Hansard

Willie Rennie (Fife North East) (LD) LD Chamber

14 May 2026

Oaths and Affirmations

I, William Cowan Rennie, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God.

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

25 Mar 2026

Portfolio Question Time · Temporary Accommodation

In the past five years of the Government’s tenure, 17,811 children have been trapped in temporary accommodation for more than a year. Whoever is elected to this Parliament next month must commit to it never being repeated that so many children have had to suffer for so long. M...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

25 Mar 2026

Portfolio Question Time · Heating Oil Costs (Agriculture Sector and Rural Industries)

Farmers in my constituency are deeply concerned about the rise in fuel costs and the potential rise in the cost of fertiliser, which could come soon. I am keen to make representations to the UK Government on a cross-party basis, but we need to gather the evidence first. Can th...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

25 Mar 2026

Mobile Phone Use in Schools (Ban)

I do think we should do that, but this debate has been quite narrowly about mobile phones when I think that we need to look at all the digital tools that we have available to us. I am not against the use of some digital tools as long as we can be absolutely clear about the evi...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

25 Mar 2026

Mobile Phone Use in Schools (Ban)

We have looked at the issue of mobile phones, and I have been clear about the damaging effects that I think that they have in the classroom. However, we need to broaden the debate slightly. We see the roll-out of digital devices in the school environment, and there are big que...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

25 Mar 2026

Mobile Phone Use in Schools (Ban)

In following that fine contribution, I, too, pay tribute to Audrey Nicoll. I have always genuinely enjoyed listening to her contributions, especially given their precision. The lack of aggression in her contributions was commendable, and she has added considerably to the chamb...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

24 Mar 2026

Visitor Levy (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill

I urge the minister to be just a little bit clearer and more direct to local authorities. We need to have medical exemptions across the board. I know that it is up to local authorities, but can he just give them a little bit more so that they fully understand the importance of...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

24 Mar 2026

Visitor Levy (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill

I commend Tim Eagle, who is having a gossip with Fergus Ewing at the back of the chamber, for resisting the temptation to add lots of bells and whistles to the bill. He was restrained. That was important because, when the minister came to us, he asked for an expedited process....

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

24 Mar 2026

Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

That is what all hostages say, so we should express our concern about Daniel Johnson’s future.Beth Morrison’s campaign has been going on for 11 years, and anyone who is involved in politics knows that that is a long time. It is a tremendous commitment that has, I am told, invo...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

24 Mar 2026

Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

Certainly.

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

24 Mar 2026

Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I have met Beth Morrison on several occasions. I recall one particular occasion in the middle of winter in my office in Cupar. I said something that she disagreed with, and I was left in no doubt about the truth of the situation and how I needed to amend my views.Therefore, al...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

19 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill

Having responsibility for the Promise is probably the most difficult job in Government. It encapsulates everything that the Government does and it reaches every corner of its work. To be a junior minister in charge of that enormous responsibility was a gigantic task. I have se...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

19 Mar 2026

Visitor Levy (Amendment) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I will correct Tim Eagle: the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats also made representations to the minister about having flexibility on that. We were clear—I was at the meeting—that the desire was to have a tight and neat bill so that we could get it through in a tight parl...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

19 Mar 2026

Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

They would very much welcome that.This is an issue of culture in our schools, which has been evolving over time. We are adapting to high demand with regard to additional support needs and behaviours in schools. We are trying to get a culture that is right, balanced and appropr...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

19 Mar 2026

Restraint and Seclusion in Schools (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I am a strong supporter of the bill. The amendments in this group are proportionate and balanced. We have to recognise that there is anxiety and concern among staff and unions, in particular the Community union, the Association of Headteachers and Deputes in Scotland, the Scot...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

19 Mar 2026

Portfolio Question Time · Water Supply and Waste Water Treatment Services

I appreciate that the cabinet secretary does not direct Scottish Water’s affairs, but I appeal to Scottish Water, through her, to review its decision to delay the sewerage upgrade scheme for Pittenweem in my constituency by two whole years. Pittenweem is already subject to flo...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Parliamentary Bureau Motions

Yes, all of that is fine, but what about compulsory voting? Laughter.

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I have nothing more to add. I press amendment 205.Amendment 205 agreed to.Amendment 206 moved—Willie Rennie—and agreed to.Section 22D—Review of operation of the ActAmendment 207 moved—Willie Rennie—and agreed to.Section 22E—Review of operation of the ActAmendment 208 moved—Wil...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

At stage 2, the committee agreed two somewhat overlapping review duties, reflecting a strong desire to have robust scrutiny of the implementation of the legislation and to be kept abreast of developments in keeping the Promise by the deadline of 2030. My amendments seek to tid...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I have nothing more to add. I press amendment 204.Amendment 204 agreed to.After section 22CAmendment 84 moved—Miles Briggs—and agreed to.

