Chamber and committees

I have just said that I would go on to address the point that Ms Forbes raised. If the minister will allow me to make some progress, I will perhaps take an intervention from him later.

I was speaking of the challenges in rural Scotland. When I visited Tyndrum earlier this month, I was told repeatedly by the businesspeople to whom I spoke about the need for more adequate housing in rural and island areas. The Scottish Land Commission has called for a focus on new models of house building in rural areas. That will be one plank of helping to address the imbalances that exist in rural populations, as it will ensure that there is a pull factor to those areas.

Similarly, we know from the Withers report that there is a major skills gap in Scotland that is causing significant workforce problems for many sectors of the economy, including manufacturing, agriculture and tourism. Therefore, we do not need to think about hypotheticals in order to begin upskilling and reskilling large segments of the population to meet workforce shortages and to provide better outcomes. What we need is investment and the Government to follow through on the recommendations that are outlined in the Withers review and other documents.

I turn to the point about the hostile environment created by the Conservatives at Westminster. In his contribution, the minister said that the hostile environment was rightly opposed by the Scottish Government and that it was not the direction that it would take. However, I am surprised that, in the past week or so, organisations such as JustRight Scotland have called on the Scottish Government to heed the recommendations in the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee’s report on asylum seekers in Scotland to ensure that there are strong policies in place to mitigate the Illegal Migration Act 2023. It does not seem as though the Government is willing to bring forward an action plan to mitigate the effects of that act. The Government said over the summer that it would do so, but that no longer appears to be the case. When Emma Roddick gets to her feet, perhaps she might be able to explain why the Government is taking that approach, when it seems so keen to challenge the Conservatives on their rhetoric and policy.

Today, we have the opportunity to discuss issues of migration, including migration to, and internally within, Scotland. I welcome the chance to discuss how we deal with population challenges and the consequences that they have on our economy, our public services and our communities. I also welcome the opportunity to shine a light on the failure of the current Conservative Government in Westminster to get to grips in a humane and dignified way with the challenges that we face in migration, refugee and asylum systems.

We cannot avoid the fact that today’s debate is not set in the context of action that we could take right now in Scotland or in the context of how we might bolster our public services and invest in the skills of our people. Rather, we are having another debate in the context of independence. I question the value of spending time in the chamber debating the Scottish National Party Government’s latest series of hypotheticals. Then again, if I were part of this Government, I, too, would not be keen on debating reality at the moment.

We have reached number 6 in the “Building a New Scotland” series of papers from the Scottish Government—another paper outlining the Scottish Government’s vision for an independent Scotland. However, if it was not readily apparent, independence is not on the horizon, and this is just the latest in an ever-changing landscape of what independence is, will be or might not be, according to the SNP. Perhaps, like many similar documents, it will simply lie gathering dust while present needs remain unaddressed.

As I acknowledged in my opening comments, the Government motion lays out again in some detail the population challenges that Scotland faces. We have discussed that issue in the chamber before, and it has been well documented by Scottish Government papers and other bodies, including National Records of Scotland and the Office for National Statistics. Our debates in the chamber on the challenges have often been constructive and positive, and members from across the chamber have spent time trying to find common solutions, without simply retreating into constitutional binaries.

The headline figures from the 2022 census on population growth compared with the rest of the UK and with the previous census period only just scratched the surface. We have heard much already about the challenges that persist. On population age, the registrar general’s latest annual review of demographic trends showed that Scotland now has more people aged over 65 than aged under 15. We know that there are significant challenges due to an urban-rural divide. Most central belt local authority areas saw increases in population over the past decade, whereas a 2020 report from the Scottish Council for Development and Industry demonstrated that many of our rural and island communities are expected to experience a major decline in population by 2041.

There is no denying that those trends are posing challenges to our public services, not least to our national health service, and are affecting the national productivity rate and skill shortages, which we are currently experiencing and which will continue.

