Scottish Elections 2026: Party Manifestos Summary

The Scottish parliamentary elections are taking place on Thursday 7 May. Ahead of that date, parties have published manifestos – a list of policies they plan to enact if elected to form the next Scottish Government.

We reviewed these documents to identify parties’ proposals on human rights and mapped them against the ten calls set out in Amnesty International's own manifesto.

We are now publishing the result of that work: a summary of the relevant proposals from the six parties currently projected to win seats in the election. We have included information about policy positions regardless of whether Amnesty believes they will have a positive or negative impact on human rights.

Amnesty International is independent of any government, political ideology, economic interest or religion. Among other things, this means that we campaign for political change on human rights issues, but we do not side with one party over another.

We hope this summary will be helpful to those seeking an overview of the various parties' human rights-related positions and policy proposals. Please note that the list itself is not exhaustive. If there are specific areas you want to know more about, we would encourage you to read the manifestos directly.

Links to the party manifestos referenced can be found below, listed in alphabetical order:

Reform UK

Scottish Conservatives

Scottish Green Party

Scottish Labour

Scottish Liberal Democrats

Scottish National Party