The following year he stood unsuccessfully in the hard-fought contest for the leadership of the SNP against John Swinney.[4] Thereafter he was appointed chair of the Scottish Parliament's Enterprise and Lifelong Learning Committee, a role he kept on until 2003.
In 2003 he was re-elected as SNP MSP for Central Scotland to the Scottish Parliament.
In July 2004, Neil announced that he would not be a candidate in the impending contest for the leadership of the SNP, despite the fact that he believed he had considerable support within the party. He said that the reason for his decision was that senior figures in the party (such as MSP Fergus Ewing and former SNP leader Alex Salmond) had made it clear publicly that they would not work with him as leader.[5] Neil later endorsed Salmond, who he claimed would "unite the party" and was "best placed to maximise the SNP vote".[4]
In 2004 Neil was appointed chair of the Enterprise and Culture Committee. He was also a co-convenor of the Scottish Parliament's Cross-Party Group on the Scottish Economy.
Neil emerged as a leading supporter of former policewoman Shirley McKie as she bid to win compensation from the Scottish Government following her acquittal from perjury charges.[6][7][8]
He was again re-elected as a regional MSP for Central Scotland in 2007. He sat on the European and External Relations Committee and the Finance Committee from 2007 to 2009, upon his promotion to Scottish Minister.
He voted for Brexit in the 2016 referendum on the UK's membership of the EU, a choice he made less than two weeks before the vote, and is the only SNP MSP to publicly admit doing so.[9] "I'd only recently left the SNP government and I wasn't going to rock the boat and I quite frankly didn't think it was all that important for me to say that at the time anyway," he told BBC Radio Scotland. "The party's position - the government's position - was very clear and quite frankly, out of loyalty, I didn't think it was right for me at that stage to say so."[10]
He was moved from that post to the post of Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing in September 2012. A month into this post, in an interview with Scotland on Sunday Neil spoke about the possibility of abortion laws being made in Scotland rather than Westminster, saying that politicians would have to consider the medical evidence.[13]
In August 2020 he announced that he would be standing down as an MSP at the upcoming 2021 Holyrood election. In a statement, he said: "After much soul searching, I have decided that to commit to another five years as an MSP would mean not having the time to pursue all the other things in life I want to do. I also owe it to my wife and family to spend more time with them. I have two beautiful granddaughters who miss me when I am away so often on parliamentary and constituency business. I want to spend more time with them."[16]
In January 2023, Neil stated that Holyrood contained "too many careerists" and argued that reforms were needed to improve the quality of debate in the Chamber. He told The Scottish Sun: "We have very few people in the Parliament, in any of the parties, who (are) prepared to stand up and act independently of their party leadership. I think any parliament worthy of the name has to encourage people who are dissenting voices, they've got to be given their view."[17]
Awards
Neil was honoured three times in the Scottish Politician of the Year awards organised by The Herald newspaper. In 2005, he was named "Donald Dewar Debater of the Year"; in 2017, he won the award in the "Committee Member of the Year" category; and in 2020, he was designated "best of the best" in the "Donald Dewar Debater of the Year" category.[18]
Personal life
Neil is married to Isabella Kerr and together they have one son.[2]
