Scottish National Party MP for Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber since (elected). An MP continuously since .
Parliament recordVoting recordWritten questionsEarly day motions
Entries on this tracker
136
Each filed under the party they sat for that day
Register entries
7
As currently published
Declared while sitting for SNP
£4,066
4 of 7 entries state an amount
| Party | Office | Area | Period | Began | Ended | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SNP | MP | Argyll, Bute and South Lochaber | – present | elected | — | Party history |
Parliament's party history for this member: Scottish National Party ( – present).
Every entry the member has in the Register of Members' Financial Interests, as Parliament currently publishes it. The wording and values are the member's own declarations; nothing here has been assessed by this site.
Totals add only the entries that declare an amount received: payments for work, donations, gifts, and funded visits (register categories 1.1, 2, 3, 4 and 5). Ongoing employment is listed but not added, because its figure is a rate rather than a sum received. Each entry is dated by when the benefit happened, not when it was registered, and placed under the party the member sat for on that date. A member who changed party therefore has a separate total for each.
| Date | Category | Entry | Declared value | Sitting for | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4. Visits outside the UK | International visit to Germany between 03 June 2026 and 05 June 2026Korber-Stiftung | £1,167 | SNP | Register record | |
| 3. Gifts, UK sources | Enersoft International Limited - £900.00 | £900 | SNP | Register record | |
| 3. Gifts, UK sources | Enersoft International Ltd - £625.00 | £625 | SNP | Register record | |
| 4. Visits outside the UK | International visit to Thailand between 30 November 2025 and 06 December 2025International Human Rights Committee | £1,374 | SNP | Register record | |
| 8. Miscellaneous | A Director of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. This is an unpaid role. | — | SNP | Register record | |
| date registered | 9. Family members employed | Catherine O'Hara employed | — | SNP | Register record |
| date registered | 7. Shareholdings | Shares in Oh! Television (not trading) | — | SNP | Register record |
What assessment have the Government made of the threats we face from the IRGC or its proxies, and of the impact of February’s US-Israeli attack? Did that attack strengthen or weaken the regime in Tehran, internally and externally? Do those assessments show whether the UK has become more or less exposed, since February, to events such as those we witnessed recently?
My constituency produces the finest single malt Scotch whisky. From Isla, Jura, Campbeltown, Oban, Mull and Ardnamurchan, centuries of craft have gone into building that hard-earned reputation. This decision to allow lower production standards for English single malt whisky undermines that. Why have the Government allowed lower standards in England? What safeguards are they putting in place to protect the hard-earned reputation and integrity of Scotch malt whisky?
We genuinely welcome this statement. The Foreign Secretary has hinted at this, but let me be clear: it is somewhere between heartbreaking and criminal that it has taken three years and 70,000 Palestinian deaths for the UK Government to finally arrive at this position. Already, however, we are hearing that elements within the FCDO are briefing that these sanctions are largely symbolic. Will the Foreign Secretary utterly refute that? Will he confirm that these sanctions are not fixed and that there can and will be further action, should Israel press ahead with this illegal expansion programme?
A 15-minute statement on rewiring the state, yet Scotland does not merit a single mention—not even the Cairngorm wildfire. It is becoming increasingly clear that this Prime Minister is almost exclusively focused on pursuing an English domestic agenda. Having lost five parliamentary elections in a row and slumped to 17% of the vote last May, I can understand why the Labour party has given up in Scotland, but does the Minister think it is wise to make it so obvious?
Is it Conservative party policy to reverse the votes for 16 and 17-year-olds in Scotland? Every single piece of evidence that we can point to suggests that engaging 16 and 17-year-olds makes them better citizens. Does the right hon. Lady seriously want to undermine that?
During this Bill’s Second Reading back in March, I said that the SNP generally welcomed its introduction, particularly its extension of the franchise to 16 and 17-year-olds. We on the SNP Benches still do. Evidence is always helpful; unfortunately, the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) is no longer in her place, but Scotland has had this in place for 12 years, and it has been an unqualified success. No serious person is planning to backtrack on it. That said, we do still have serious concerns about the Bill, because what is currently on offer is a far cry from what the Labour party promised during the passage of the Elections Act 2022. Back then, we all recognised that that Act was an appalling piece of legislation; it was nakedly partisan, and quite rightly, when opposing it, the Labour party promised to shred it. Now it is in power, I fear that it has chosen to tinker rather than shred. We can see for ourselves the levels of frustration that exist on the Labour Benches, because Labour Members know that this Bill was an opportunity to undo great democratic harms that were caused by the 2022 Act and introduce an entirely new system—one that would have fairness, equality, transparency and accountability at its heart. I fear that the Bill as it currently stands squanders that opportunity. The clearest manifestation of that frustration is the number of amendments to the Bill that have originated from the Government’s own Back Benches. There are scores of amendments—215 pages of them. I want to highlight a few that I believe would have significantly improved the Bill, had the Government taken them on. New clause 34, tabled by the right hon. Member for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North (Liam Byrne), would tighten up cryptocurrency. He explained in an intervention earlier that the Government’s position in the Bill does not go nearly far enough, and we agree. New clause 35, tabled by the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), would extend the franchise to those with indefinite leave to remain. Such a system has been in place in Scotland for more than six years, and it works well and has been entirely uncontroversial.
