Quick Facts
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Miles Edward Frank Briggs (born 30 March 1983) is a Scottish Conservative and Unionist politician who has served as a regional list Member of Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Lothian region since the 2016 Scottish Parliament election. He is the Scottish Conservative Shadow Cabinet member for Health and Sport.
Early life
Briggs was educated at Auchtergaven Primary School, Perth Grammar School and Robert Gordon University.
Political career
Briggs was the official Conservative Party candidate at the 2010 general election for the North East Fife constituency, then in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election for North East Fife. In 2016, he stood for the Edinburgh Southern constituency.
In December 2015, Briggs was named second on the Scottish Conservatives' Lothian regional list in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, behind party leader Ruth Davidson.
Briggs is the Scottish Conservative spokesman for Mental Health and Public Health in the Scottish Parliament In addition, he sits on the Health and Sport Committee of the Scottish Parliament.
Briggs was announced as the official Conservative Party candidate for Edinburgh South West at the 2017 general election. He finished in second place, and received 16,478 votes, behind the sitting SNP MP, Joanna Cherry. Despite not being elected, Briggs was successful in significantly reducing Cherry's majority from 8,135 votes at the previous election, to just 1,097 votes.
Controversy
In 2018, Briggs was accused by a woman from another political party of sexual harassment at a parliamentary event. After an internal investigation, the Scottish Conservatives found Briggs not guilty of making "unwanted persistent advances" towards the woman. Women's rights charity Rape Crisis Scotland voiced "significant concerns" with how the investigation was conducted and called on the Scottish Conservatives to change the way they investigate claims of sexual harassment. The charity claimed that the party would not reveal whether the investigating committee had received training in how to investigate sexual harassment complaints.
