Edward Mountain
Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party · Scotland
“They should spare a thought for the 1,700 people who make this place work. Do not ignore them. It is they who make it possible for members to do what they do on a daily basis. Secondly, make friends across the chamber. I have tried to do that, and it has delivered for me. Thirdly, focus on one issue. My issue found me.”
“There will be £6.6 billion in co-benefits from the changes in the transport sector, relating to improved health outcomes, increased exercise and reduced pollution, which I mentioned in my statement. I mentioned the changes from the draft plan in my statement and in my response to Sarah Boyack.”
“The other thing that has frustrated me and, I think, many people across Scotland is the constant deflections that we hear. There are cries of, “If only we had the tools and the levers of power that we need.” I gently remind politicians in this Parliament that it is about what is possible, and much is possible in this Parliament.”
“Rhoda Grant has been an incredible champion for crofting—I have seen that come to the fore through the passage of this legislation—and a force for the Highlands and Islands. She has also called for the right to food.”
“Elements of the legislation will help crofters to begin the process of adaptation, but there was room in the bill to speed things up. At stage 2, we proposed giving crofters the benefits from environmental use of the land, an environmental use advice service and public financing.”
“As this will be my last speech in the Parliament, I hope that the minister will excuse me if I touch only briefly on the Crofting and Scottish Land Court Bill. It is nothing like what we were promised in 2016.”
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“As regards the merger of the Scottish Land Court and the Lands Tribunal for Scotland, I am aware of the expertise problem. The Government is pretty sanguine about it, but I would like to see some clarity when we come to stage 2. I thank the Rural and Islands Committee for its work. I agree with the general principles of the bill, but I feel that opportunities have been missed here. I reiterate that a new bill will definitely be needed, which is what the REC Committee said back in 2017. 16:37”
“I would have liked to see more of a definition of the cultural, economic, social and environmental benefits of crofting. I would also have liked to drill down into the Crofters Holdings (Scotland) Act 1886, the Crofters Commission (Delegation of Powers) Act 1888, the Crofters Common Grazings Regulation Act 1891, the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1955, the Crofting Reform (Scotland) Act 1976 and the Crofters (Scotland) Act 1993. When we look at crofting law, we have to have the text of all those acts open at the same time. For people like me, who are trying to help crofters, that makes it difficult to understand which act is apposite to the matter that is being dealt with. There needs to be proper reform of those acts. I would like them to be drawn together to help to make crofting vibrant, understandable and enforceable.”
“The 2017 report was clear that sufficient time should be allowed to ensure that a new bill would be passed before the end of the session in 2021, but that did not happen. It is therefore surprising that we are discussing the current bill only as we come towards the end of the current session. I hope that we will have sufficient time to get all the amendments through. I agree with the current committee that there needs to be a fundamental review of crofting in the next session of Parliament. The committee has raised issues relating to the Crofting Commission, mapping and, as I have just mentioned, what I have termed “slipper crofters”—that is, people with grazing shares but no crofts. The bill represents the low-hanging fruit of crofting law reform.”
“The REC Committee found key issues. Some of those have already been addressed and others are dealt with in the current bill, but it is still apposite to remind the Parliament of them. They related to the election of crofting commissioners and the management of absenteeism. There was a call for a new entrants scheme, which does not seem to have gained any ground at all, and for definitions of different forms of croft ownership, including owner-occupation and various other forms. The committee also called for the mapping of crofts, which also seems to have stalled slightly, and raised the issue of so-called “slipper crofters” who have shares in grazings but do not actually own crofts.”
“I am pleased to speak to the stage 1 report on the bill. I congratulate the committee and its clerks on progressing the bill and congratulate the minister on organising various meetings across the crofting community to discuss it. I attended one of those meetings, on a relatively bright summer night, and it was interesting. However, there is a bit of déjà vu here. In 2017, during the previous parliamentary session, the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee produced quite a lengthy report on the need to make changes to crofting law. In that report, the REC Committee made it quite clear that we needed a statement of crofting policy that would not only lay out the aims of crofting but cover keeping the associated language going and keeping the crofting population and culture in place across the Highlands.”