I welcome the Foreign Secretary to his new role. He will be aware that none of his recent predecessors were ever short of an angry word or condemnatory statement about Israel’s actions in Gaza or the west bank, but they were woefully short on any meaningful action to back up their supposed outrage. What is happening in the west bank is happening right now, so time is of the essence. When will he spell out exactly the consequences for the state of Israel and for any UK national or UK-based company found to be complicit in this illegal E1 expansion programme?
Does the right hon. Lady not recognise that everything she has just accused the Government of not doing is exactly what her Government did not do for 10 years? The IRGC is exactly the same now as it was when her party was in government. I am not a great supporter of the Labour Government, as Labour Members will be quick to say, but please do not take the moral high ground when it comes to proscribing the IRGC.
I too congratulate the Minister on his appointment and welcome him to his place. Call me naive, perhaps, but I honestly believe that there is nobody in this Chamber who, for all the absenteeism and manifest faults, is a supporter of, or an apologist for, the regime in Tehran. It is a regime that has for decades sought to export its version of Islamic revolution across the world by organising and financing armed groups and militias while simultaneously being absolutely brutal in crushing any form of dissent within its own borders. It was always the hope that one day the people of Iran, weary of the internal repression and worn down by the collapsing economy, would turn against the regime, overthrow those leaders and begin a new chapter in the history of that wonderful country. There have been moments in recent years when we thought, indeed fervently hoped, that that could happen. Many of us here will remember the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, which swept across Iran in late 2022, when those incredibly brave Iranian women took to the streets in their tens of thousands to protest against the murder of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in police custody having been arrested for not wearing her hijab properly in public. Those brave women and girls were soon joined by students, by workers, by members of ethnic and religious minority communities, who had had enough of the subjugation of women, the repression of minorities, the religious fundamentalism, the police brutality and the endemic Government corruption. And so, to the cry of “Woman, life, freedom,” and in an act of incredible bravery and in deliberate defiance of the regime, they removed their headscarves. Of course they knew that in so doing that bravery would come at huge personal cost to so many of them as individuals and to their families. As Professor Azadeh Kian, director of the centre for gender and feminist studies at the University of Paris, said at the time: “What these women are doing in Iran is a revolution, at least a cultural revolution.” But it was a revolutionary act which could not be tolerated by the regime, and it was one which the regime punished the only way it knew how: with extreme violence. In the immediate aftermath of those protests, hundreds of protesters were killed and thousands more were arrested. In the short term, the streets were cleared; but no matter the wishes of the regime in Tehran, no amount of brutal repression would crush the dreams of millions of predominantly young Iranians. It was only a matter of time before they would take to the streets again, and they did so at the end of last year, on 28 December, in the biggest display of civil unrest since the ’79 revolution. Millions of Iranians took to the streets. They took to the streets amid a collapsing currency, soaring inflation, a deterioration in living standards and so much more. It spread quickly to over 200 cities. In the inevitable crackdown that followed, thousands of protesters were killed and the IRGC, using live ammunition, turned on unarmed protesters on 8 and 9 January. In the days that followed, tens of thousands were arrested and there were verified reports of mass killings, putting the death toll at upwards of 30,000. The Iranian regime’s brutality is almost beyond comprehension, but it must have known that those popular uprisings would only become larger and more frequent. It must have known in late January or early February of this year that as its economy collapsed, with its continual brutalisation of women and girls, the imposition of strict religious laws and the suppression of minorities, the people of Iran had had enough, and that pressure was building. As sure as day follows night, the regime’s grip on its population was loosening, but on 28 February, President Trump began his illegal war. One of Trump’s many and varied reasons for that massive aerial bombardment was to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, but this was the same President Trump who, following the 2025 bombardment, told us: “Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran…Obliteration is an accurate term!” His assessment was backed up by his Israeli allies, who announced that “we significantly damaged the nuclear program, and I can also say that we set it back by years, I repeat, years.” Yet in the face of what was happening inside Iran, the United States and Israel, between them, took the decision to attack. It was in that first wave of American attacks that 165 wee girls, aged between seven and 12, were killed