Chamber and committees

In the light of the Government’s commitment to bring forward amendments at stage 3, I will not move amendment 26, but I reserve the right to bring the amendment back if those amendments are not sufficient.

Amendments 26 and 27 not moved.

The First Minister may be aware of reports that Glasgow City Council intends to extend the ban on asylum seekers coming to Glasgow as a result of the constraints of accommodation. We all know about the inadequacies of the Home Office’s policy and its privatised service, but surely that is tantamount to an abdication of responsibility by us as Scots and Glaswegians to some of the most vulnerable people in the world. Does the First Minister agree that we should seek to lift the ban as quickly as possible and explore every possible opportunity to improve quality of life for the 5,000 or so asylum seekers in Glasgow, such as extending concessionary travel to them free of charge?

Last year, the Government gave a £191 million no-strings subsidy to private bus company owners and underspent the transport budget by £343 million. When the Government is carrying forward that money into the reserve, will it consider taking equity stakes in bus companies and other transport firms to extend public ownership across the transport system and better enable us to have an integrated and greener public transport system in Scotland?

Alex Cole-Hamilton is making a powerful speech about the importance of overdose prevention and the use of facilities to ensure other public health benefits such as minimising HIV transmission. In Scotland, the reality is that overdose prevention centres are not illegal. If they were, I would be arrested and charged, and so would Peter Krykant. We need to get a grip of the situation. Does Alex Cole-Hamilton agree that, in the minister’s final remarks, she should address the issues of finding a legal pathway to safe consumption in Scotland and ensuring that Peter Krykant gets the resources that he deserves to continue his work in Glasgow?

That is certainly an exciting and interesting point. I hope to reach the detail of our proposal in my speech. I will save it until later; I will get to it in due course.

It is certainly not a question of immigration undermining wages and conditions. We have to look at the positive aspects of immigration. Organised labour has been under systematic assault for many years. That is what has driven down wages and that is why wages have stagnated. The power of organised labour to bargain collectively in this country has been systematically undermined for years. That is the root cause and the heart of the problem. It is compounded by a reactionary approach to industrial development in Scotland that sees investment in high-skilled jobs and technologies diverted out of the country as more of our industries fall under foreign ownership. We saw that at the Caley railway works in Springburn, and we are seeing it play out once again at McVities in Tollcross.

Our amendment calls for an effective industrial strategy, to prevent such tragic loss of jobs, secure Scotland-owned industrial development and promote upskilling in the workplace.

International movement of labour is a class issue. The kind of skills-based system that the Tories are planning for will inevitably favour wealthier migrants over poorer ones. The proposed minimum income requirements would not only deprive Scotland of the talent that keeps our economy afloat; they would mean that living and working legally would become a privilege awarded to the lucky few, not the many.

I refer members to my entry in the register of members’ interests: I am a member of the GMB and Unite trade unions.

The long and tortuous progress of Brexit, which has bedevilled us since 2016, is often debated as a constitutional issue that stands separately and drags us away from the class politics that underpin a socialist analysis of our economy and society. However, it is easy to forget that constitutional wrangling creates victims, too, most of whom are working class people, whether the issue is lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, women’s rights or immigration and trade and—as we debate today—the skills that underpin policy in that regard.

Immigration was front and centre of the Brexit debate in the lead-up to the referendum. We saw Nigel Farage’s infamous posters, which will go down as a shameful moment in our history. We heard the same myths—repeated over and over—about migrants’ negative impact on wages and public services, when we know that all evidence points to the contrary. We also witnessed a wave of hate crime against migrants and against British-born people of colour, who were told that they do not belong in the Brexiteers’ nationalist utopia.

Today, almost five years after the Brexit vote, millions of EU nationals still find themselves in limbo. Those who arrived in the UK under the freedom of movement arrangements are being forced to apply just to be able to stay in their own homes with their loved ones. We hear harrowing stories of people who have spent years or decades living and working in Britain but whose settled status applications are being rejected by the Home Office.

The Tories failed to recognise any of those issues in their amendment, and if they have their way, millions more people will soon be subject to the hostile environment that brought us the Windrush scandal. Although the Green Party’s amendment was not selected today, the Labour Party whole-heartedly endorses its endeavour in that vital matter.

Scotland cannot let migrant workers be an afterthought in the Brexit process. Polish nurses and Romanian cleaners are just as much a part of the working class as their colleagues who have British passports. For example, the feminist organisation Engender estimates that one in five workers in the social care sector was not born in the UK. Migrant workers occupy some of the most important yet undervalued roles in our society, and the Scottish Government must use all its power to ensure that they are treated fairly. That is why Scottish Labour is calling for the extension of trade union recognition, to prevent the exploitation of migrant labour in undervalued sectors.

Trade unions have achieved what was previously thought to be impossible, by building up popular recognition of key workers during the pandemic into a determined campaign that extends beyond mere goodwill to a fight for terms and conditions that would allow every worker to live a dignified life. As we move towards a national care service, the Scottish Government must take the next step to ensure that all those who employ workers in Scotland across health and social care formally recognise trade unions and their right to bargain collectively on behalf of their members.

