Malcolm Offord

Malcolm Offord, Baron Offord of Garvel, entered the Scottish Parliament on 7 May 2026 as the leader of Reform UK's Holyrood group after the party won 17 seats — the first hard-right populist caucus at Holyrood since devolution began in 1999, tying with Scottish Labour on the same number. Offord led the Reform Scotland campaign and will head the new parliamentary group.

Offord was created a Conservative life peer in 2021 and served as a parliamentary under-secretary at the Scotland Office under Boris Johnson and subsequently Rishi Sunak, giving him ministerial experience of Scotland policy before his defection to Reform UK. He is a businessman with a background in private equity and asset management, and has been a prominent figure in Scottish centre-right politics for over a decade.

His position is constitutionally unusual: a UK life peer simultaneously leading a Holyrood group. The 17-seat Reform bloc sits to the right of the SNP and Scottish Labour and will press on immigration, net zero, and council tax. How Offord navigates Holyrood procedure — where he has no prior experience as an MSP — will determine whether Reform's Scottish presence is a disruptive force or a noisy footnote to the SNP's continued dominance.