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Chamber and committees

Official Report: search what was said in Parliament

The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.  

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Dates of parliamentary sessions
  1. Session 1: 12 May 1999 to 31 March 2003
  2. Session 2: 7 May 2003 to 2 April 2007
  3. Session 3: 9 May 2007 to 22 March 2011
  4. Session 4: 11 May 2011 to 23 March 2016
  5. Session 5: 12 May 2016 to 5 May 2021
  6. Current session: 12 May 2021 to 17 February 2025
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Displaying 205 contributions

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Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

General Question Time

Meeting date: 30 January 2025

Willie Coffey

To ask the Scottish Government how it protects the environment and the interests of local communities regarding the construction of battery storage plants within rural settings. (S6O-04269)

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

General Question Time

Meeting date: 30 January 2025

Willie Coffey

We know that the consenting process for battery storage plants falls within the UK Government’s planning process under its Electricity Act 1989, which is totally inadequate. What concerns me is the lack of local consultation, the poor management of the installation of these facilities and the significant damage caused to the rural environment. Will the minister give me an assurance that the Scottish Government will act on those concerns and ensure that local communities feel that they are valued and that the place in which they live will be protected and enhanced for generations to come?

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Portfolio Question Time

Meeting date: 29 January 2025

Willie Coffey

It is very welcome that the Scottish budget will deliver much-needed rates relief for grass-roots music venues across Scotland. Could the cabinet secretary say any more about how the targeted relief will support the sector?

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Portfolio Question Time

Meeting date: 22 January 2025

Willie Coffey

To ask the Scottish Government how the Agriculture and Rural Communities (Scotland) Act 2024 will aim to benefit the farming sector in Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley. (S6O-04223)

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Portfolio Question Time

Meeting date: 22 January 2025

Willie Coffey

I thank the cabinet secretary for that detailed answer.

From my previous questions, she will be aware of how highly we rate first-class local produce in my part of Ayrshire—namely, Dunlop cheese, Mossgiel and the Coo Shed milk, quality beef and lamb, Lochlea whisky, Irvine Valley gin, Ayrshire tatties and, not least, the famous Kilmarnock pie. How can we use the bill to encourage more local food and drink production? More important than that, how can we get all those products on to our shelves so that local people can buy them, and to help to sustain those vital local industries?

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

Women’s State Pensions (Compensation)

Meeting date: 21 January 2025

Willie Coffey

What a privilege it is to speak in support of the WASPI women in this debate—to speak for them and to tell their story of how they have been robbed by the British Government.

The great pension robbery is not over yet. The people of Scotland must sit up and be aware of what is happening or they will pay a heavy price. Surely the measure of a great country is not how much it can rob from its own citizens to bail itself out, but that is what is happening here. Great Britain is up to its eyes in debt, to the tune of £3,000 billion, and is frantically looking around to see what it has left to sell off and from whom it can grab money. The answer? The pensioners. They are easy targets, as ever, for the British Government.

Let us glimpse into recent pensions history to help us understand why we are where we are today. Gordon Brown started the ball rolling in 1997 when he abolished the dividend tax credit that the pension funds benefited from, resulting in a direct £5 billion grab for the then Labour Government, which basically cost pensioners £250 billion over the following 20 years. What an achievement that was by the worst chancellor in history—until Kwasi Kwarteng took that coveted title during his spectacularly short month in office in 2022.

Not to be outdone by Gordon Brown, the Tories made sure that an extra 8 million pensioners were dragged into the tax net during their 14 years in office, meaning that the number of pensioners who are now paying tax has risen by 42 per cent, courtesy of the Tories.

That leads us neatly to the current situation that we are debating, whereby a British Tory Government sets up an investigation into the WASPI pension scandal, which finds that maladministration has impacted millions of women and recommends compensation, but then the UK Government does nothing about it except say, “Sorry, it’s unaffordable.”

The UK Government must surely have known the price of compensation when it supported its own calls for it. Not once has Labour said that, if it were not for the £22 billion black hole that was left by the Tories, it would gladly pay the WASPI women their compensation; it has just decided that it is not paying it—ever—and that is that. No wonder the Ayrshire WASPI women called Labour “lying, untrustworthy hypocrites”—for an Ayrshire woman, that is probably putting it mildly.

Promises and pledges have been dumped now that Labour is in power. As I said at the outset, the British Government has always treated pensioners as the easiest targets to take money from.

I, too, remember all the pictures of Labour MSPs and would-be MPs with WASPI women campaigners. They were all desperate to get their pictures taken with them. Some of them think that they can delete history by deleting those pictures from their social media feeds, but they are still there and they will haunt those Labour politicians for years to come.

For most people, apart from the wealthiest, the pension that they have at the end of their working life is all that they have to see them through the rest of their life. It is an investment that people make from their own earnings while working—which is required by the Government—so that they can have some level of comfort in later life. It is their money, which Labour seems to have forgotten. It is not the British Government’s to keep, to repurpose or to blatantly steal. We are seeing state robbery. There are no other words for it. Hand it back!

Are we finished there? We had better not think so, because dear old Labour is planning another pension grab from the rest of us. At the moment, unused pension savings are typically paid, tax free, to sons and daughters after a parent passes away. However, from April 2027, Labour is planning to grab 40 per cent of people’s unused pension savings over a certain threshold in those circumstances. That is another pension grab, which, this time, is via inheritance tax. To people listening to the debate who think that they are safe, I say: think again. Labour is coming for your pension savings now.

As I said at the start of my speech, no great country should do such a thing to its citizens. Targeting the most vulnerable and the weakest in society is not a sign of greatness; it is a sign of duplicity and greed. The quicker that Scotland frees itself from this bleak future, the better. I am delighted to support the Government’s motion.

16:01  

Meeting of the Parliament [Draft]

UK Covid-19 Inquiry Module 1 Report (Scottish Government Response)

Meeting date: 16 January 2025

Willie Coffey

I understand that, as part of the response to the report, there has been a United Kingdom-wide call for a national laboratory for pandemic preparedness. I note that the standing committee on pandemic preparedness has urged the creation of a centre for pandemic preparedness in Scotland. Will the Deputy First Minister outline the Scottish Government’s work on that so far and say when delivery of it might be expected?

Meeting of the Parliament

Portfolio Question Time

Meeting date: 8 January 2025

Willie Coffey

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on Scotland’s alignment with the EU, including in relation to the digital single market. (S6O-04159)

Meeting of the Parliament

Portfolio Question Time

Meeting date: 8 January 2025

Willie Coffey

It is now nearly five years since the United Kingdom formally removed itself—and Scotland—from the European Union and therefore from the EU’s digital single market, which is estimated to be worth more than €400 billion per year. In the absence of any credible UK alternative, how can Scotland keep pace with and benefit from the EU’s approach to digital services and innovation, so that Scotland can reap the economic rewards of closer involvement with the EU’s direction of travel on digital matters in particular?

Meeting of the Parliament

Portfolio Question Time

Meeting date: 19 December 2024

Willie Coffey

In 2023-24, more than £1.3 million of Scottish welfare fund support came to East Ayrshire alone, benefiting my constituents during the worst of the cost of living crisis. What role is the welfare fund due to play in the year ahead in the Scottish Government’s priority mission to eradicate child poverty?