Meeting of the Parliament 17 February 2026 [Draft]
I begin by thanking my friend and comrade Katy Clark for taking up the challenge of reforming our freedom of information laws to be fit for the 21st century. The Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 was significant in that it gave everyone the right to obtain information held by public authorities, yet, as Katy has rightly highlighted, that law has not kept pace with the level of outsourcing to private companies of our public services. In effect, our right to know has been stripped back.
I will use buses as an example. In Edinburgh, the buses are owned and operated by Lothian Buses. Publicly owned Lothian Buses is the United Kingdom’s largest municipal bus company and, as such, it is rightly subject to freedom of information requests. Elsewhere, however, First Bus, which is owned by FirstGroup plc, is not subject to freedom of information laws despite receiving huge sums of public money. People who live outwith the capital have no right to know about their local bus services. The Parliament has a duty to change that.
However, it is not just bus companies that have been allowed to avoid public scrutiny. In energy, we have seen the vast majority of the money from the Scottish Government’s just transition fund siphoned off to the private sector. More than 40 per cent of that fund has gone to organisations that are linked to billionaire oil tycoon Sir Ian Wood, all while energy workers lose their jobs and are forced to pay out of pocket to retrain. Without this vital freedom of information bill, the public will have no right to ask questions about how that money is being spent. How can the Scottish Government justify that? What is it hiding? Who is it protecting? Is it not time that Scotland had a Government that will work in the interests of the people rather than those of big business, billionaires and barons?
The Covid pandemic exposed the hard reality of how few Government decisions across the world truly serve the people those Governments are supposed to represent. A harrowing example that brought that point home to many was the care home scandal. I highlight the tireless work of former MSP Neil Findlay, both inside and outside the chamber, on that issue. As members will remember, many people across the country spent their final days alone in care homes as part of a botched plan to free up hospital beds. Due to the outsourcing, bereaved families cannot make freedom of information requests regarding where their loved ones spent their final days, yet, if those people had remained in hospital, their families could have made such requests. That is another example of where the current FOI laws are simply not strong enough.
For victims, workers, the travelling public and many more, we need FOI reform. We need Katy Clark’s member’s bill. The Scottish Government clearly recognises that need, as it is now consulting on extending FOI to care homes. If it agrees that current FOI laws are inadequate and recognises the injustice that the public are facing in seeking crucial information, why on earth would it not support this timely bill today?
I commend the bill to Parliament and I thank Katy Clark for introducing it.