“I thank the cabinet secretary for her earlier answers, but I am slightly confused. Robbie Drummond worked for three days of that year and seems to have been paid £35,000 for each day that he worked, which is high by anyone’s standards. Can we have a definitive answer, cabinet secretary? Did you agree to that or not? Do you think that £35,000 a day is appropriate? Those are simple questions.”
“Scotland benefits from all the attributes that veterans bring back, most of which will help us in our businesses and everyday life. 16:51”
“I realise that there might be some nervousness when I mention the issue, given the state of the married quarters, but let us be clear that they are empty at the moment, and my proposal would provide a chance to gain some rent from them and for Scotland to benefit from them. I will hold up my hands up and say that I tried to raise the issue with the previous UK Government but I got very little traction when I did that. However, I stand by the fact that the issue is worth investigating. All that I am proposing is that the Government looks at the option, so that we can get more veterans to come back to Scotland. Given the spirit in which the amendment has been lodged, I hope that the Labour Party will support it.”
“In the amendment lodged on behalf of my party, I propose that the Scottish Government should talk to the UK Government to see whether any armed forces married quarters could be made available to retiring service personnel to facilitate them moving back to Scotland, possibly at a reduced rent for a period of up to a year, so that they can bring their skills back here and we can seek to use them. Graeme Dey: Will the member give way? Edward Mountain: If I have time, I will give way to the minister. Graeme Dey: I apologise, as I should have said in my opening speech that the Government will be happy to support Mr Mountain’s amendment in the spirit in which it is intended. Edward Mountain: I am delighted to hear that. There is potentially a huge benefit.”
“In Highland, the proportion is slightly less, at 5 per cent. Those veterans play a huge part in society. Their great contribution has been recognised in the NHS and Police Scotland reports that we have read, which recognise that veterans bring so much to us. Businesses across the country recognise the skills that veterans bring, whether in problem solving or in being worldly wise when they look to address problems. In my opinion, we need to encourage veterans to move to and settle in Scotland, and to help them do that. That is why the Conservatives have lodged an amendment that seeks to increase the availability of housing for veterans who move back here. In the reports that she has presented the Scottish Veterans Commissioner makes the point that we need to do more on local housing strategy.”
“To my mind, we owe a debt of gratitude to those veterans who stood by us, fought on our behalf and, when they were not fighting, helped to keep the peace in the places that I have mentioned. They allowed us to rest easy in our beds at night, so we owe them the ability to have a bed themselves. After the 1914-18 war, we gave many returning soldiers smallholdings across the country to allow them to come back to a house and to farm the land. I think that that was a great idea. Over the past 110 years, Veterans Housing Scotland, which we know a lot about, has been helping veterans to obtain housing. I remind members that, currently, about 176,000 people across Scotland have served our country. Fifty per cent of those are over 65 years of age. In my area, in Moray, we have a high proportion of veterans—about 9 per cent of the population.”
“We could probably all put our hands on our hearts and name some of the conflicts that our soldiers have been involved in since the second world war. We could probably reel off Northern Ireland, the Falklands, the first Gulf war, the second Gulf war, Afghanistan and probably a few others. However, do we really know the extent to which our armed services have been involved in those conflicts and where they have been deployed? I can list a few. We have been involved in 45 official conflicts and many others besides. We could talk about Libya, Sierra Leone, Yugoslavia, Belize, Gambia, Angola, Oman, Tanzania, Uganda, Cyprus, Malaya, Kenya, Aden and many more. I will not list them all, but there is a huge amount of them.”
“I thank the minister for giving Parliament the opportunity to have a debate on veterans, and I thank Susie Hamilton for the work that she has done over the past year. I am delighted to say that I, too, welcome the work that the Scottish Government has undertaken to help our veterans—the veterans who stood by us. I do not need to remind Parliament that national service stopped being a requirement in 1960 and that the last national serviceman probably left the services in 1963. Many of us do not know how many veterans are out there. We probably do not know that a person we are talking to is actually a veteran until we see them wearing a medal at a remembrance Sunday parade, whether it be a campaign medal or a medal for valour.”
