Official Report 353KB pdf
Party Leaders
13:59
Homelessness
Two years, four months and 23 days ago, this Parliament voted to declare a housing emergency. Today, a report from the homelessness charity Crisis warns that, without change, Scotland’s level of homelessness will remain at the same appalling level for the next 15 years. Core homelessness has more than doubled in the past six years, but those academics say that, with the right interventions, homelessness could be cut in half in the next two years. What are we waiting for?
I welcome the latest report of the homelessness monitor, which provides the insight that supports the agenda that the Government is taking forward. A range of different interventions have been made by the Government, which involve ensuring that we are constructing more housing, bringing more housing into use, supporting individuals who are at risk of homelessness at the earliest possible opportunity to ensure that we avoid homelessness occurring in the first place, and undertaking sustained actions to reduce the use of temporary accommodation. However, I recognise the scale of the challenge, which is why the Government has committed in its budget record sums of investment in housing to address the issue.
Despite the housing emergency action plan, it is clear that things are getting worse. Crisis tells us that the number of children in Scotland who are living in temporary accommodation has doubled in the past six years to more than 10,000. Homelessness is one of the big reasons why so many Scottish children live in poverty.
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation had to sound the alarm this week that Scotland is due to miss our legally binding child poverty target by a mile. These problems are urgent, which I made clear to the First Minister when I met him on Tuesday. I believe that we need cross-party talks to agree how we get back on track—not for one budget but to meet the requirements of the child poverty law across years. The First Minister committed to considering that, so what does he think the next steps are?
I welcome the discussions that have already taken place between me and Mr Marra, and I know that further discussions will be scheduled.
I made two points to Mr Marra on Tuesday that I think are very relevant to this discussion. The first is the absolute priority that the Government attaches to eradicating child poverty. That is at the heart of the programme for government, and the sustained actions that we are taking are in line with the recommendations and the points advanced by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
There will be issues that exacerbate housing and poverty challenges in Scotland that are outwith the hands of this Government. For example, the implications of the local housing allowance freeze that has been applied by the United Kingdom Government significantly increase the levels of poverty in Scotland. The challenges relating to energy costs, which are outwith the control of this Parliament, are further factors. There is a range of measures that we can take in the Parliament to address those issues, and I am absolutely committed to doing so.
The second point that I made to Mr Marra on Tuesday that is relevant here is that our discussions about child poverty and the priority that we attach to addressing it must be linked to our discussions about the budget. That is the invitation that I extended to Mr Marra on Tuesday, and I extend the invitation publicly here in the Parliament, to make sure that we have a focused discussion that links our measures on child poverty to decisions on the budget. He will find that I and the Deputy First Minister are very happy to engage on that basis.
The First Minister knows that I set out to him on Tuesday—and I do so again now—that it is not a question of one budget; it is a question of multiple years, and we need a plan that is agreed across the Parliament to get us back on track. I think that that should be done with all parties coming around the table and getting together.
The First Minister says that this is an absolute priority, but the Government is not consumed by these urgent issues. Instead, it is setting out, without a clear purpose, plan or process, to upend the whole of our national health service, our social work system, all of our schools and the entirety of local government, all at the same time.
The sheer scale of the confusion really matters when it comes to the housing emergency action plan. The then housing secretary, Màiri McAllan, told the Parliament that she needed the full focus of councils as
“the folks whom I am relying on to deliver the plan”.—[Official Report, Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee, 7 October 2025; c 15.]
The Joseph Rowntree Foundation specifically warned this week that the public service reform programme risks distracting everyone from the child poverty mission. This is what the JRF meant. Far from pulling everyone together, the First Minister is planning to spend years and untold amounts of money pulling things apart, with no clarity of reason and no plan as to how. Nobody I meet—including the First Minister—can explain any of that. Scotland risks a decade of distraction unless the First Minister sets out a purpose and a plan. Will he do so now?
I am trying to be as helpful as I can be, but I have to point out some pretty obvious things to Mr Marra. Mr Marra campaigned on a manifesto to reduce the number of health boards from the current number to three. I am proposing to have two. Members of the public will be utterly bewildered. Indeed, the very few people who voted Labour in Scotland at the election will be bewildered that Mr Marra fought an election saying that we had to reduce the number of health boards but then, after the election, when he gets defeated very heavily, he comes here and criticises me for advancing with health board rationalisation measures.
There is an opportunity here—and I do not want to get distracted by this political conflict, as I am anxious to make progress with Mr Marra. I noticed in the media this morning that the Liberal Democrat leader was suggesting that the Liberal Democrats were
“the most … powerful group in the parliament.”
Those were Mr Cole-Hamilton’s words, not mine, I hasten to add—and he has expressed that with the usual modesty that characterises all his contributions to Parliament.
