PinkNews Q&A: Submit your questions for SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon

SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon will answer your questions in a Q&A with PinkNews ahead of the snap 2017 General Election.

She follows Liberal Democrat Tim Farron, who was announced as the first participant in our traditional pre-poll quizzing of the main party leaders.

Ms Sturgeon became First Minister of Scotland in November 2014 when she succeeded Alex Salmond as leader of the Scottish National Party.

Salmond stepped down following the “No” vote in that year’s Scottish independence referendum and expressed confidence that his successor would be an “outstanding First Minister”.

A second Scottish independence referendum, dubbed indyref2, has been thrust to the top of the agenda in Scotland following the UK’s vote to leave the European Union.

While the UK as a whole voted to Leave the EU, voters in Scotland voted remain by a majority of 62 percent.

Ms Sturgeon had called for a second referendum to be held between autumn 2018 and spring 2019, though it is not clear if the shock general election has altered this timeline.

You can submit your questions for Ms Sturgeon below:

The SNP leader has frequently expressed her support for LGBT rights and was named Politician of the Year in 2015 at the Equality Network’s Scottish LGBTI awards.

She has pledged to tackle stigma and misconception surrounding HIV and declared that more work must be done to ensure LGBT equality in Scotland.

SNP's Nicola Sturgeon

More recently, Ms Sturgeon spoke of the progress made in Scotland on LGBT rights and brought up the issue of gay rights in a meeting with the president of Ghana John Dramani Mahama.

The SNP won 56 seats in the House of Commons at the 2015 General Election, out of a total of 59 available in Scotland.

It has two of the six available Scottish seats in the European Parliament, and is the largest party in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, with 63 of the 129 seats available.