First Minister, John Swinney, on Jeane Freeman, The Herald, 8 February 2026:
Transcript of some of the interview with John Swinney on Radio Scotland:
Laura Maciver, presenter of Radio Scotland Breakfast:
“Now, tributes are continuing to be paid to the former Health Secretary, Jeane Freeman, who died on Saturday at the age of 72. It’s the First Minister, John Swinney. A very good morning to you. And thank you so much for being with us. And our condolences, first of all, because while this is a colleague, she was a friend as well to you and others.
John Swinney, First Minister:
“Jeane was a very dear colleague but also a very dear friend to so many of us and she served Scotland incredibly well in so many different areas.”
“She brought really deep values to all of her politics in whatever role she carried out. So I acknowledged this in my tributes over the weekend that the underpinnings of our social security system were principles and values of dignity, fairness and respect. And those were values built into statute by Jeane Freeman.”
“But that’s actually what she brought to absolutely everything that she did. She brought deep values of dignity, fairness and respect. And in whatever role she was performing, whether as a senior minister, a very senior minister, or as a campaigner, those were her values and they were deeply set within Jeane and I think what there’s a really illustrative and substantial lesson for everybody in politics today that values matter and they count because they were the anchor under which Jeane contributed all which underpinned all of what Jeane contributed to our politics and we were all the better for it.”