Chamber and committees

The impact of the announcement of a budget freeze will paralyse the justice system, which is already struggling. The weight of the court backlog from the Covid period is already harming access to justice and this will only threaten any recovery. In recent months, people across the Lothian region have been caught up in a mixture of court backlogs and industrial action from the legal profession in protest at frozen pay. There is delayed justice and strike action, and people across Scotland are stuck without access to legal representation. Is this the reality of the Scottish Government’s new vision for justice?

To ask the Scottish Government how it will ensure fair access to justice in light of its recent resource spending review reportedly freezing legal aid spending for the next five years. (S6O-01256)

I have asked this question many times before, but are we doing anything for all the other refugees who have been stuck in hotels for years?

It is a pleasure to open the debate for Scottish Labour and to celebrate UN world refugee day. I welcome the fact that the motion before us highlights the contribution made to our society by refugees and those who have sought asylum here. That is incredibly important to note at a time when refugees and asylum seekers are under daily attack from certain political quarters and quarters of our media. It is important for people to hear how many prior generations of refugees have contributed to and enriched our country and our society, from the displaced of world war 2 onwards, and how many continue to do so. However, the picture is increasingly divided.

In the first instance, we can all be proud of the will to help those who have been displaced by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and grateful for those who have already been helped. However, those who arrive here are, all too often, being failed by inadequate preparation.

Last week, the Constitution, Europe, External Affairs and Culture Committee heard from the Ukrainian consul general that hundreds of Ukrainians have been stuck in temporary accommodation for months on end. He pointed out that there are many sponsor applicants and many people who require sponsors but that far too many people are unable to join those dots with no apparent fault on either side. The Scottish Government must ensure that it knows what success looks like in its supersponsor scheme and how it can iron out those problems to avoid further misery.

However, the darker side of the refugee story is that, although we can be thankful for what is being done for the people who have been displaced from Ukraine, the help that is being given to them throws into sharp contrast the treatment of other refugees who have arrived here.

Although people from Ukraine can work and access public funds, people who have fled from, for example, Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan cannot. I highlight those countries because they are the ones to which we have a particular obligation, given our foreign policy in recent years. Many of the refugees from those countries have been stuck in temporary accommodation not just for months but for years, with only £8 a week on which to get by. Many cannot get a school for their children and are not legally allowed to work.

I do not mention that to argue that those displaced by the Ukraine conflict should be given less, but to show how much more support could have been given to those fleeing other conflict zones. We need to be careful to avoid the appearance that some may feel of there being a racist double standard in our approach to supporting refugees.

That is all without even mentioning the latest attack from the UK Government on asylum seekers: the horrendous policy of sending those who cross the channel seeking refuge here to Rwanda. That is a costly exercise, both in monetary terms and in our moral standing as a nation.

The UK Government is intent on sending people trying to flee from a range of conflict zones to a country in the middle of Africa from which we have previously accepted refugees. It is reminiscent of a transportation policy from Britain’s colonial past. However, it is also, fundamentally, a policy where the UK, as a developed nation, is paying off a poorer nation on another continent to deal with what our Government considers to be a problem. At the very least, the policy represents a colonial state of mind from the Tory Government in Westminster.

I and my Scottish Labour colleagues continue to call on the UK Government to drop that horrendous policy, which has not even been put before the Westminster Parliament. I hope that future UN world refugee days will be marked without the national embarrassment of such a grotesque policy, and I hope that, as a result, we will be able to more easily celebrate the many ways in which our national compassion has benefited our national life.

Scottish Labour will support the motion, but we do not feel that it represents the full reality of the situation for refugees in Scotland.

One of the best ways to develop relationships with European countries is through educational ties. When my colleagues have asked the Scottish Government recently about delays to the replacement for Erasmus, they have instead been told about the plan for Scotland to rejoin the EU. While the Scottish Government waits for that theoretical solution, thousands of very real students are missing out on educational opportunities in Europe. The Scottish Government is limiting the opportunities of a generation with its gamble on future EU membership, which it cannot guarantee. Why will the Scottish Government not follow the example of the Welsh Labour Government and bring forward a replacement for Erasmus now?

Why does Scotland’s earnings growth lag behind the rest of the UK?

I have two questions. How can we be sure that inflation is just a spike and not on an upwards trajectory? If the less positive projections about what will happen next year come true, how will that affect our future spending commitments?

Good morning, minister. You have answered quite a few of the questions that I was going to ask. How are Social Security Scotland and the DWP working together to ensure that clients get consistent communication from both agencies?

Thanks to the decline in emissions from the energy sector, statistics show that domestic transport is now the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in Scotland. The report notes a marked decline in those emissions due to the Covid lockdown, but that circumstance is now behind us. It is crucial for our climate targets that we keep those emissions as low as possible. That must include having a functional rail network and expanding the network into rapidly growing communities such as Winchburgh, which is in the Lothian region that I represent, to ensure that people have the choice of opting out of private transport.

Does the Scottish Government truly understand the importance of functional and widely available public transport in meeting our net zero targets? How will it get from the current chaos to that goal?

I recently raised with the First Minister the case of a constituent who waited seven months to be diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. We now hear from the international cancer benchmarking partnership and Cancer Research UK that almost two fifths of cancers in Scotland are being diagnosed in accident and emergency units. This week, I heard from Myeloma UK that in the case of myeloma the proportion is up to a third. How can the Scottish Government reassure my constituents that they will not be made to wait a dangerously long time for a cancer diagnosis?