ABOLISHING the Scotland Office, bringing in a land tax, cutting down the number of Scottish councils, and quitting the social media platform X are all proposals on the SNP conference draft agenda.
The document obtained by The National, is not a finalised list of what will be debated at the party’s national conference in October. However, it gives a good idea of the topics which will be put before SNP members.
Here are nine of the key points from the SNP’s draft conference agenda.
Scottish independence
While SNP members have expressed anger about the absence of any motion on Scottish independence strategy in the draft agenda, there are two proposals which do deal with other aspects.
First, a motion calls for the SNP’s ruling National Executive Committee (NEC) to set up an “Independence Commission” which would be tasked with drawing up a renewed version of the Scotland's Future white paper from the 2014 referendum campaign.
Secondly, another motion calls for the SNP to focus on developing “clear, accessible, evidence based resources addressing the economic and practical questions undecided voters most commonly ask”.
Land tax
A motion proposed by Deputy First Minister Jenny Gilruth and Public Finance Minister Hannah Mary Goodlad says that a land tax “tailored to Scotland’s needs would be a useful tool to help reduce the unacceptable concentration of land ownership in Scotland”.
It asks SNP members to back the Scottish Government in developing plans for a land tax system, which it says should be “based on international examples of best practice”.
Oil and gas wealth fund
Another motion with the support of an SNP minister, this time Energy Minister Stephen Gethins, calls for the UK Treasury to put “all further income” from Scottish oil and gas resources into a “Future Generations Fund”.
The motion – which is also backed by SNP MSP Jack Middleton and MP Lara Bird – says this fund would be used to “grow Scotland’s renewables industry, support the communities who have generated hundreds of billions of pounds in taxation for Westminster, and strengthen the supply chain to ensure ongoing investment and job creation in Scotland”.
Quit X
Two motions on the agenda call for the SNP to quit X (formerly Twitter), the social media platform owned by the far-right agitator Elon Musk.
The first motion only deals with the party itself, while the second goes much further.
As well as a full withdrawal from X for all SNP candidates, elected members, the Scottish Government, nationally owned services like ScotRail and CalMac, and the Scottish Parliament, it asks SNP members to support a UK-wide ban on the platform and its associated GrokAI.
Disband the Scotland Office
One motion on the draft agenda calls for SNP members to support the closure of the Scotland Office, as well as the abolition of the Scottish Secretary role (currently held by Douglas Alexander). Any Scotland Office funding saved should be diverted to the Scottish Parliament, the motion says.
A second calls for greater powers for Holyrood, specifically on immigration, asylum, and refugee resettlement. It states that “Andy Burnham’s commitment to devolution must include meaningful further devolution to Scotland”.
Review the size and number of Scottish councils
As it stands, there are 32 local authorities across Scotland. One motion on the draft agenda says that this should be reviewed, with a view to looking at “how big and how many councils there should be”.
The motion says the work should be done by a citizens’ assembly, which would also be tasked with reviewing council funding and council electoral systems.
Elsewhere, another motion calls for councillors who lose their seats to receive a parachute payment similar to that given to MPs and MSPs who leave parliament.
Trans rights and the Equality Act
A motion supported by Kirsty Blackman – the SNP’s chief whip at Westminster – as well as various branches and the Out For Independence LGBT+ group, calls for the SNP to support changes to the Equality Act to use “a definition of sex which is inclusive of trans and non-binary people”.
Last year, the UK Supreme Court ruled that the definition of “woman” in the act was linked to biological sex and not impacted by a trans person gaining a Gender Recognition Certificate, as the law had been understood.
The motion says this ruling is “exclusionary”, and asks SNP members to call on the UK Parliament to “override this judgment and enable this and future legislation to be inclusive of everyone”.
Scottish bonds
A motion proposed by the SNP’s Trade Union Group deals with the Scottish Government’s bond scheme – which will see investors loan funding for infrastructure projects in return for interest payments and the lump sum repaid at a set date.
The motion says that Scottish public bodies should borrow directly from people and institutions in Scotland through retail bonds to fund investment in areas such as council-house building, with interest and repayment funded by rental income.
The SNP Government is aiming to issue its first bonds later this year.
Abortion law
A motion on the draft agenda asks SNP members to note “with concern that at present, Scotland is the only part of the UK that has not modernised its abortion laws to remove legal penalties from women under the 1967 Abortion Act and that, as a result, Scotland is not meeting international health and human rights standards for access to health care”.
The motion says that Scottish abortion law should be reformed to remove criminal penalties from women who terminate their pregnancies and “create a health-based framework for abortion care rooted in human rights and equality of access, not criminal law”.
Elsewhere, another motion calls for the full decriminalisation of sex work.
The SNP conference will be held in Aberdeen from October 15-17, 2026. A party committee will finalise the agenda before then.