when a US bomb hit their school while they were sitting in their classrooms. That same evening, Trump announced, “to the great, proud people of Iran, I say tonight that the hour of your freedom is at hand”. I suspect that for many Iranians, particularly the parents of those dead children, freedom had never felt further away. Five months on from that initial attack, the freedom that was promised to the people of Iran has turned out to be no more than the gimmicky soundbite we suspected it might be. Over the past five months, it has become clear that in this ill-conceived, illegal war of choice—although it remains unclear whether it was Trump’s choice or Netanyahu’s—there is no plan, no strategy and no sign of an off-ramp to bring the war to an end. All it seems to have achieved is to have all but destroyed Iran’s civilian economy, thereby harming the very people Trump said he was acting to liberate, while at the same time giving the regime in Tehran a huge strategic advantage, one that they are currently exploiting to great effect. One would have hoped and expected that in the White House, when they were scenario-planning this attack, someone would have asked the obvious question: “What will we do if the Iranians block the strait of Hormuz?” Unfortunately for the rest of the world, when someone is so desperate to deflect and hide from a scandal or a crisis at home, the bleeding obvious can sometimes become obscured. In response to that attack, the very first thing Iran did was to cut off the strait of Hormuz—one of the most strategically important waterways in the world—leading to what the International Energy Agency has described as the “largest supply disruption in the history of the global oil market”. Iran’s response sent fuel prices rocketing, and the cost of just about everything else that relies on oil—either for its manufacturing or its transportation—soaring. There is not a family anywhere in the United Kingdom who have not paid a direct price for Trump’s reckless behaviour. Even if this war were to end tomorrow, the economic shockwaves would continue for years to come. The European Central Bank recently warned that a prolonged conflict will likely trigger a period of stagflation and a period of low growth rates accompanied by inflation, and push major energy-dependent economies, including Germany and Italy, into technical recession by the end of 2026. Since the initial attack back in February, Trump has told us time and again that in one form or another, Iran has been defeated, that it is begging for a peace deal, or that the strait of Hormuz is about to return to normal service. None of that has been true, and every ceasefire that has been brokered has collapsed within days. The dire economic consequences of Trump’s war of choice continue.
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. It is a difficult question to answer, but I can tell the House what should not have been done, and what will never work. You do not free people from oppression through indiscriminate aerial bombardment. You do not free people by killing them, or by killing the children of the people you purport to be there to liberate. Of course there are ways in which any democratic country can support a freedom movement within a repressive regime, but what America has done with its Israeli allies is the antithesis of what should be done. All they have done is strengthen the regime, polarise the world, and irreparably damage the movement for freedom within Iran.
Held . Recorded result: SNP Hold. Majority 6,232. 44,862 votes cast from an electorate of 71,756. Parties are as each candidate stood at the time.
| Candidate | Party | Votes | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brendan O'Hara | Scottish National Party | 15,582 | 34.7% |
| Amanda Hampsey | Conservative | 9,350 | 20.8% |
| Hamish Maxwell | Labour | 8,585 | 19.1% |
| Alan Reid | Liberal Democrat | 7,359 | 16.4% |
| Melanie Hurst | Reform UK | 3,045 | 6.8% |
| Tommy MacPherson | Independent | 941 | 2.1% |
| Seat | Dates |
|---|---|
| Argyll, Bute and South LochaberElected 1 time | – present |
| Argyll and ButeElected 3 times | – |
| Post | Dates |
|---|---|
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Cabinet Office)Opposition Department | – present |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Culture, Media and Sport)Opposition Department | – present |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Middle East)Opposition Department | – present |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Foreign Affairs)Opposition Department | – |
| SNP Chief WhipOpposition Department | – |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (International Development)Opposition Department | – |
| Shadow SNP Deputy Spokesperson (Cabinet Office)Opposition Department | – |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution)Opposition Department | – |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Inclusive Society)Opposition Department | – |
| Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Culture and Media)Opposition Department | – |
| Shadow SNP Westminster Group Leader (Defence)Opposition Department | – |
| Committee | Dates |
|---|---|
| Foreign Affairs Sub-Committee on the Overseas Territories | – |
| Foreign Affairs Committee | – |
| Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform Bill) | – |
| Elections Bill | – |
| DCMS Sub-Committee on Disinformation | – |
| Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee | – |
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