Keith Stewart QC

Mr Stewart, of Blacks Chambers, has a broad criminal practice and has appeared in cases including Yazdanparast and HMA v Bhomwick. He has also advised in matters relating to intellectual property and contracts.

He attended George Heriot’s School; Keble College, Oxford, where he studied English; Edinburgh University (LLB) and Strathclyde University for the diploma. He trained at Shepherd & Wedderburn before joining Faculty in 1993. He took silk in 2011.

One “senior Scottish legal figure” told The Herald that Mr Stewart has a “good breadth of experience”.

They added that he was “clever, tenacious, likeable and funny” and that he was “a proper toff…in a good way.”

A Westminster source told the paper that there had been around a dozen applicants and that Mr Stewart was selected from a shortlist of three.

Another said: “A lot of folk were interested right up until they spoke to Lord Keen. Many fell at the first hurdle.”

Former postholder Lord Keen of Elie QC resigned last month. In a letter to the Prime Minister, he wrote: “Over the past week I have found it increasingly difficult to reconcile what I consider to be my obligations as a law officer with your policy intentions with respect to the Internal Markets Bill.”