“The Labour Party is calling for another £14.2 million to be invested. The question is, who would invest £14.2 million— Daniel Johnson: [Made a request to intervene.] Edward Mountain: I cannot take an intervention from Mr Johnson unless the Presiding Officer will let me. I am coming to a conclusion. The people of Scotland are being asked to invest that money when there are no orders in the order book and in the hope that an order will come along. To me, that is pretty dangerous and is a bit of a gamble. I hope that the Labour Party is going to explain that but, at the moment, I cannot support the amendment. 15:41”
“How much does it cost to keep the lights on, to pay the rates and to run the electricity in the yard? We do not know, but no more money is going to be paid for the ferries. We have been told that the yard has had all the money that it is going to get, apart from some contingency funds. So, apparently, the money that the yard has—although I do not see it in any bank account—is mythically going to multiply to cover its running costs until it gets a new order. I hope that the Government will tell us about that. The Labour Party is calling for another £14.2 million to be invested in the yard. Daniel Johnson: It is not extra. Edward Mountain: It is an extra £14.2 million, because, as Mr Johnson will remember, we gave the yard £30 million—well, Derek Mackay did, without telling the Parliament or the minister who had ordered the ferries.”
“He had pretty incompetently run Prestwick airport, and he gave speeches to the committee, which I heard a number of times and which I did not understand. They seemed to be a series of jargon-speak joined together into paragraphs that did not make any sense. Perhaps it was a code that the Government understood, but, as a human being, I could not understand it, so I am with the convener on that. Where are we now? We have a yard with no orders. Western Ferries has taken its order and given it to Cammell Laird, and even the Government has turned the yard down, taking its orders to Turkey and Poland. What we do not know at this stage, and what the Government has never come clean about, which I find quite bizarre, is what the unrecoverable costs of running the yard are.”
“When we got the yard into private ownership, we appointed Tim Hare to be the turnaround director. I know for a fact that, if you are a good turnaround director, you are never out of work. Well, Tim was the only one who was available. I also know that, if you are the turnaround director and you are six months into your job, you are no longer the solution to the problem—you are the problem. That was proved by the fact that, when he left, he had taken a huge amount of money from the Government and had not done much to turn the yard around. We then got to the situation with the chair—I was amused by the convener’s comments about this. The Government appointed a chair to run Ferguson Marine who had never built a boat in his life.”
“I acknowledge that there might have been great experience among the workers, but the management of the yard would never have built a ship in their lives. Secondly, the Government allowed two ferries to be built at a yard that could not house two ferries, despite the fact that, as part of the contract, they had to be built at the same time. If that is not incompetence, I do not know what it is. Then we got the arrangement of 15 staged payments for each of the ferries. What a great idea. Most yards across the world ask for five, but because the Government was keen to ensure that the person running the yard got as much support as possible, it agreed to 15 staged payments, and then managed to pay £82.5 million of the £97 million contract value when less than one ferry was built. That is incompetence. What did we do then?”
“As the Public Audit Committee has reported, we are with a yard with no orders; a yard that, going by the evidence that we have been given on the way that it is structured, is going to need 25 to 30 per cent more money to produce a ferry than any other yard in the world; and a yard that needs about £14.2 million invested—I will come back to that last point, because at one stage we heard that it would be £25 million, so there seems to have been a bit of a reduction. How have we got here? It is quite clear that there has been Government incompetence and management incompetence, and there is now no confidence from people who want to order ferries. The Government incompetence goes back many years. First, who would award a contract to a company with no proven management experience in shipbuilding?”
“Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I will try to stick to my time, as the other speakers have. I congratulate the Public Audit Committee on its detailed report. I do not recognise all the things that the convener said in his speech from the report, but the majority of them are there. I am delighted to see the forensic approach that has been taken by the committee, including my ex- colleague Jamie Greene, who was with me on the Rural Economy and Connectivity Committee and has spent as much time as I have looking at the ferries. He and I, as well as this Parliament, have survived four chief executive officers, four chairs, seven cabinet secretaries and 10 ministers—quite a number, in other words. Where are we now?”