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

Amendment 204 follows on from amendment 109 in group 5 and was also developed at the suggestion of Who Cares? Scotland.Amendment 204 seeks to add to section 22A on the outcomes of the children’s services plan—a section that was inserted by an amendment from Nicola Sturgeon at ...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I have nothing more to add, other than to press amendment 202.

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

There is a growing consensus that police stations are generally not an appropriate environment for children and that the number of children who are held there must be reduced. I share that view, which is why I lodged amendments 202 and 211.In my discussions with the minister, ...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

Eagle-eyed members will have noticed that we are more than three hours ahead of the timetable that was agreed to by the Parliament. There is probably a special place in heaven for the education team. However, the remaining amendments are all my amendments, and I can talk for e...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I will talk to amendments 74 and 75. I understand that the minister has concerns about how they would be implemented. We have also already heard about the Law Society’s concerns. It is a sensitive area in which the Government needs to act cautiously. However, we should not for...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I have been persuaded by the minister of the benefits of an opt-in system, but surely the test is what the minister has referred to, which is the take-up in the longer term. We need to measure that at every stage. If we are not sharing the information and encouraging young peo...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I have nothing else to say. I press amendment 153.Amendment 153 agreed to.

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I have lodged amendment 153 in partnership with Duncan Dunlop, who gave incredibly forceful and informed evidence to the committee throughout proceedings.Amendment 153 will place new duties on Scottish ministers to lay before the Parliament an annual report on the deaths of lo...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

Members will have noticed that I have two sets of amendments in the group. Amendments 2 and 3 were drafted at the suggestion of Aberlour, with the intention, first, of exempting charities from profit limitation requirements if they can demonstrate that any surplus is reinveste...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I fully understand the perception in this area and the disappointment in the sector, but we have a responsibility in the Parliament to implement law that will be most effective and will help care-experienced people in the way that they would like. We need to understand that in...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

This is not getting personal, but I object to Nicola Sturgeon’s amendments in this group as well. She has already anticipated my objections, but I want to reiterate my concerns. Her amendments relate to defining care experience in regulations instead of guidance. I understand ...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

We know that we are finding it difficult to deliver the Promise on time; the interim reports have shown that we are behind. However, independent advocacy is one of the areas where progress has been made, and I do not understand why we are restricting it further, potentially un...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I will speak against four amendments in the group: amendments 113 to 115 and, in particular, amendment 29A, which I note that the minister is supporting. The amendments would add to the definition of independent advocacy for care-experienced people and would limit the number o...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I am grateful for the minister’s support of my amendment 109, which was developed at the suggestion of Who Cares? Scotland. To reiterate, the amendment will require corporate parenting plans to include information on how corporate parenting responsibilities will be exercised i...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

On that point, I will conclude. I urge members to support the amendments.

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

Certainly.

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Children (Care, Care Experience and Services Planning) (Scotland) Bill: Stage 3

I thank the minister for her collaborative approach on this important issue. I also thank Children First for its very strong support in making sure that we get this right.Family group decision making is at the heart of the delivery of the Promise. It is clear that it strengthe...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Portfolio Question Time · Health and Social Care Partnerships (Budget 2026-27)

As the former Deputy First Minister leaves the Parliament, I wish her well for the future and thank her for her public service over a couple of decades.Yesterday, the chamber was divided on Liam McArthur’s Assisted Dying for Terminally Ill Adults (Scotland) Bill, but it was ab...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

18 Mar 2026

Portfolio Question Time · Energy Prices (Impact on Businesses of Middle East Conflict)

I join other members in paying tribute to Kate Forbes as she leaves this Parliament. She was cheered on by Richard Leonard and the Conservatives, but there was silence from the Scottish National Party benches. I do not know whether that tells us anything.We are paying the pric...

Willie Rennie LD Committee

18 Mar 2026

Community Sporting Initiatives for Children and Young People

I can tell that you care deeply about it.

Willie Rennie LD Committee

18 Mar 2026

Community Sporting Initiatives for Children and Young People

How much was it?

Willie Rennie LD Committee

18 Mar 2026

Community Sporting Initiatives for Children and Young People

Really?

Willie Rennie LD Committee

18 Mar 2026

Community Sporting Initiatives for Children and Young People

Did the council accept that?