I simply invite Mr Marra to give Mr Cole-Hamilton some competition about who might deal constructively with the Government to make progress for the people of Scotland.
Zionism
Last week, the Green Party of England and Wales passed a despicable motion characterising Zionism as racism. This week, not to be outdone, the Scottish Greens’ co-leader, Ross Greer, went further, describing Zionism as being founded on genocide. Let it be said loud and clear in this chamber: Zionism is neither racist nor genocidal. Zionism is a legitimate right of the Jewish people to a homeland in Palestine, which is enshrined in international law and recognised by the United Nations since 1949. Under international law, Israel has the legal right to defend herself after the barbaric and medieval attack launched by Hamas on 7 October 2023.
Will the First Minister agree with me that there was no established international, historical, political or legal basis for Ross Greer’s provocative claim that the state of Israel was founded in 1948 through an act of genocide against the Palestinian people?
That is not really a devolved matter, but I will allow the First Minister to answer if he so wishes.
As I made clear in my remarks at the beginning of the week, I do not agree with the conclusion that was arrived at by the conference of the Green Party of England and Wales. I believe that there should be a two-state solution to the issues and conflict in the middle east. I believe that that is the only route to deliver peace and stability, although I accept that, at this moment, the challenges of doing so are particularly acute.
On Monday, I hosted representatives of the Jewish community in Bute house to mark the anniversary of the 7 October attack. I reassured the community of my concern, as First Minister, for their safety and security in Scotland, and I reiterate that in Parliament today. Parliament will be very familiar with the points that I have made on the response of the Israeli Government to the attack on 7 October, which has unleashed intolerable suffering on the people of Palestine, leading to an extraordinary level of suffering as a consequence. I reiterate those comments in Parliament today.
I appreciate the First Minister’s candour on the matter and, indeed, the fact that he has met the Jewish community. There are 7,300 Jews in Scotland and 313,000 across the United Kingdom. The community is living under fear, anxiety and trauma every day, which is intolerable in modern Scotland.
Indeed, when the First Minister met the members of the Jewish community, he will have heard at first hand about the intimidation, violence and racism that they experience as they go about their own peaceful lives in Scotland. Dr Sue Siegel of the Jewish Council of Scotland recently spoke of the anguish in her community, citing fear of physical violence for wearing a star of David necklace, young boys avoiding wearing skullcaps and families being scared to worship in their local synagogue. How can there be such daily intimidation in Scotland just for being Jewish?
The First Minister has recognised that he has a responsibility to the Jewish community in Scotland to make them feel safe. Surely, therefore, he must start with condemning the racist rhetoric and blatant antisemitism of the Green Party.
I addressed that point in my first answer by saying that I do not agree with the conclusions of the Green Party conference.
Dr Siegel is one of the members of the Jewish community who came to Bute house on Monday. She is a lady whom I respect, and I value her counsel at all times.
My duty as First Minister is to make sure that every community in our country feels safe and protected—every community. That applies to the Jewish community, and I acknowledge that. That is why I invited the Jewish community to Bute house to meet me and remember the atrocities together, and so that I could express my solidarity. That extends to all communities in Scotland.
I do not think that, on a day when Thomas Kerr is going to lead a members’ business debate in this chamber demanding that women be forbidden from wearing the burqa in our country, Malcolm Offord is in any position to lecture me or invite me to stand on behalf of all communities. As First Minister of Scotland, I will always defend the safety of every single community in our country, and I deplore the content of the debate that we are going to hear tonight. [Interruption.]
Thank you. Let us hear Mr Offord.
True to form, the First Minister tries to divert and dodge the question. This is a very serious issue, so let me try again, one last time.
Last month, an amendment was lodged to a Scottish Parliament motion on middle east boycotts that, first, explicitly condemned
“the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October 2023”;
secondly, recognised
“Israel as a democratic state”;
thirdly, affirmed
“Israel’s right to defend itself”;
and, fourthly, opposed
“blanket boycotts”.
That amendment was defeated, with 54 SNP MSPs voting against it.
Last week, SNP minister Hannah Mary Goodlad attacked Kim Schmulian in this chamber for supporting the only democracy in the middle east, claiming that Israel was perpetrating genocide in Gaza. Meanwhile, Palestinian flags fly from municipal buildings across Scotland, with the Israeli flag banned from this very building. The International Court of Justice has not made any judicial ruling that Israel has committed genocide in Palestine.
Will the First Minister unequivocally condemn the racism being whipped up against Israel in this chamber? Will he now expel his friends in the racist Green Party from sharing his platform at the SNP conference in Aberdeen next week?