“I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests, in which I declare that I am a proprietor of salmon fishings on the River Spey, and that I am a member of the Spey Fishery Board and of Fisheries Management Scotland. To ask the Scottish Government what action it is taking in response to the newly published October mortality figures for the salmon farming industry. (S6T-02793)”
“To ask the Scottish Government how many freedom of information requests that it has received during the current parliamentary session have subsequently been appealed by the requester. (S6O-05228)”
“The Animal Health and Welfare (Scotland) Act 2006 protects farmed animals from unnecessary suffering and places a duty of care on those who care for animals to meet their welfare needs. We know how important the aquaculture sector is in Scotland. It supplies well-paid jobs in some of the most rural parts of our country, as well as in our island communities. It is a highly regulated sector that is very important for our wider economy.”
“I remind members of my entry in the register of members’ interests: I have an interest in a wild salmon fishery on the east coast. The salmon farming industry is known for unacceptably high mortality, its use of antibiotics and the number of escapes, resulting in the royal warrant being withdrawn from Mowi. Surely it is time for this Government to consider withdrawing its blanket support for an industry that can only be described as suspect. Mairi Gougeon: I must make it absolutely clear that Scottish aquaculture is a highly regulated sector. There are robust controls on planning and environmental impacts as well as on fish health. Edward Mountain raised the issue of the royal warrant, but such decisions are not a matter for the Scottish Government. We protect fish health through regulation, through communication and through legislation.”
“On a point of order, Presiding Officer. I was unable to connect. I would have voted no. The Presiding Officer: Thank you, Mr Mountain. We will ensure that that is recorded.”
“Community councils and communities across the Highlands are being swamped with planning applications for pylons, battery storage sites, switching stations and, now, workers’ villages. Although some of those applications extend to thousands of pages, communities have only 30 days to respond to the energy consents unit on each application. Given the complexity of those projects, does the First Minister agree that it would be more democratic to extend the 30-day period to allow Highland communities to be fully consulted and to respond?”
“To ask the Scottish Government how much in total has been paid from the public purse to Ferguson Marine since the award of the contracts for both the Glen Sannox and Glen Rosa. (S6O- 05157)”
“To ask the Scottish Government what evidence it received in relation to the decision to allow the continued use of electrofishing for razor clams beyond January 2025, when the trial that started in February 2018 was due to end. (S6O- 05139)”
“We have a resource in Scotland and it appears that we can exploit it by carefully—”
“It is because this Government does not want to allow the use of nuclear power in Scotland. However, the Government is fine about taking the power that comes in from nuclear power stations when the wind does not blow and there is insufficient power here. It is hypocritical for members of the Government who have nuclear power stations in their constituencies to say that they do not want them there when the employment opportunities that they offer are phenomenal. I am unclear about the position of the Labour Party on this issue. To be frank, I am not sure who is calling the shots there. Anas Sarwar seems to be changing his position. Perhaps that is so that he can align with whichever new leader approaches the front benches when Keir Starmer is replaced, whether it be Wes Streeting or Andy Burnham. I am confused by everyone’s positions.”
“Why not ensure that those resources are exploited to ensure that the jobs that are in Scotland continue to offer employment to people and that the money that is brought in continues to benefit the UK Treasury? The suggestion that we should not use Rosebank means that we would just be exporting production to countries such as Nigeria. Is that environmentally sensible? It is not. If we wanted to, we could rely on Russia and allow it to supply us with oil, but that prospect is equally unpleasant. As Mr Greene pointed out, we could rely on the middle east to supply us with some of our fuel. However, some of the practices that go on there are totally unacceptable. This afternoon, we have talked about why we should not use oil. We have ignored why we are driven to using it.”
