Willie Coffey
Scottish National Party · Scotland
“They have transformed the war from the failed gung-ho attack that was launched in the early days by Putin to this war of attrition that involves inching forward day by day, with drone technology delivering most of the damage.”
“Those are incredible numbers—they are tragic losses that should never have occurred. The likelihood, however, is that Putin will keep on sacrificing his young men, no matter the cost in Russian lives, to achieve his goal of subjugating the nation of Ukraine.”
“President Zelenskyy has said no to giving up Ukrainian soil to the Russians to get peace. As one father in Mr Bowen’s article put it, “If a maniac comes to your home and says, ‘Give me your daughter and I won’t come back,’ do you really think that a man like this—who rapes and pillages—is simply going to stop?” I sincerely hope that Europ…”
“He writes: “Dystopian military vehicles straight out of Mad Max rumble past, encased in their own cages of steel and netting.” He notes that the roads are covered overhead with fishing nets that “go on for miles, suspended from wooden poles”, and that the nets snag the propellers of the Russian drones and protect people from direct blasts…”
“I thank Kenny Gibson for bringing this debate to the chamber, four years on from the start of the conflict. It is perhaps a sign that four years have passed with no resolution that we now have to search down the social media news columns to find stories about the Ukraine war.”
“This SNP Government is committed to ensuring that everyone in Scotland has access to a warm, affordable home. Can the cabinet secretary explain how the 2026-27 Scottish budget invests significantly in homelessness prevention and measures to help people to remain in their homes?”
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“The reduction that I mentioned earlier—of 51.3 per cent over the period—is higher than that in any other nation of the UK. We do not rest on that laurel but, in the constitutional settlement that we have, we do not have the powers that we need to make some of the choices that we would like to make as a country. The UK Government continues to hold the key policy levers for some policy areas on a net zero future, including critical areas such as Acorn, which I mentioned several times earlier.”
“Despite the restrictions of devolution, Scotland continues to lead the rest of the UK in emissions reductions, with a 50 per cent overall reduction since 1990, as the minister said. Does he agree that Scotland would be in a better position to fight climate change if we had the same powers and financial levers as every other independent country has? Of course, I thank him for his considerable achievements for the people of Scotland during his term in office. [Interruption.] Alasdair Allan: Despite the muttering from some quarters, we have plenty to learn on such issues from small European countries that have a population of 5 million and are independent, and we seek to do that. The member rightly points out that Scotland continues to lead in emissions reductions across the UK.”
“To ask the Scottish Government whether it will support more collaboration between the three Ayrshire local authorities in the delivery of Gaelic educational services, in order to meet growing or unmet demand. (S6O-04769)”
“We are working with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities on that investment, and we are building on existing spend in relation to inclusion. Further funding is being provided through the budget to support local and national programmes that will directly support the recruitment and retention of our ASN workforce. That is pivotal to supporting ASN pupils in our schools.”
“I welcome the £29 million that the Scottish National Party Government has invested in additional support for learning, and I gently remind colleagues that Scottish Labour and the Tories refused to back the budget, which delivered that funding for education in Scotland. How will that funding support the role of local authorities in recruiting for our workforce? Jenny Gilruth: As I have set out, in 2025-26, local government will receive £29 million of funding to improve outcomes for all children and young people with additional support needs. It is worth recounting that outcomes for children and young people with additional support needs are improving and that the attainment gap in relation to ASN is narrowing.”
“To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on funding for the cashback for communities programme. (S6O- 04751)”
“To ask the First Minister what assessment the Scottish Government has made, regarding any implications for its work to grow Scotland’s economy, of analysis from Future Economy Scotland indicating that average earnings in Scotland are £15,000 less per year than they would have been if wages had not flatlined since the financial crisis. (S6F-04115)”
“To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on how many school pupils are currently studying computing science and how this compares to recent years. (S6O-04669)”
“Within that, we will work with YouthLink, among other partners, to ensure that young people from all backgrounds have access to inspirational creative opportunities.”