Willie Rennie LD Committee

18 Mar 2026

Community Sporting Initiatives for Children and Young People

I am interested in your different model of engaging. There are a lot of issues: for some young people, their attendance at school is terrible; on occasions, there are 15-minute timetables, which are tokenistic. Along with the Community Trade Hub in Leven, you seem to have alig...

Willie Rennie LD Committee

18 Mar 2026

Community Sporting Initiatives for Children and Young People

Do you both feel that your operations are properly evaluated by the local authorities and that that is accepted by their leadership as being properly validated so that the doors to funding will open, or are you constantly fighting at every step to try to persuade them? How doe...

Willie Rennie LD Committee

18 Mar 2026

Community Sporting Initiatives for Children and Young People

The second point was about funding. The Community Trade Hub seems to be able to scrape together different pockets of money, mostly pupil equity funding, but depending on a direct relationship with each school. As a whole, there does not seem to be a block grant to support the ...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Committee

18 Mar 2026

Community Sporting Initiatives for Children and Young People

I visited the Community Trade Hub in Leven recently. Debbi, you were talking about the way that you treat young people and the relationship that you have with them—using first names—and about how they feel much more welcomed and appreciated as a result. That is exactly the sam...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

17 Mar 2026

Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill

I am concluding, I am afraid—I had only four minutes.That is why we will not support the bill. It is a cack-handed measure that will knock confidence in the sector. That is why we will oppose it.

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

17 Mar 2026

Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill

I understand some of the changes that have been made, and I welcome some of the ones that have been introduced, but the issue is still incredibly sensitive. We do not yet have the investment that the changes are designed to bring. That is why acting carefully must be the first...

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

17 Mar 2026

Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill

I will take an intervention from Màiri McAllan.

Willie Rennie LD Chamber

17 Mar 2026

Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill

Liz Smith was right. The housing sector in Scotland is different, and the market is different. We have been starved of investment, so we need to act incredibly sensitively over the next period. I would have more sympathy for the Government’s position if it had powered on and u...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

17 Mar 2026

Building Safety Levy (Scotland) Bill

That contribution shows why tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of people across Scotland are delighted that Patrick Harvie is no longer a housing minister in this Government. He almost single-handedly starved Scotland of £3.4 billion of investment in housing. Eve...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

17 Mar 2026

Topical Question Time · Access to Dental Care (Adults)

The Scottish National Party Government cannot blame anybody but itself for the problem, which has been a long time coming. The Cupar dentist, in my constituency, has been on emergency service only for a year—and the problems go back way before that. When can my constituents ex...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

12 Mar 2026

Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan

The cabinet secretary should have admitted that the Government has failed to meet its target on the poverty-related attainment gap and has also failed to meet the interim target on child poverty. However, I welcome the Wise Group’s relational mentoring service, work on the rea...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

12 Mar 2026

Portfolio Question Time · Colleges (Borrowing Powers)

There is an opportunity here. With the £70 million upgrade agreed in the budget, plus the agreement to review the credit system, and the agreement that we have with the colleges on a review of the overall arrangements, we have a real opportunity to inject more optimism into th...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

12 Mar 2026

General Question Time · Bus Services (Rural and Coastal Constituencies)

Bus services in North East Fife are constantly being chopped and changed, leaving people stranded who are desperate to get to work and secure their employment. Why has it taken since 2019 to utilise the regulatory powers that the minister has just set out? When are we going to...

Willie Rennie (North East Fife) (LD) LD Chamber

11 Mar 2026

Portfolio Question Time · Public Libraries (Rural Areas)

I encourage the cabinet secretary to investigate the work of the charity ELibraries for Schools, which is working to create a national children’s digital library. The Cabinet Secretary for Education and Skills is familiar with its work, and I encourage the culture secretary to...

Willie Rennie LD Committee

11 Mar 2026

School Reform (Curriculum and Assessment)

I will conclude on that point of agreement. I am not a supporter of the Scottish national standardised assessments, and I think that going back to a survey system in a more comprehensive way would be a far superior option.

Willie Rennie LD Committee

11 Mar 2026

School Reform (Curriculum and Assessment)

I turn to your report, Professor Hayward—well, I know that it is not your report, but you chaired the review. The Scottish Government has gone a bit cold on the report. The Government is undertaking a number of workstreams, but the energy has gone out of that. However, some lo...

Willie Rennie LD Committee

11 Mar 2026

School Reform (Curriculum and Assessment)

Yes. Professor Hayward, would you like to come in on this?