“I am a farmer myself—members can check the details in my entry in the register of members’ interests. We need oil for our transport. The battery buses that were sent up to the Highlands did not work, because they did not have the power required to get up the hills. We will need oil and gas to heat our homes. I keep pointing out—as I did to Mr Harvie—that the alternative sources of power that have been proposed, such as the heat solutions and the heat transfer systems, will not work without a considerable amount of retrofitting of insulation. Therefore, we will all continue to need oil and gas, which is why Mr Lumsden’s points are so appropriate. Why not use the resources that we already have?”
“I, too, thank the Greens for securing the debate. I have to say that I found their arguments less than compelling, as was their leaflet that was delivered to my home early yesterday evening, which was all about taxing the rich and making everything fairer. The rich have got rich by working hard and using the economy to their advantage, and everyone benefits from that. [Interruption.] If the Greens are going to destroy the economy, I do not know where we are going. The Greens have admitted that we will need oil in the future. Have we thought about all the uses for which we will need it? The turbines that are growing in number across Scotland use hundreds of gallons of oil each year to ensure that they turn and that their gearboxes and other workings function. Farmers need oil to fuel their tractors, because electric power will not do that.”
“We saw that in Dava: it did not matter whether the land was rewilded or forested or whether it was peatland or moorland— the fire went through every single type of managed landscape and beyond. There is absolutely no doubt that muirburn plays its role, and that is exactly why I paused the scheme to bring in licensing. We are reviewing those processes right now and we will continue to ensure that we give the land managers and the keepers the tools that they need in order to help us to combat wildfire in the future.”
“As one of the few members in the Parliament who has written muirburn plans and actually undertaken muirburn in fighting wildfires, I am shocked by the Government’s long-term plan to shorten the muirburn season. Wetter springs and higher winds mean that that is absolute madness. Surely, in the light of the fires that we have heard about, we should be undertaking more muirburn over a longer period, without affecting nature, to ensure that we do not have fires that damage people’s houses and threaten people’s lives. Jim Fairlie: I think that Edward Mountain is trying to make the point that muirburn is a silver bullet, but it is not. It is not a panacea, by any stretch of the imagination.”
“However, it then became clear that that was not the party way and members changed their views, which I thought was incredibly sad. I have also found it quite sad to have evidence of questions being leaked to ministers prior to evidence sessions with a committee. At one point, we had a private session on aquaculture, but when I left I found myself being doorstepped in my office by a journalist who asked me about something that had been said in that private session. That means that I am not keen on questions being shared ahead of meetings and that I always encourage committee members to make up their own minds.”
“We dealt with all the rural stuff, such as crofting, as well as all the transport stuff. Edward Mountain: I agree with Mr Mason on that point, which I will come back to in a minute. In the second of my sessions in the Parliament, I was on a committee of seven people and found it to be an easy one to get round. It is really important to me as a convener that a committee is not too big. I like to talk to members before meetings to find out their views and ascertain their direction of travel, because that makes it far easier then to reach decisions. I agree to some extent that members cannot always leave party politics at the door, but, in my time as a convener, I have seen committees being whipped over decisions. During work on the bill that became the Transport (Scotland) Act 2019, I was told that members would vote in a certain way.”
“To be honest, those members’ experience and depth of knowledge, and the length of time that some of them had spent in the Parliament, made things virtually impossible. I would sometimes benefit from the knowledge of Richard Lyle and Stewart Stevenson, but sometimes I could not, and an 11- person committee can be difficult and unwieldy to manage. John Mason: Will the member accept an intervention? Edward Mountain: I will give way to Mr Mason, on the basis that I hope he is going to recall being on a committee that I was on—an experience that he ignored earlier. John Mason: I did mention that it dealt with transport, which is what I wanted to raise. Would Mr Mountain agree that the committee to which he referred—of which I, too, was a member—had too wide a remit?”
“To my mind, the role of the clerks is absolutely critical. When we look at our committees we must bear in mind that it is really important to ensure that we have the right clerks supporting them. I have also gone through quite a few business managers in my time as convener. It is absolutely critical to have a relationship with them to allow the committee to work out its future programme. I know that almost all committee conveners do that, but that relationship is particularly important for a new convener. I will not embarrass the one business manager with whom I struggled, but I will say that he never gave me a biscuit when I came to meetings. He knows who he is, and I see that he is smiling. On the issue of committee size, my first committee had 11 members, which to me seemed unwieldy and almost too difficult to manage.”
