Meeting of the Parliament 24 June 2026 [Draft]
Malcolm Offord opened the debate by saying that, through its motion, Reform rejects the SNP’s version of mediocrity. What was clear from the rest of his speech was that that is because he has his own very special version of mediocrity.
The whole of Reform’s approach to the debate is summed up by the motion. Somebody should really have told Reform members that this will not be the only Opposition debate that they will get, because they tried to put absolutely everything in the motion. I am sorry to poke fun, but they came to the Parliament saying that they were going to change things up. Let me say this to them: being inflammatory is not challenging consensus; being controversial is not the same thing as offering critique; and being chaotic is not delivering change.
We could forgive the Reform members for being inexperienced, but they have made this debate about them, so let us talk about them. I do not think that they do themselves any favours whatsoever. There is a place to talk about difficult issues and perhaps to challenge the consensus, but let us look at some of the things that they are talking about. We need to reform our public services, but scrapping 132 public bodies is not credible. That would include all the health boards, in one go, and it would include Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd. Are we really saying that those should be run directly by the Government?