We face an economic challenge in Scotland that we tried to address in previous years under a Labour Government—most noticeably through the fresh talent initiative in 2004, which was successful in reversing Scotland’s historic population decline. From 1801 to 1901, the Scottish population grew by 180 per cent, but from 1901 to 2001 it grew by just 10 per cent. It is projected that the working-age population in Scotland will grow by just 1 per cent in the next 10 years. That presents a huge demographic challenge for Scotland.

There are many reasons underlying that trend, and it cannot simply be blamed on Brexit, although erecting borders, with all the friction that they bring, certainly does not help matters. The fundamental structure of the Scottish economy is in critical and urgent need of reform. We need to build on previous initiatives, such as the fresh talent initiative, and ensure that the national transition training fund realises its full capacity, in order to drive towards a high-skill, high-wage economy that has community wealth building at its heart.

We must robustly challenge the idea that migration is simply a tool to provide low-skilled, low-wage, casualised and seasonal work in fragile communities in which young people, such as those in my generation, are deprived of economic security.

Pam Gosal’s intervention was timely. I completely agree that the attainment gap remains a mark of national shame in Scotland. Every party has to put its full weight behind addressing it. We saw the issue being played out in the Scottish Qualifications Authority exams scandal last year; I was astounded by the incredible level of structural inequality that that revealed. We should urgently address the matter.

Let me respond to the minister’s point. Labour is calling on the Scottish Government and the UK Government to collaborate on the development of a flexible visa scheme that would empower workers to resist exploitative employers and underpin efforts to unionise workers who are fearful about their immigration status. Canada’s immigration system, which is co-managed by the federal and provincial Governments, could provide a useful benchmark for us to consider in Scotland and the UK as a whole. I say to the minister that the Scottish Government will certainly have an ally in the Labour Party should it pursue that idea in seeking to reform our constitutional arrangements in a positive and constructive fashion.

I have worked with Scottish Enterprise on promoting initiatives such as the ScotGrad scheme, which has brought in international graduates and foreign language students to help to promote Scottish exports abroad, and I can say that the Tories’ xenophobic migration policy is a real threat to the future economic prosperity of this country. However, the Scottish Government could do much more, too.

On a Scottish, British or European level, Labour will always promote and support policies that are rooted in advancing economic opportunity, human dignity and the ability to grow our collective potential as a country. That is why I invite colleagues across the Parliament to support our amendment.

I move amendment S6M-00382.3, to insert at end:

“; notes the disappointingly low uptake of the National Transition Training Fund to date and believes that upskilling and reskilling Scotland will require more ambitious interventions; acknowledges that the Scottish Government must do more to enhance the standard of living in Scotland, work with the UK Government to support flexible visa schemes and build on previous initiatives, such as ‘Fresh Talent’, in order to effectively address the skills shortages within key sectors of the economy and make Scotland an attractive location to live, work, study and do business; recognises the need for an effective industrial strategy, and calls on the Scottish Government to develop such a strategy to prevent the loss of skilled jobs, promote upskilling in the workplace and promote the extension of trade union recognition to prevent exploitation of migrant labour and secure future fiscal sustainability.”

The member makes an interesting point about the flexibility of the workforce, but another fundamental component is the need to ensure that there is sufficient demand in the economy for people to be employed at income levels that give them dignified and uplifting lives. Does he recognise that there is potentially an issue in that regard with economic planning at both the Scottish and UK levels? Does he agree that we are simply not providing enough jobs to allow those opportunities and that expecting people to chase jobs that do not exist is actually a form of abuse?

I share the objectives of saving and preserving industrial growth on the Clyde and the skilled jobs that go with that.

On 31 May 2017, Ferguson Marine’s chairman met the First Minister at Bute House and, on 5 June 2018, he met the former Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Constitution to beg the Government to force its public body, Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, to take part in a dispute resolution process for the failing ferry contract. On 9 November 2017, the Scottish Government appointed Commodore Luke van Beek to find a solution. The Government was given a report by Burness Corlett Three Quays in January 2018. A further report, by consultants HKA, was put to ministers in January 2019. All three independent expert consultants were highly critical of CMAL’s management of the ferry contract, so why did ministers ignore their independent advisers and refuse to intervene at any stage of that long process to oblige CMAL to participate in a dispute resolution process? That failure has led directly to the disastrous outcome that we see at Ferguson’s today.

The First Minister made points about the impact of international travel in the context of the highly transmissible delta variant, and the constraints in that regard. Has she considered the provisions in part 7 of the Public Health etc (Scotland) Act 2008 and the potential to introduce further measures—in particular, a statutory offence of not complying with quarantine rules? Could such an approach be used to communicate more effectively and tighten up the position in relation to transmission as a result of international travel to Scotland?