whether she would serve in government under Ms Forbes, while the party's deputy leader at Westminster, Mhairi Black, warned of a possible split if the finance secretary had won the leadership.

Several of her colleagues were said to have been furious over her attack on Mr Yousaf's record, which they believe will be quoted repeatedly by opposition parties as they seek to attack the SNP's record in government.

The Scottish Conservatives have already said they want to use Ms Forbes' remarks in their next party political broadcast.