Chamber and committees

Will the minister give way?

Does Ben Macpherson recognise that the 30-year cross-Government shipbuilding pipeline identified in the national shipbuilding strategy refresh is critical to the Scottish shipbuilding enterprise? Does he also recognise that, to maximise the economic opportunities of that pipeline of orders, there needs to be a consistent, stable design and a consistent, integrated approach to procuring ferries in the Scottish shipbuilding industry?

I thank the minister for an advance copy of her statement. The scale of Scotland’s mental health crisis cannot be overstated. A recent survey by the Royal College of Psychiatrists found that 53 per cent of respondents were not confident that they or a family member could access mental health support if needed.

The Government’s latest strategy rightly focuses on the need for patients to be able to access good mental health support earlier and in their own communities. However, both the strategy and the accompanying workforce plan fail to acknowledge the increasing pressures that that will place on a declining GP workforce that is constantly firefighting and has no headspace to make service improvements.

Will the minister tell us how patients can have confidence in the strategy, given that the workforce has already told me today that it is not possible to deliver it?

Will the minister take an intervention?

As an alumnus of the Citizen Participation and Public Petitions Committee and an evangelist for its work, I commend the member for Eastwood, in his capacity of convener of that committee, for putting that question to the First Minister at the recent session with him. I am pleased that there are encouraging responses from the First Minister. I hope that the Minister for Transport has heard those remarks, too, and will respond in due course.

First Bus, which serves the Eastwood constituency, is the largest bus operator in Scotland and indeed in Glasgow, which is the asylum dispersal area with the highest numbers in the United Kingdom. It has confirmed that it would support any mechanism that would offer travel assistance to displaced people providing that provisions were reviewed and tied to a reimbursement rate that was similar to that for the existing concessionary travel schemes.

I have had recent correspondence with the Minister for Transport in which she committed to looking further into the proposal. In addition, the First Minister, as the member for Eastwood mentioned, has said that he is actively considering the matter. I therefore urge the minister to update Parliament today on whether the Government will make an order, in exercise of the powers conferred by the Transport (Scotland) Act 2005, to establish a national bus travel concession scheme for those people who are seeking asylum in Scotland as defined by section 94 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999. Extending the free bus travel scheme on that basis is well within the Scottish Government’s gift.

Supplementing the existing concessionary travel schemes will cost a fraction of the overall Scottish budget, and the change can be brought in at speed and at pace, providing quick relief to those who are seeking asylum here in Scotland. Frankly, for such small change, it would make a huge difference to thousands of lives.

In December 2021, alongside ambassadors from the VOICES network, who are in the gallery today, I launched a campaign for free bus travel for people seeking asylum here in Scotland.

Since then, the campaign has attracted widespread support from across the asylum sector and from third sector organisations such as Maryhill Integration Network, MIN Voices, the Scottish Refugee Council, JustRight Scotland, Grampian Regional Equality Council and Friends of Scottish Settlers, among others. On top of that, there is cross-party support in this Parliament. This week, the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee backed the extension of countrywide provision to asylum seekers through the national concessionary bus travel scheme, calling the policy “transformative”. I also thank Bob Doris, the member for Glasgow Maryhill and Springburn, and Mark Ruskell, the Green member for Mid Scotland and Fife region, for their continued cross-party efforts in support of the campaign.

In my Glasgow region, an all-day bus ticket costs £5. People seeking asylum do not have the right to work and therefore rely on an allowance of only £6 per day to cover the cost of living; for the ever-increasing number of people living in provided hotel accommodation, the allowance can be as little as £1.36 per day. Having to fork out £5 for bus travel to attend medical, social, legal or even urgent Home Office appointments is simply not an option unless they go without food or other essentials. Asylum accommodation is often situated in isolated parts of cities with the lowest rents and unaffordable public transport, compounding the isolation for many new Scots.

Concessionary bus travel is therefore a key social justice policy and one that has the ability to positively transform the lives of those who are stuck in the dreadfully slow and inadequate asylum system that is presided over by the Conservative-run Home Office.

People who are seeking asylum are among the most vulnerable people in our society. They are forced to live in squalid conditions on next to no money and they are prevented from getting a job to earn money despite often being highly qualified and despite being eminently capable people who are able to contribute so much to our communities.

The difficulties that are faced by people who are seeking asylum in Scotland lie firmly at the door of the Conservative United Kingdom Government. However, the Scottish Government has the ability to improve the lives of asylum seekers in many practical ways. Free bus travel would enable people who are seeking asylum to explore and integrate in their new home country. It would also vastly improve their quality of life, with the cost of bus travel eating up the already scarce amount that is provided by the Home Office for essentials.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, the third sector and the asylum sector are right behind the campaign, but it is important to draw attention to the support from wider civic society, too. Indeed, all faith leaders in the Scottish religious leaders forum have signed an open letter in support of the policy, and the Mental Health Foundation and the Poverty Alliance have recommended the proposal.

I have been pleased to work on a cross-party basis with parliamentary colleagues, engaging with the Scottish Government on this ask and liaising directly with successive transport ministers and Transport Scotland. I also personally met the Deputy First Minister in her previous role as Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Housing and Local Government and the Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Fair Work and Energy in his previous role as Minister for Culture, Europe and International Development with special responsibility for refugees, both of whom saw merit in the proposal.

Following the commitment in the 2022-23 programme for government to work with the third sector partners and councils to consider how best to provide free bus travel for asylum seekers, a 12-week trial took place earlier this year in Glasgow. However, there was no mention of a national roll-out of free bus travel for asylum seekers in the 2023-24 programme for government, which came as a disappointment to those who have worked on the campaign for almost two years now. Now is the time to implement it on a full-time basis.

The Scottish Government is already providing concessionary travel through the young persons scheme and the older and disabled persons scheme. The framework is there and it can easily be extended.

The member is making a series of fair points. However, will he also note that the total number of asylum seekers who are present in Scotland as of March this year was only just over 5,000? We are talking about a relatively small number of people, so there would be a fairly marginal increase in the number of entitlements in the current schemes.

I thank the minister for giving way on that point, and I recognise some of the complexities around having no recourse to public funds, although JustRight Scotland has offered helpful legal advice in that regard, which I hope the minister and her officials have noted.

Is the minister happy to share the detail of the different proposed models so that we can all have sight of what is being proposed and the detailed working of the costings?

I thank the member for being so generous with her time.

Does she agree that the creation of the BAE Systems applied shipbuilding skills academy in Glasgow is a key example of how we can promote STEM across genders, classes and different groups in our communities?

Will the minister take an intervention?