[5] Welsh unsuccessfully contested Central Dunbartonshire in February 1974, coming fourth.
[2] When the Bill which became the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 was before the House of Commons, the Conservative MP Edwina Currie introduced an amendment to equalise the ages of consent for homosexual and heterosexual intercourse at 16.
Welsh voted against this[8] and against an amendment proposed by the Conservative MP Sir Anthony Durant to reduce the age of consent for homosexual intercourse from 21 to 18.
[9] In June 1998, Welsh was announced as an SNP candidate for the newly formed Scottish Parliament in the elections that would take place the following year.
Before being re-elected to the House of Commons at the 1987 general election, he worked as a Senior Lecturer in Business Administration at Arbroath College in Angus.