Swinney accuses Offord of spreading ‘disinformation’ at Holyrood

John Swinney has accused Reform UK’s Scottish leader of spreading “disinformation” at Holyrood after he claimed housing homeless asylum seekers was doing “significant damage”.

Lord Malcolm Offord pressed the First Minister on the impact this is having, citing issues in both Glasgow and Edinburgh.

Glasgow City Council, Scotland’s largest local authority, had to deal with more than 2,000 homeless applications from people from outside of Scotland last year, Lord Offord said – adding this compared to just 35 such applications in 2022.

The Reform MSP also claimed the City of Edinburgh Council has “frozen” council housing applications from homeless Scots to give “priority to asylum applicants”.

Lord Offord cited this as “proof from two of our biggest city councils, the virtue signalling of the SNP is costing our nation dearly”.

Mr Swinney, however, insisted that Edinburgh council leaders had said “that what Mr Offord has put to Parliament is not the case”.

The clash came as Lord Offord pressed the First Minister to reverse a change in housing rules which means that people do not need to have a local connection to an area to make a homeless application there.

Raising the issue at First Minister’s Questions, Reform’s Scottish leader claimed: “This is not fair on local people, to impose on them a broken housing system which creates perverse incentives, which gives priority to strangers over locals.”

He added that the “housing emergency and homelessness epidemic” meant the need for action was “urgent”.

Referring to growing tensions in cities such as Glasgow, Lord Offord said: “It’s not good enough for this Parliament to dismiss the protests and the protesters, and the unrest in our towns and cities.

“It is time to address their core concerns. It is just a fact the removal of the local connection rule has been exploited by the influx of substantial numbers of migrants, to the detriment of our cites’ finances and cohesion.

“And it cannot be disputed that local people have been put at a disadvantage.”

He told Mr Swinney that scrapping the local connection rule had done “significant damage to Scotland”,  saying it should be reinstated to allow councils to “focus on housing our own local Scots in need”.

The First Minister claimed that changing the local connection rule “would not in any way, shape or form” address the issues raised.

He added that the rule change, introduced in 2022, only served to “prevent a Scottish local authority from referring a homeless household to another Scottish local authority where they have a local connection”.

Hitting out at the Reform leader, Mr Swinney said: “It is really important at a time when our country is being affected by the type of disinformation that is being put forward, and has just been put forward to Parliament, that we have clear and authoritative information.”

The First Minister continued: “What I am seeking to do is to bring this country together and Lord Offord is trying to drive this country apart.”

The SNP leader insisted there are “real threats to the stability of our society and the cohesion of our community because of malevolent actors in our politics”, adding that Lord Offord “has just put more of that on the official record of this Parliament today”.