“Uncomfortably, I find myself in the same boat as Richard Leonard in that I am going to give own my views, which do not necessarily tie in with those of my party. I have been convener of a committee for all but one year of my time in the Parliament. It is a role that I have considered to be important—more so than holding a shadow cabinet position in Opposition, for example—because I think that members can make a difference in it. I have listened to today’s debate and think that we have missed, or should consider, a couple of aspects. When I started being a convener, I was incredibly lucky to have a good senior clerk who enabled me to bounce ideas off them and allowed me to fight over certain points. That allowed me to be educated, as a new convener, about what I could and could not do and what was in the committee’s best interests.”
“We are quite unusual in Scotland in that our climate change plan must include the costs and benefits associated with all the policies that it contains. No other country in the UK has to do that. The costs and benefits will apply not only to the Government but to everyone, including the private sector. Edward Mountain said that we have finally published the climate change plan. I point out that, legally, I had until the start of December to publish it. Edward Mountain: Should have done it last year. Gillian Martin: I have published it so that we can have a finalised climate change plan by the end of this session of Parliament. Now that it is published, can we move on from the rhetoric around me taking my time to do things? I have been expediting work in this area, to allow Parliament the full period of time to scrutinise the plan—”
“I thank the cabinet secretary for her statement and for finally publishing the 400-odd- page draft climate change plan, which I have to admit I have not read fully in the hour in which I have had it. I remain seriously concerned that the Parliament does not have enough time to fully consider the plan before dissolution. However, I have briefly scrutinised annex 1, which covers the need to decarbonise our homes. It will cost the owner of a pre-1960s house in the region of £45,000 to decarbonise. What percentage of that cost will the Scottish Government make available to home owners to help them to achieve the Government’s decarbonisation targets? Gillian Martin: As Edward Mountain knows, the decision on spending is made at budget time.”
“It seems to be fine for ex-ministers and ex-special advisers to take that role, but not large landowners. I think that that is wrong. Fundamentally, it goes against the grain of everything that I believe about the Scottish Parliament in relation to equality. We have debated amendments, including a lot of my amendments. I am very glad that, in most cases, they were debated in the spirit in which they were lodged. However, at one stage, one of them was not, and that was sad. My mother, who is long since deceased, would have said that that was probably because the person was overtired and that they should not have done it in that way. My mother often had wise things to say. I will leave it at that, but I am afraid that I cannot support the bill in the way in which it is drafted. 18:24”
“This land reform bill will not help to promote that investment. We can argue about whether that is right or wrong, but the Government does not have the money available to invest in some of the targets that we need to achieve. If members do not believe that, I point to the outstanding letters from Scottish Financial Enterprise and from renewables and forestry companies on their fears about the Land Reform (Scotland) Bill. The bill will make real problems for us. As far as tenancies are concerned, let me be clear that changing the law retrospectively comes with huge problems. We know that there has been a decrease in tenancies—I have raised that for long enough. Part of the bill that I found particularly difficult is the exclusion of large landowners from being the land and community commissioner.”
“My amendments did not seek to do what Dr Allan suggested, which was to kibosh the bill; rather, they sought to prevent the cabinet secretary—or probably her successor—from facing the legal challenges that I believe that the bill will result in. There are some clear casualties of the bill, investor confidence being one and tenancies being another. Why are those important? We need investor confidence if we are going to address our net zero targets, including on planting and looking after the remote areas of Scotland. I have looked back at the details, which show that, in March 2023, Lorna Slater—sadly, she is not here— signed a groundbreaking £2 billion investment deal with private investors and the bank Hampden & Co. The aim was to get them to invest in some of the targets that we sought to achieve.”
