In May 2007 he returned to parliamentary life, this time to the Scottish Parliament as a list MSP for the Highlands and Islands electoral region.[4] In October 2008, the Labour Leader in the Scottish Parliament, Iain Gray, appointed him as the Chief Whip of the Labour Party in Holyrood.[5] In September 2019, he was made Labour's Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Eradication of Poverty and Inequality under Richard Leonard.[6] In June 2020, he announced that he would stand down from Parliament at the next election.[7]
He is married to Linda, who stood in the 2007 Scottish Parliament election as Labour Party candidate for the Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber constituency but failed to be elected.[9] They were both selected by party members to stand as Labour candidates in North of Scotland constituencies for the 2016 Scottish Parliament election.[10]