Fiona Hyslop, the Lothians list MSP, is the SNP’s new shadow education and lifelong learning minister, taking over from Mike Russell who lost his seat in the May elections. Brian Adam, the Aberdeen North member, becomes her deputy. Unlike the coalition partners, the SNP has merged school and post-school education in one portfolio. In the Conservative ranks, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, education minister in the mid-1990s Tory administration, picks up the brief from Brian Monteith, who moves to local government.
