AN SNP MSP has apologised for any “upset or offence” they may have caused after mistakenly backing an “inhumane” Reform UK motion.
Clare Adamson, Deputy Presiding Officer at Holyrood and MSP for Motherwell and Wishaw, said her backing of Reform’s motion calling for local connection rules to be restored for social housing applications was a mistake.
The motion, lodged by Reform MSP Thomas Kerr, called for rules by local councils to prioritise who receives social housing based on a specific amount of time a person has lived, worked, or had close family in an area to be reinstated.
Kerr shared his motion on Twitter/X, stating that all 17 Reform MSPs had signed it along with one SNP MSP, Adamson.
“Nobody else. Just let that set in,” he wrote.
“They'll prioritise strangers, we'll prioritise you.”
However, responding to Kerr’s post, Adamson said her backing of the motion was a “complete mistake” as she also apologised to those who may have been offended.
She said: “My support for this motion was a complete mistake. I've requested my name be withdrawn immediately.
“These views are not ones I share & don't reflect my values. I would never knowingly support something I believe is inhumane.
“Sorry for this error & for any upset or offence caused.”
The Scottish Government abolished local connection requirements in 2022.
Under current rules, people experiencing homelessness can apply to any local authority in Scotland for temporary accommodation without needing to demonstrate a connection to the area.
Kerr along with Reform’s leader in Scotland, Malcolm Offord, and the party’s MSPs, have previously been accused of “inciting racial division” in Scotland by the First Minister.
John Swinney pointed the finger at Reform UK’s MSPs for “inciting racial hatred in our society” after Offord questioned him on the “thousands of the immigrants who arrive illegally in the UK [who] when granted leave to remain there then come specifically to Scotland”.
NEW: First Minister John Swinney has ferociously called out Thomas Kerr at FMQs for his comments encouraging people to 'protest' after violent disorder across Northern Ireland and Scotland pic.twitter.com/PZcCa8hHij
— The National (@ScotNational) June 11, 2026
The Reform MSP said people would present “as homeless because local authorities here have less discretion than in England about how they allocate accommodation”.
Swinney replied: “Mr Offord is under a misconception about the local connection rules because the local connection rules that were changed by this government in 2022 did not change local connection rules for refugee households.
“The local connection rules in relation to refugee households have been in place for, I would think, in excess of 20 years in the current context. So Mr Offord is just fundamentally wrong in the point that he puts to me.”
Gordon Llewellyn-MacRae, assistant director of Shelter Scotland, also said refugees were not affected by the change to local connection rules, adding that “racist voices” were using the housing emergency to deepen divisions over homelessness and migration.
He told The Herald: “We see any mention of homelessness now becoming associated with lies around illegal migrants.
“We see lies around the scale or the amount of homes that go to foreign nationals and all these other things.
“It is lies. We need to be very clear that the proportion of refugees coming into Scotland has grown in recent years but we see the backlog in the refugee system start to more than half in some places and we have a long term drive to increase the population of Scotland that the housing system has got to adapt to.”