In that context, I ask the Scottish Government why we are not spending more time debating how to fix the issues in the here and now and why we are spending our time hypothesising about how the issues might be addressed in an independent Scotland. If the Government’s answer is that—we have heard this already today—we can solve the problem only with the full powers of independence, I believe that that is an incredibly defeatist attitude and that the Government should vacate the front benches and get out of the way for people who are determined to work on solutions in the here and now.

I want the Government to use the powers that it has. In the current situation, we have a Conservative Government that does not seem to care and that is bringing in legislation that is pernicious, as I have said previously, yet the Scottish Government does not seem to want to mitigate it. Why is that? [Interruption.] What is the point of the Scottish Parliament if not to mitigate the policies of the Conservative Government, which will then be replaced—[Interruption.]

I am grateful to Ms Forbes for her positive engagement and for sounding positive about the prospect of a Labour Government. I am about to come on to talk about Labour’s approach to the variations in migration in nations and regions and how we might change the Migration Advisory Committee to work better. In my remarks, I will speak about Labour’s approach to immigration, supporting much of the detail that is laid out in the Government’s paper about how we support countries in the global south to ensure that they are more resilient and to ensure that safe routes exist for people coming to the United Kingdom.

I do not think that we will get an answer as to why no mitigation is forthcoming.

As I said in my answer to Kate Forbes, a UK Labour Government would reform and strengthen the Migration Advisory Committee so that it has input from across the nations and regions of the UK to ensure that a visa system can work for all nations and regions, not just Scotland. That is why a UK Labour Government would follow through on a plan to fix the asylum system, scrapping the unethical and unworkable Rwanda scheme and reforming the legal routes for refugees to ensure that people are no longer exploited by smuggling gangs. That is the height of my ambition for this country.

When the people of Scotland are thinking about a more realistic, more actionable plan to support Scotland’s population and reform migration in this country, there are two visions to compare: a Labour plan that can be enacted at speed from day 1 of a UK Labour Government next year, and the Scottish National Party’s proposal, which involves wishing on the never-never to set up a migration system the look of which we are not certain about, while failing to deal with the real issues that exist right now. The Scottish Government is choosing not to mitigate or to deal with those issues in the myriad of ways that are available to it. That is why I am pleased to move the amendment in my name.

I move amendment S6M-11237.2, to leave out from first “welcomes” to end and insert:

“deplores the UK Conservative administration’s hostile rhetoric towards migrants; notes the Scottish Government paper, Migration to Scotland after independence; agrees that a decline in the working population would damage Scotland’s public services and economy; expresses its concern that recent UK and Scottish governments have left Scotland lacking the skills that it needs for the future; welcomes, therefore, the commitment from the UK Labour Party to build an immigration system that works for all the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, and agrees that, as well as ensuring that skills bodies in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK are frequently consulted, in order to inform the immigration system, there is more that the Scottish Government should be doing now to plan for the skills needs in the Scottish economy.”

I will follow on from where Jeremy Balfour left off. I am not sure whether I am pronouncing the acronym correctly, but DACBEAG—the disability and carer benefit expert advisory group—has essentially already advised ministers on EIA. I am keen to understand Dr Simpson’s view. If another non-statutory group were to be created, would it be able to provide the required advice on any detailed policy development for EIA, or would that have to sit somewhere else?

Thank you. I appreciate that today’s evidence is for context, convener, so I will leave my questioning there.

Can you also give us an update about the work of the guidance rewrite group? How will updated guidance be communicated to local authorities? You spoke about local authorities having a key role in disseminating information, so how do we ensure that implementation is smooth for local authorities?

To what extent has the social work profession been engaged in all that work, either through Social Work Scotland or through the representative bodies?

My question builds on that. As you have outlined, minister, information and advice are available. I am keen to understand how people are made aware of that. That applies particularly to kinship carers who are entering into a kinship arrangement for the first time and are navigating a new landscape. What action has been taken by the Government and its agencies to ensure that that information is getting out to people?