Monica Lennon says she will give £50,000 golden goodbye to charity
Labour politician says she will hand her MSP resettlement grant to good causes - shortly after being challenged by The Scotsman
Monica Lennon has revealed she is to donate her golden goodbye to charity - just hours after being challenged on it by The Scotsman and insisting she had not yet decided what to do with the money.
Ms Lennon, who is expected to automatically be given Anas Sarwar’s seat in Holyrood following his resignation, said she will give the MSP resettlement payment of around £50,000 to women’s health and alcohol abuse charities.
Earlier this week Mr Sarwar announced he has left the Scottish Parliament and quit as Scottish Labour leader. He is to be made a peer in the House of Lords and take up a job as a trade minister in Andy Burnham’s government.
As he was elected on the regional list, it is expected his seat will automatically go to the next candidate on the Glasgow list - which is Ms Lennon.
The resettlement grant she received when she failed to retain her seat is a payment to help MSPs who are not returned to parliament after an election, and is calculated based on years of service. Ms Lennon, who had been an MSP for ten years, is thought to have received around £50,000.
Shortly after telling The Scotsman she had not yet decided what to do with the money, Ms Lennon she would donate it to charity.
She said: “I fought the election but lost and received a resettlement payment from the Scottish Parliament. I hoped to be back one day as an MSP but never expected to return after a few months.
“I have been unemployed since May and have had to use some of my exit payment to pay bills, but it would not sit easy with me to hold onto the rest.”
However she said she will campaign for the MSP resettlement grants to be overhauled when she returns to Holyrood.
She said: “The whole system of exit payments for MSPs and members of the government is outdated and not fit for purpose.
“I will campaign for change when I am back at Holyrood.”
She has previously spoken about waiting for cancer tests and about her late father Gerry’s alcoholism.
Ms Lennon said: “Undergoing tests for cancer and having a procedure was one of the most terrifying moments of my life.
“Women go through this anguish every day and I will be making donations to women’s health charities.”
She added: “Tackling drug and alcohol harm is personal to me and is a cause I championed in my decade as an MSP. Charities in this field will also benefit.”
Ms Lennon previously told The Scotsman she would be waiting to take advice from Scottish Parliament officials on what to do with the pay out.
She told The Scotsman: “The circumstances are not the way I would want it to happen, but I want to be back in parliament and getting stuck back in.
“I have unfinished business with my ecocide bill, so I want to bring that back because it was a regret we were not able to get that passed earlier this year.”
However she said she did not wish to comment further as she is yet to hear from Scottish Parliament officials or the Scottish Labour Party on taking up a seat.
Ms Lennon failed to get re-elected in May after coming second to the SNP in Rutherglen and Cambuslang. She then did not pick up a seat on the Glasgow list as Scottish Labour only won three seats, and she was ranked fourth.
However it is expected she will take up Mr Sarwar’s vacated seat. If she does, it is also expected she will stand in the party leadership contest. She previously stood to be party leader in 2021, but lost out to Mr Sarwar.
Ms Lennon told The Scotsman: “The question of leadership is something I will look at and carefully consider.
“However being an MSP is about representing constituents and scrutinising the work of the government, and then internally helping Scottish Labour with their recovery.
“We have been through a difficult election.”
One of the other favourites to stand for party leadership is the party’s finance spokesman Michael Marra. The North East MSP was instrumental in drafting up the party’s 2026 election manifesto and is understood to have enough support amongst the parliamentary party to be nominated.
Earlier in the week a spokesman for Mr Marra said the MSP was “speaking with party colleagues” and added: “He is clear that this is not a question of reacting to one bad defeat.
“We need big changes in Scottish Labour after going backwards for six Holyrood elections in a row.
“Deciding how we deliver that change in service of the Scottish people is what this moment demands.”
Other names in the mix include Burnham ally Paul Sweeney MSP and Edinburgh Southern MSP Daniel Johnson. It is also understood the party’s acting leader, Dame Jackie Baillie MSP, would support a bid from newcomer Joe Fagan MSP.
It is understood candidates would need 15 per cent of Scottish Labour MSPs and MPs backing them to secure their name on the ballot paper - this would mean they need at least nine parliamentarians nominating them.
However, the party’s national executive committee was due to meet on Friday evening to discuss the next steps for the party.
Yesterday Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander, who co-lead Scottish Labour’s election campaign alongside Dame Jackie, said the entire leadership team “accepts responsibility” for the party’s poor election result.
The party returned only 17 MSPs at May’s election, which is the worst result for Scottish Labour in the history of devolution.
Speaking to BBC Radio Scotland Breakfast, Mr Alexander said: “Everyone accepts responsibility in the leadership team.
“There are searching questions to ask ourselves. It was a disappointing result and we have seen our vote share fall repeatedly since 1999, so it was consistent with that trend rather than bucking the trend.
“There are lessons that we can and should learn about the campaign and we have the opportunity to reflect on deeper political questions on Labour’s place in a devolved Scotland.”
This comes after Mr Alexander, alongside the new Prime Minister, met with First Minister John Swinney at the opening ceremony of the 2026 Glasgow Commonwealth Games.
At that meeting, Mr Burnham said the question of a second independence referendum was “off limits”.
Mr Alexander said: “I genuinely believe we have to agree to disagree. John Swinney is perfectly honourably advancing the case for independence, but Andy Burnham, in a reasonable way, said independence is off limits.
“That doesn’t mean though that we can’t agree on anything - that was a small part of our conversation.”
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