Watson was elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom as Member of Parliament for Glasgow Central at a by-election in 1989, following the death of Bob McTaggart MP. He was re-elected in the 1992 election and represented that constituency until it was abolished in 1997. He sought the nomination from the Labour party to run for the Govan seat at the 1997 election, but after initially winning the nomination by one vote, he lost a re-run to Mohammad Sarwar. On 6 November 1997, he was created a Life peerage as Baron Watson of Invergowrie, of Invergowrie in Perth and Kinross. In 1999 Lord Watson was elected to the Scottish Parliament to represent the Glasgow Cathcart constituency and was re-elected in 2003. On 20 July 1999 Watson announced his intention to introduce the Protection of Wild Mammals bill as a member's bill to the Scottish Parliament to outlaw fox hunting. The bill passed a vote 83–36 on 13 February 2002 and received Royal Assent on 15 March, becoming the Protection of Wild Mammals Act 2002 and becoming law on 1 August. This was a precursor to the Hunting Act 2004 banning fox hunting in England and Wales. When Jack McConnell became First Minister in 2001, Watson entered the Scottish Executive as Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport. He left the Executive in 2003, having lost his position in a reshuffle after the 2003 election. He subsequently became deputy convener of the enterprise and culture committee. On 15 November 2004, Watson was charged with wilful fire raising, and the Labour whip was withdrawn from him in the Holyrood and Westminster parliaments. On 1 September 2005 he admitted the offence and resigned from the Scottish Parliament. Watson was also expelled from the Labour Party when the sentence was announced. After serving a prison sentence he was released in May 2006. In January 2007 Watson was appointed as an Associate Director with Caledonia Consulting, while also attending the House of Lords on a regular basis. Watson was re-admitted to membership of the Labour Party in July 2012, after a vote of the National Executive Committee. In September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn appointed Watson as the Labour spokesman on education in the Lords.
Fire-raising conviction
On 15 November 2004, Lord Watson was charged with two counts of "wilful fire raising" after a private reception at Edinburgh's Prestonfield Hotel following the Scottish Politician of the Year awards on 11 November. The first alleged that he set fire to a curtain in the hotel's reception, and the second that he set fire to a curtain in the hotel's Yellow Room. On being charged, the Labour whip was suspended in the Holyrood and Westminster parliaments. After initially registering not guilty pleas to both charges on 23 August 2005, he changed his plea on 1 September to guilty on the first count, and had a not guilty plea accepted on the second charge. On the same day that Lord Watson admitted his guilt, he resigned from the Scottish Parliament. He resigned as a director of Dundee United Football Club. It was not possible for a life peer to resign from the House of Lords at that time and there was no provision for peers convicted of criminal offences to be stripped of their titles. Such legislation was last proposed following the conviction of Jeffrey Archer for perjury in 2001, but rejected. On 22 September 2005, Lord Watson was sentenced to 16 months' imprisonment. Sheriff Kathrine Mackie justified the sentence, stating that there was both "a significant risk of re-offending" and that Lord Watson offered no explanation. She also told Lord Watson that consumption of alcohol "neither excuses nor fully explains your behaviour". The sentence was reduced from 20 months to 16 because Watson had pleaded guilty before the case reached trial. Watson appealed against his sentence on 23 March 2006 but the appeal judges refused to cut the term, and he was returned to prison. After serving half of his sentence, he was released on 23 May 2006.
Views on Jeremy Corbyn
In an interview with The House magazine in March 2017, Lord Watson was asked whether Labour could win a UK general election under Jeremy Corbyn. He said: "Probably not. There are trends there that suggest we're not getting through and the result in Copeland certainly suggested that, so it will be difficult to turn that around. But we shouldn't underestimate the extent to which the government can get into difficulties over the European Union exit negotiations. It's not going to be anything approaching plain sailing for them."
