Chamber and committees

I apologise, Heather—you are breaking up a wee bit and we are not able to hear you just now. I will come back to you, and bring in Allan Faulds.

Thank you very much. That concludes the formal part of our business this morning. I take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues and our witnesses for their patience with tech issues. I think that we managed very well. I also thank the witnesses for their contributions. They have been extremely helpful, as part of our scrutiny process. I wish you well and a good morning.

We move into private session to consider the remaining items on our agenda.

Thank you. I would like to move on to Allan Faulds.

Short of independence, the UK should devolve to Scotland our ability to make policy in those areas.

I thank Keith Brown for bringing the debate to the chamber. It is fair to say that the situation that is faced by workers up and down the UK today is quite bleak. For most people, wage increases are struggling to make up for the massive decrease in the value of the money in their bank accounts, and the role that trade unions can play is under attack. Meanwhile, practices such as unpaid work trials and exploitative zero-hours contracts remain the norm in some sectors.

Thirteen years of Tory policy making has certainly made a difference, and I do not think that anyone would claim that that difference has been for the better. Where the situation remains bleak is with the Labour Party. Keir Starmer might be the Prime Minister in waiting, but what difference does it make? The past few months have shown Labour’s hand and revealed that the party is engaged in a race to the bottom on issues such as immigration, welfare and Brexit.

I am aware that Labour makes many policy suggestions on which it regularly goes on to flip-flop and U-turn. There is still no suggestion that Labour would hold true to any of the promises that it makes on improving the lives and conditions of workers across the UK. However, the question whether Scotland should have the ability to take different decisions when it comes to employment is what we are discussing today.

I would like to bring members’ attention to one specific area in which I take a deep interest: the ability of asylum seekers to work while they are applying to remain in the UK. That cuts across the two reserved areas of employment and immigration. Flatly speaking, asylum seekers are not allowed to work in the UK while their applications are being processed. As members are likely aware, the process is long, with most applications taking more than six months. There are very limited circumstances in which the Home Office says that asylum seekers can seek employment. For example, if a person has been waiting for more than 12 months for a decision and the Home Office deems that the delay is not the applicant’s fault, they can seek employment, but only from the UK Government’s restrictive shortage occupation list. That said, the Home Office will not provide data on the number of asylum seekers who have been granted permission to work, so there is no way for us to scrutinise that. The system makes no sense.

The financial support that is given to asylum seekers by the UK Government is extremely low—less than £50 a week. If they were able to work, they would be able to pay taxes. It is easy to conclude, therefore, that the reason why the system exists must be down to ideology, not pragmatism. To be clear, it was Labour that, in 2002, restricted asylum seekers’ ability to apply for work. The ability to apply to work after 12 months was introduced in 2005, but only to comply with European Union law. Thereafter, in 2010, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats further restricted what work asylum seekers could do by limiting it to those jobs on the shortage occupation list.

UK Governments of every hue have let down asylum seekers and the communities that they reside in. These are people from a range of backgrounds and professions, and they want to be able to contribute. Their inability to do so is to our detriment as much as it is to theirs. Sadly, we are living with a UK system that imposes a hostile environment on those who come here—a hostile environment that was actually introduced by the Labour Government under Tony Blair in 2007 and was then continued and enhanced by the Conservatives.

Asylum seekers just want to provide for their families. They just want a bit of dignity as they navigate an often demoralising and elongated application system. They deserve to do that safe in the knowledge that they will be treated equally and in compliance with fair work principles.

The Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee, which I convene, recently concluded an inquiry into the lived experience of asylum seekers in Scotland. The report will be published soon, and it would be inappropriate for me to speculate on its contents, but I hope that the committee’s work on the issue will help to inform Government policy on asylum seekers and their ability to integrate and contribute.

The current system provides a perpetual stream of missed opportunities. I have no doubt that an independent Scotland would make better choices on employment, on how we treat workers and on how we treat those who come here.

To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on any assessment and marking backlogs at universities. (S6O-02539)

My constituent Claire Shankie has been issued with a letter from the University of Edinburgh that confirms only that she has completed her degree; it does not include grading or a timescale for her final award. Like so many others, her life has been put on hold and she cannot plan for her future. Does the minister agree that that is a distressing situation for students, whose entire experience has been impacted by Covid and then strike action? What assurances can he provide that the situation can be resolved?

The minister will be aware that I have been working closely with my constituents in Glasgow Kelvin on this issue, and I know that residents in a number of the buildings that we are talking about find themselves facing rising factoring fees and other costs as remedial work is rolled out. Can the minister provide us with an update on recent engagement by the Scottish Government with relevant stakeholders regarding insurance and mortgage issues?

I welcome the minister’s update and the support that she is offering for the pilot of a safe consumption facility in Glasgow.

The UK Home Affairs Committee recently found that drug laws are outdated and in need of reform in order to support greater use of public health-based drug interventions. Does the minister agree that the UK Government needs to give proper consideration to the Scottish Government’s progressive proposals for reform and to start treating problematic drug use as a public health issue, rather than one of criminalisation?