It is utterly beyond parody that Malcolm Offord invites me to take action on racism when he leads a party that has brought racism into this parliamentary chamber. I have served in this Parliament since 1999 and I have answered questions for many years from this podium. Not once have I previously been asked to ban the burqa or to divide communities in our country, but I have been invited to do so since May, since that lot came into this Parliament. That speaks for itself.
Data Centres (Communities’ Views)
The Scottish Government has said that no decision on applications for huge data centre developments should be made until new guidance is in place. However, since that statement, Dumfries and Galloway has seen an application for one of the largest data centres in the world. It would be a monstrosity that would use the same amount of electricity as more than 2.2 million Scottish homes. Five thousand people have objected to it already, but Chapelcross now joins Larbert, Greenock, Auchtertool and 21 other communities across Scotland that are waiting to see whether they will be blighted by huge data centres. What reassurance can the First Minister give those communities that their views will be listened to?
The best reassurance that I can give is to repeat the commitment that I have given to Parliament on previous occasions, which is that we do not anticipate that any applications will be determined by planning authorities before our planning guidance is issued later this year. I am very confident about the authority of that statement.
The First Minister’s Government has acknowledged that tech giants are marking their own homework when it comes to applications. In this chamber, he previously referred to an Edinburgh hyperscale data centre as “green”, but the Government later confirmed to us that the reference to it being green was taken directly from the description provided by the applicant. That comes after investigative journalists at The Ferret found that the Scottish Government had been lobbied by industry to use the phrase “green data centre”. Will he now make a concrete commitment to listen to the views of communities, as well as lobbyists, by carrying out a full public consultation on the draft guidance before any planning decisions are made?
The Government engages with a range of interested parties, and the Government would be criticised if it did not do so.
Those parties include members of the community. If my memory is correct, we have called in the application for Edinburgh, and we have indicated that further guidance will be issued. In preparing that guidance, the Government is of course engaging with a variety of different opinions. If we were to undertake a full-scale public consultation of the scale that is determined by, or requested by, legislation, that would significantly extend the amount of time until the guidance could be made available. That might compromise the commitment that I gave to Parliament, because of the timescales involved.
I will consider the issue that Gillian Mackay has raised, but I have to ensure that we take our decisions in an orderly fashion and give guidance to the planning authorities that have legitimate statutory obligations to address in relation to determining those applications.
I appreciate the statutory duty that local authorities have, but giving that time would also give the time that would enable communities to have their say on the planning guidance that comes forward.
I know from my constituents that the uncertainty around those centres is causing genuine and profound concern. Communities simply do not know what is going to come along. Councils across the country do not know what is going to come along, and local businesses do not know either. For example, the determination date for the Larbert application lapsed on 4 October. I appreciate what the First Minister says about not anticipating any decisions being made, but that leaves the Larbert community in my region in limbo.
Has the First Minister instructed the chief planner to issue directives to councils telling them to pause applications until the Government guidance is in place? If not, when will he do so, to give those communities that certainty?
The Government engages actively with local authorities to provide advice and guidance on the consideration of applications. What I and my ministers say in Parliament will be reflected in the communication and interventions of the chief planner, operating within the statutory framework that is appropriate for such decisions. We have a number of statutory obligations to be mindful of, not least those in the contents of national planning framework 4, which has been approved by Parliament on a statutory basis. The Government cannot just ignore the contents of that planning framework. I assure Gillian Mackay that what I am saying in Parliament is being communicated and conveyed by the chief planner to planning authorities.
Benefits Fraud
I am not allowed to call the First Minister a liar. However, last week he told me that Scots would “lose our pensions”. His statement was false and he knows it, but because it is John Swinney, he refuses to correct the record. We see the same culture of dishonesty and evasion at the heart of the Scottish National Party’s light-touch benefits system. It is wide open to abuse. Can John Swinney explain why he is okay with chancers and crooks stealing benefits from Scotland’s hard-working taxpayers?
I cannot police the remarks and accusations that Russell Findlay makes in the chamber. It is the same style of comment that was made by that distinguished parliamentarian Douglas Ross, whom even the Tories wanted to get rid of because they could not stomach his contributions in Parliament.
I was struck by the introduction that Russell Findlay got on “The Sunday Show” at the weekend. He was introduced as the man who had taken the Conservatives from second to fifth place, and the programme wanted to know what his plans would be next—further decline comes to mind, from what he has got to say.
In relation to the social security system, the issue that he raises sums up why the Tory party is in fifth place in Scottish politics today. In 2018, the Parliament unanimously passed the Social Security (Scotland) Act 2018. The Conservatives voted for it, and some of their members were part of committees that strengthened the approach that we took and demanded that we anchor the system in the principles of fairness, dignity and respect. Now, Russell Findlay comes to the Parliament and badmouths vulnerable individuals in our society—that sums up the Scottish Conservative party.