“Will the cabinet secretary advise how the access all arts fund will continue to support the creative ambitions of children and young people across Scotland? Can he also provide an update on some of the projects that are under way as a result of the 2025 allocations? Angus Robertson: The access all arts fund is supported by Creative Scotland and the National Lottery. I would be happy to put Mr Coffey in contact with the youth arts team at Creative Scotland to learn more about it. Scottish Government funding directly supports the youth music initiative, which includes multi- artform strands. It will receive a budget uplift this year, taking our annual investment to £9.78 million.”
“All 32 local authorities have recently completed their local heat and energy efficiency strategies, which are a useful tool for all of us, locally and nationally, in setting out how the building stock in each area of the country can be decarbonised. As numerous members have pointed out, housing stock is radically different in different parts of the country. We will continue to provide support through our delivery schemes. As I mentioned, we are investing £300 million in the heat in buildings programme this year. Local authorities have a key role to play, and we certainly want to maintain that dialogue with them.”
“With electricity prices being so high and the efficiency of alternative heating systems not yet fully accepted or understood, if we are to make real progress on the transition of our residential homes away from fossil fuels, more will need to be done to persuade a sceptical public. Will Scotland’s councils play an important role in becoming a trusted partner to help to lead the transition and provide the assurance and long- term support that people will need if they choose to make the transition in their homes? Alasdair Allan: Local authorities are a trusted partner in that. As I said, I recently met COSLA about some of the issues that arise here.”
“To ask the Scottish Government what impact the Scottish digital academy is having on improving digital skills in Scotland. (S6O- 04473)”
“We in the Scottish Greens take that moral responsibility seriously and I know that colleagues across the chamber do too. We also need the conviction to act. We must act, and we must do it now—for all our children’s sake. 16:50”
“Poisonous rhetoric about social security, suspicion and scorn for those who are in need, and an obsession with work, when parents are already working their fingers to the bone and still cannot afford to eat, will not help. It seems that the workhouse mentality—the idea that the very worst thing that a Government can do is to provide food and shelter for someone who does not deserve them, whatever “deserve” means in that context—has not gone away. In truth, the worst thing that a Government can do in this context is deny children the basics of a happy childhood as a way of punishing their parents. When we, as a Parliament and as a nation, passed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (Incorporation) (Scotland) Bill we were not just taking on a legal responsibility; we were taking on a moral one.”
“No child should face eviction over the winter months. No woman who faces domestic abuse should have to make the choice between staying in an abusive home and making herself and her children homeless. No family should have their physical and mental health jeopardised by mould and damp. I welcome the opportunities to engage with the minister and others on those and many other issues over the coming months, as the Housing (Scotland) Bill makes its way through Parliament, but I echo Willie Rennie’s call for the minister to tell us how he intends to address the recommendations in the report, because we need action now. We also need to see compassion and justice at every level of government.”
“Standards for temporary accommodation need to be set at the same level as those for permanent housing. Primary health services need to be included in prevention strategies. Families with children and those children who are most in need must be prioritised. There is a wider picture, too, which is a desperately urgent one. We again call on the Scottish Government to build more high-quality permanent homes for social rent, including homes that are large enough for families. We reiterate our commitment to ending homelessness and to a housing first approach as its central pillar. We call on the Parliament to show courage and commitment in making the Housing (Scotland) Bill an opportunity for transformational change. The amendments that we and others have lodged will go some way in helping with that.”
“I am reassured by the minister’s assurance at the outset of the debate that the Government accepts the recommendations and will act on the findings to address the issues that are presented in the report. The Deputy Presiding Officer: We move to the closing speeches. 16:46 Maggie Chapman: In closing the debate for the Scottish Greens, I reiterate my thanks to Shelter and to the researchers, children and families who made the report such a valuable, challenging and human testament. It shows us not only what is wrong, but the paths to making it right—to making the rights of children real. There are immediate provisions to be made on support and services and access to amenities and facilities, as well as to better—much better— temporary accommodation, while that is still needed. There are policies to be changed.”