“I started off looking at the bill bearing in mind the information that had been given to me by a land reformer who said that it would not deliver what the cabinet secretary said that it would and by a legal adviser who said that it was “junk law”. This is the Scottish Parliament’s third attempt at land reform. None of it has really delivered what the Parliament wanted, and we predict that there will be a fourth attempt. What we know is that the first attempt at land reform resulted in Andrew Stoddart’s court case, and the second resulted in the Salvesen v Riddell case—and at what cost to the Scottish Government? We will find out, because I have put in some freedom of information requests that will, no doubt, prove that cost.”
“I remind members, as I constantly do, of my entry in the register of members’ interests. I am the owner of 202 hectares of land. I rent about 200 hectares of land under a non-agricultural tenancy. I also have about five hectares of land under an Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act 1991 tenancy. I have feet in many camps when it comes to land, and I have always supported land reform. I echo the thanks that Mr McArthur put on the record to those people who have helped members to get amendments through. In particular, I thank the legislation team for being so amenable to the few amendments that I put forward.”
“Amendment 59 disagreed to. Amendment 60 moved—[Edward Mountain]. 16:30 The Deputy Presiding Officer: The question is, that amendment 60 be agreed to. Are we agreed? Members: No. The Deputy Presiding Officer: There will be a division. The vote is closed.”
“For Briggs, Miles (Lothian) (Con) Carson, Finlay (Galloway and West Dumfries) (Con) Dowey, Sharon (South Scotland) (Con) Eagle, Tim (Highlands and Islands) (Con) Ewing, Fergus (Inverness and Nairn) (Ind) Findlay, Russell (West Scotland) (Con) Fraser, Murdo (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con) Gallacher, Meghan (Central Scotland) (Con) Golden, Maurice (North East Scotland) (Con) Gosal, Pam (West Scotland) (Con) Gulhane, Sandesh (Glasgow) (Con) Hamilton, Rachael (Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire) (Con) Hoy, Craig (South Scotland) (Con) Halcro Johnston, Jamie (Highlands and Islands) (Con) Kerr, Stephen (Central Scotland) (Con) Lumsden, Douglas (North East Scotland) (Con) McCall, Roz (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con) Mountain, Edward (Highlands and Islands) (Con) Mundell, Oliver (Dumfriesshire) (Con) Ross, Douglas (Highlands and Islands) (Con) Smith, Liz (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con) Stewart, Alexander (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Con) Webber, Sue (Lothian) (Con) Wells, Annie (Glasgow) (Con) White, Tess (North East Scotland) (Con) Whittle, Brian (South Scotland) (Con) Against Adam, George (Paisley) (SNP) Adam, Karen (Banffshire and Buchan Coast) (SNP) Adamson, Clare (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP) Allan, Alasdair (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP) Arthur, Tom (Renfrewshire South) (SNP) Baillie, Jackie (Dumbarton) (Lab) Baker, Claire (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab) Beattie, Colin (Midlothian North and Musselburgh) (SNP) Bibby, Neil (West Scotland) (Lab) Boyack, Sarah (Lothian) (Lab) Brown, Keith (Clackmannanshire and Dunblane) (SNP) Brown, Siobhian (Ayr) (SNP) Burgess, Ariane (Highlands and Islands) (Green) Callaghan, Stephanie (Uddingston and Bellshill) (SNP) Chapman, Maggie (North East Scotland) (Green) Choudhury, Foysol (Lothian) (Ind) Clark, Katy (West