He cannot police my remarks, but he can take some responsibility for his own. The reality is that the Scottish National Party’s benefits bill is already sky high, and it is soon about to top more than £9 billion every single year. We value the safety net for those in need, but fraud has become rife. We have found some new evidence. Over the past three years, 23,000 fraud allegations were made to Social Security Scotland, but just 42 of those were reported to the Crown Office.
We know that cheats can only be asked to return money they are not entitled to and tick a box to keep getting benefits. My party’s proposed benefit fraud bill would restore fairness for taxpayers by forcing repayments and ending the tick-box claims. Will John Swinney back the cheats, or will he back Scottish taxpayers?
Social Security Scotland has the powers to recover overpayments through voluntary or enforced deductions for claims ongoing in the system and, where entitlement has ended, through the courts. Social Security Scotland is committed to ensuring that public money reaches those who are entitled to it, while actively deterring, preventing, detecting and investigating instances of fraud.
I want social security payments to reach the people who need them. I do not want them to reach people who do not need them. Social Security Scotland was established to make that distinction, not to terrorise vulnerable people and not to come to Parliament and badmouth them all the time. Social Security Scotland was set up with all-party agreement to deliver fairness, dignity and respect, and I am proud that it is doing so.
Violence in Schools
First, I offer the solidarity of the Scottish Liberal Democrats to Scotland’s Jewish community and Jews around the world as we commemorate yesterday’s anniversary of the horrific atrocity of October 7 by Hamas and rededicate ourselves to peace in the middle east and a two-state solution.
I declare an interest, as my wife is a teacher. This week, Scotland’s schools break up for the October holidays, and many teachers will be at their wits’ end. New Scottish Liberal Democrat research, which has been published today, shows that there were 44,000 violent incidents in our schools last year. In primary schools, it is the worst that it has ever been. In Fife, violence in those schools has more than quadrupled since 2018. What does the First Minister have to say to those teachers and pupils who are going back to school in a couple of weeks’ time, some of whom will be absolutely petrified at what is waiting for them there?
What I would say is that poor and violent behaviour is not to be tolerated in our schools, and we must address it through the various intervention mechanisms that are available to us. The Government regularly engages with our local authority partners and the teaching trade unions to devise behaviour codes for our schools and to ensure that they are applied. The Government is taking steps to ensure that that is the case and that the resources are in place to implement those codes. The Government takes a variety of interventions, and we will continue to work with our local authority partners to ensure that they are applied in the schools of Scotland.
Mr Adam, will you sit down, please? Thank you.
We have been listening to answers like that from the First Minister and his ministers for years, but the situation is getting worse. Police recorded the presence of knives in schools 127 times last year alone. The Educational Institute of Scotland has said that safety in our schools is
“the ticking time bomb in Scottish education that is just waiting to go boom.”
I fear that that is already happening.
Pupils and teachers are struggling, which is why they need more classroom assistants, more behavioural experts in schools and more access to youth work. Liberal Democrats have been talking about the rising level of violence in our schools for years. We have offered solutions, yet the situation is still getting worse. Can the First Minister not see that what he is doing just is not working?
Some of the steps that Mr Cole-Hamilton has suggested are steps that we took as a consequence of agreement with the Liberal Democrats on the contents of the Government’s budget last year. The extra resources that were put in place—which, if my memory serves me right, amounted to about £29 million—were allocated to increase the number of additional support needs assistants in our schools. That money was allocated to our local authorities. We have also provided £8 million of investment to support the implementation of the violence prevention framework since its publication in May 2023.
The behaviour codes are in place, and, of course, the Government is taking forward bans on mobile phones in schools—voluntary bans, initially, so that speedy progress can be made, but we will move to a legislative position at the earliest possible opportunity. Mr Cole-Hamilton will appreciate that it will take us time to legislate on that issue.
Mr Cole-Hamilton’s question raises the significance of the dialogue that will take place in the next few weeks on the budget. To be serious, the points that he is making reflect what he said in the article and interview in this morning’s The Herald.
I have made it abundantly clear to Parliament that I need to work with others to enable the Government’s policy programme and its budget to be passed. That is very obvious from the parliamentary arithmetic. I look forward to discussing concrete practical proposals that will enable us to pass a budget that will help to address the issues that Mr Cole-Hamilton has raised with me, if Parliament decides that that is the course of action that it wishes to take.
Mr Cole-Hamilton, the Liberal Democrats and other parties in Parliament can rely on my willingness and that of my Government to engage to do the best that we can to improve the lives of people in Scotland, including schoolteachers and pupils in the schools of our country.
That concludes First Minister’s question time for party leaders.
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