Clearly, there is a lot of unity in Scotland. Even Alistair Darling, the head of the no campaign in the 2014 referendum, has indicated that he now supports some kind of differentiated immigration policy in Scotland. I hope that that unity will continue and have an impact on the UK Government.
I have a couple of constituency cases to raise, because I want to know whether there is a role for the Scottish Government in helping to lobby the UK Government even more than it is doing now, and in trying to influence decisions made at the Home Office. As you may know, the shortage of teachers in Moray is well documented. A well-publicised case in my constituency in the past few weeks concerns Heather Cattanach—a woman from Canada, working in a school in Forres, who was not able to get her visa sorted out even though she is married to a Scot, and then had to leave that post. There has been a lot of publicity on that case.
Another case concerns a woman from America who is registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland. She is desperate to work in a Moray school but cannot get her sponsored visa because, for some reason, Moray Council will sponsor visas only for teachers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects.
Moray is an example of a part of Scotland in which the demographic challenge is even more challenging than the national challenge in Scotland: the number of people of pensionable age is set to increase by 33 per cent over the next 25 years, with the working age population decreasing. Young people want to live and work in Moray and other parts of Scotland, taking on posts where there is a current shortage, yet we cannot get the visas for them to work in this county. The situation is ridiculous; it is damaging our economy, education system and future. Could the Scottish Government play more of a role in addressing some of those cases?
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