Scotland) (Lab) Coffey, Willie (Kilmarnock and Irvine Valley) (SNP) Constance, Angela (Almond Valley) (SNP) Dey, Graeme (Angus South) (SNP) Don-Innes, Natalie (Renfrewshire North and West) (SNP) Doris, Bob (Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn) (SNP) Dornan, James (Glasgow Cathcart) (SNP) Dunbar, Jackie (Aberdeen Donside) (SNP) Duncan-Glancy, Pam (Glasgow) (Lab) Ewing, Annabelle (Cowdenbeath) (SNP) Fairlie, Jim (Perthshire South and Kinross-shire) (SNP) FitzPatrick, Joe (Dundee City West) (SNP) Forbes, Kate (Skye, Lochaber and Badenoch) (SNP) Gibson, Kenneth (Cunninghame North) (SNP) Gilruth, Jenny (Mid Fife and Glenrothes) (SNP) Gougeon, Mairi (Angus North and Mearns) (SNP) Grant, Rhoda (Highlands and Islands) (Lab) Gray, Neil (Airdrie and Shotts) (SNP) Greene, Jamie (West Scotland) (LD) Greer, Ross (West Scotland) (Green) Griffin, Mark (Central Scotland) (Lab) Harper, Emma (South Scotland) (SNP) Harvie, Patrick (Glasgow) (Green) Haughey, Clare (Rutherglen) (SNP) Hepburn, Jamie (Cumbernauld and Kilsyth) (SNP) Hyslop, Fiona (Linlithgow) (SNP) Johnson, Daniel (Edinburgh Southern) (Lab) Kidd, Bill (Glasgow Anniesland) (SNP) Lennon, Monica (Central Scotland) (Lab) Leonard, Richard (Central Scotland) (Lab) Lochhead, Richard (Moray) (SNP) MacDonald, Gordon (Edinburgh Pentlands) (SNP) MacGregor, Fulton (Coatbridge and Chryston) (SNP) Mackay, Gillian (Central Scotland) (Green) [Proxy vote cast by Patrick Harvie] Mackay, Rona (Strathkelvin and Bearsden) (SNP) Macpherson, Ben (Edinburgh Northern and Leith) (SNP) Maguire, Ruth (Cunninghame South) (SNP) Marra, Michael (North East Scotland) (Lab) Martin, Gillian (Aberdeenshire East) (SNP) Mason, John (Glasgow Shettleston) (Ind) Matheson, Michael (Falkirk West) (SNP) McAllan, Màiri (Clydesdale) (SNP) McKee, Ivan (Glasgow Provan) (SNP) McLennan, Paul (East Lothian) (SNP) McMillan, Stuart (Greenock and Inverclyde) (SNP) McNair, Marie (Clydebank and Milngavie) (SNP) McNeill, Pauline (Glasgow) (Lab) Minto, Jenni (Argyll and Bute) (SNP) Mochan, Carol (South Scotland) (Lab) Nicoll, Audrey (Aberdeen South and North Kincardine) (SNP) O’Kane, Paul (West Scotland) (Lab) [Proxy vote cast by Michael Marra] Robertson, Angus (Edinburgh Central) (SNP) Robison, Shona (Dundee City East) (SNP) Roddick, Emma (Highlands and Islands) (SNP) Rowley, Alex (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Lab) Ruskell, Mark (Mid Scotland and Fife) (Green) Russell, Davy (Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse) (Lab) Slater, Lorna (Lothian) (Green) [Proxy vote cast by Maggie Chapman] Somerville, Shirley-Anne (Dunfermline) (SNP) Stevenson, Collette (East Kilbride) (SNP) [Proxy vote cast by Fulton MacGregor] Stewart, Kaukab (Glasgow Kelvin) (SNP) Stewart, Kevin (Aberdeen Central) (SNP) Sturgeon, Nicola (Glasgow Southside) (SNP) Sweeney, Paul (Glasgow) (Lab) Swinney, John (Perthshire North) (SNP) Thomson, Michelle (Falkirk East) (SNP) Todd, Maree (Caithness, Sutherland and Ross) (SNP) Torrance, David (Kirkcaldy) (SNP) Tweed, Evelyn (Stirling) (SNP) Villalba, Mercedes (North East Scotland) (Lab) Whitfield, Martin (South Scotland) (Lab) Whitham, Elena (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley) (SNP) Wishart, Beatrice (Shetland Islands) (LD) Yousaf, Humza (Glasgow Pollok) (SNP) The Deputy Presiding Officer: The result of the division is: For 26, Against 90, Abstentions 0.”
“Amendment 184 agreed to. Amendment 59 moved—[Edward Mountain]. The Deputy Presiding Officer: The question is, that amendment 59 be agreed to. Are we agreed? Members: No. The Deputy Presiding Officer: There will be a division.”