“As ever, I am indebted to my East Ayrshire Council colleagues, who advised me that the number of kids who live in temporary accommodation down there is dropping year on year; the current figure is around 25. That figure is too high, but it is among the lowest in Scotland. The council is doing its best. It is building more council houses than ever before, and it is buying back a substantial number of properties, too. Taken together, that work shows that East Ayrshire Council is doing all that it can to tackle the problems of demand and capacity. The Government’s big investment of £768 million in affordable homes will be a significant help in dealing with the problem, and the council hopes to build more than 600 new affordable homes in the period ahead. It is right for the main focus of my comments to be on what is in the Shelter report.”
“We know that it can be a complex issue to sort. The witnesses who gave evidence to the committee also talked about the importance of improving the specialist skills that are needed in order to diagnose and treat such problems. Even now, 30-odd years later, there are still examples of fungicidal washing and paint being used as the sole means of keeping dampness at bay, but that does not solve the problem. My question for our councils is this: why are you continuing to allocate houses that are clearly damp and mouldy at the outset? That includes some of the temporary housing that is featured in the report. Surely we should outlaw that practice, too, as well as embracing Awaab’s law.”
“Added to that was the frustration and anger of parents who were trying to solve those issues, on top of the homelessness situation that they were already facing. It presented a disturbing picture for us all. I think back to my early days as a local councillor in the 1990s, when a big proportion of my inquiries came from tenants living in damp houses with mould. We have come a long way since then. According to the current Scottish house condition survey, 90 per cent of all housing stock is free of the stuff, but it is still there, and it is causing misery and harm in equal measure. Only yesterday, the Local Government, Housing and Planning Committee heard about testimonials from people who are suffering dampness in their homes—not temporary accommodation—and the problems that they have encountered in trying to deal with it.”
“One of the sections in the report that caught my eye was the one on mould and dampness, which seemed to be prevalent in the temporary housing that was featured in the study. The comments from a wee six-year-old child were pretty awful, describing his or her bed as being soaking wet due to the dampness in the house. It is beyond me as to why a house in that condition can be used at all, and I ask the Government and the councils to take a serious look at preventing the use of accommodation that is not fit to be lived in. Sadly, councils have not done that for years—that includes Labour and Tory councils, let us remember. The impacts of the issue went beyond the discomfort of the dampness itself. It had wider implications for the children, who expressed fear and anxiety to the researchers about the conditions that they were living in.”
“The Shelter report provides us with a clear message on the impact on children and young people who are experiencing life in temporary accommodation. The focus of the report on safety, health and educational development is incredibly helpful. Some of the testimonials were positive, but most were not, and they were hard to read. The first thing that occurred to me to ask was: why does temporary accommodation generally always seem to be in such poor condition? Why is it that homeless families and kids are given housing—even temporary housing—that is not fit for purpose? There is really no excuse for that. It is as if they do not matter—that, somehow, homeless families can take second best when it comes to being rehoused. Surely that has to stop.”
“I am pleased to say that, in SPARC’s January update, both the incidents of rural crime and their associated costs to businesses and communities were down, compared with figures for the same point in the previous year.”
“What preventative work has the Scottish Partnership Against Rural Crime been doing, particularly in relation to disrupting serious organised crime groups that target rural communities across the United Kingdom? Siobhian Brown: The link between crimes such as equipment theft in rural areas and serious and organised crime is well recognised across the whole UK. Preventing equipment theft is one of the priorities in the current SPARC strategy. The partnership aims to mitigate its effects by sharing intelligence on organised crime groups that operate across the UK and by providing specific information to the rural and farming communities on how best to secure property and prevent it from being stolen. The work of SPARC also makes a valuable contribution to Scotland’s serious and organised crime strategy.”
“To ask the Scottish Government how the housing to 2040 strategy will aim to benefit Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley. (S6O-04439)”
“We will continue to reach out to the UK Government: it is imperative that it works with the devolved nations in a joined-up manner to deliver policy that benefits the people of”
“The APR proposals from Labour are the latest in a long line of attacks on Scottish agriculture by successive UK Governments. What assessment has the Scottish Government made of the cumulative impact of Westminster policies in recent years, including the APR proposals, on Scottish agriculture? Jim Fairlie: We share Willie Coffey’s concerns about the negative impacts that are being caused by the failure of the UK Government. It is clear that decisions that are made by the UK Government have significant impacts on Scotland—as we have seen in agriculture with the inheritance tax changes and the Barnettisation of the agricultural budget allocation. We remain committed to maintaining direct payments, thereby providing vital stability to agriculture and contributing to the delivery of the vision for agriculture.”
“With some justification, Labour can point to the appalling legacy left by Liz Truss, which has already been mentioned a few times today. The Treasury biscuit tin was empty when the Tories left, but Labour must have known that before last summer’s election. The civil service always briefs any potential incoming Government on the state of the public finances, so Labour either did not understand that message or chose to ignore it and to carry on making false promises to the electorate to get a foot in the door. “Read my lips: no austerity under Labour” and promises to save jobs at Grangemouth will forever be millstones around Labour colleagues’ necks.”
“Our powers in this place are limited and we have a fixed budget to tackle many of the issues that people face, but there are plenty of examples of how this SNP Government is helping, some of which I will cover today. We cannot overlook Labour’s disastrous performance in Government. The party was in the door for just five minutes before pensioners were robbed and abandoned. Energy bills have gone up, not down, as Labour promised, and the poor, the disabled and the most vulnerable are in for it if the rumours of another £6 billion of cuts heading our way are accurate. The easiest targets of all— pensioners and the disabled—will be made to pay for Labour’s tenure in office so far. The cost of living crisis is certainly here, but Labour is making it worse.”
“I say at the outset, as others have already said, that it is a wee bit disappointing that we have only four Labour and four Conservative members in the chamber for such an important debate. People in my constituency do not need me to tell them that their energy bills are rocketing and that Labour’s cost of living crisis is getting worse. They know that and they know who is to blame, so they want to hear what we can do about that here, in Scotland, and how this Parliament is helping despite the madness of Trump in the USA. It looks as if he is ramping up tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium to 50 per cent—as we all know, the situation has gone mad with Mr Trump.”
“Can the cabinet secretary outline how the Scottish Government is ensuring that children’s rights are incorporated across our education system? Jenny Gilruth: We are committed to upholding the rights of children and young people across Scotland and supporting public authorities to understand and fulfil their UNCRC duties, including in our education system. In May 2022, we awarded UNICEF UK a three- year grant to support it in raising awareness of children’s rights across the majority of Scottish schools though its rights-respecting schools award. I was pleased yesterday to visit Glenrothes high school in my constituency to see the impact of that award, which the school has received at gold level, on the rights of children in that school in”
“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)”
“That is what will happen in Edinburgh, in Kilmarnock and right across the country. Galleries 4.”
“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? The Deputy Presiding Officer: Again, the principal question that we should be mindful of is about support across the Lothian region. Angus Robertson: Music venues in the Lothians, as in Kilmarnock, have been hit hard in recent years by the coronavirus pandemic and the cost crisis. It is estimated that music venues in Scotland are, on average, making only half a per cent profit on their turnover. The targeted relief that has been announced by the Scottish Government will reduce overheads for eligible venues and support the wider cultural ecosystem and night-time economy within the limited finances that are available.”
“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)”
“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”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“We are developing next steps and I will be happy to update the Parliament in due course. The Deputy Presiding Officer: That concludes the ministerial statement. There will be a short pause before we move on to the next item of business. A9 Dualling Programme”
“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? Kate Forbes: We have accepted that recommendation in principle and will work with partners on how to deliver it. The member is right that, in its final report, which was published in November, the independent standing committee on pandemic preparedness made a series of recommendations relating to the use of data, governance, funding and relationships between the private, public and academic sectors.”
“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)”