Chamber and committees

So, the Faculty of Advocates—

If you have followed my lines of questioning, you will know that I have always made it clear that I am interested in fairness to the accused. That is why I was interested in the role of the defence.

I have other questions about prisons and the police, but I will wait to see whether there is time for those at the end of this session.

Sorry, but I just want to be clear on that point. I appreciate that, up until this point, the approach that has been taken has been necessary. However, the extension might still exist in the future—it might be put into legislation so that it becomes permanent. Are you saying that the Faculty of Advocates does not have any concerns about the remand figures or about the impact on witnesses should the time limits be further extended?

My next question, which follows on from that, is probably best addressed to Tony Lenehan and Eric McQueen. Do you have any concerns about the extension to time bars to account for the Covid period? I have put on record my concerns about that. I appreciate that, during the crisis, the initial extension was necessary. However, that has meant that there have been significant delays to trials. The remand figures in Scotland have been commented on internationally as being unacceptably high. I am sure that Kate Wallace of Victim Support Scotland would point out that the measure has also had an added impact on victims.

In that case, I put the same question about the role of the defence and the depletion of talent to Ken Dalling.

Michael Kill, the chief executive officer of the Night Time Industries Association, has warned that nightlife businesses will lose more than one third of their trade overnight if Covid passports are made mandatory. He also said:

“Contrary to popular belief, much of our core market and workforce will not accept being coerced into taking the vaccine.”

Did the First Minister consider that viewpoint in coming to her decision? Given the night-time industry’s comments about the impact on the sector, what mitigation will the Scottish Government offer the sector, which has been closed for more than 18 months during the pandemic?

I thank the First Minister for that strong answer. I hope that she agrees that there is still a clear problem with a minority of people displaying anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice, as well as a growing feeling that, if those terms were used about any other minority group, the sentiments displayed on our streets would be treated far more seriously. For the avoidance of doubt, I am sure that the First Minister is aware that the famine song contains the words

“The famine is over, why don’t you go home?”,

as confirmed by Lord Carloway in his judgment in 2009.

I welcome the fact that there were three arrests last night in relation to that particular incident and I applaud the fact that Rangers Football Club has just announced an indefinite ban of the members who they identified as being involved in singing the famine song; that must be welcomed. I want the First Minister to reassure me that Police Scotland will respond proportionately to those offences and, in doing so, I offer my full support to the First Minister to work with her and everyone to ensure that all forms of racism and bigotry are stamped out in Scotland.

I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government has chosen to have an early debate on such an important subject. There have been some excellent and important speeches, including the previous one by Bob Doris.

Antiwar.com columnist, Daniel Larison, has said:

“Now that U.S. forces have finally exited Afghanistan, some American hawks are already agitating for the government to stoke internal conflict by backing a new insurgency and wage economic warfare on the country ... The US has previously responded to military defeat by inflicting economic punishment on the former enemy. The US trade embargo on Vietnam impaired the country’s economic recovery and contributed to the mass exodus of refugees from the country beginning in the late 1970s.”

We already know that there is a significant refugee crisis in the wake of the US-led exit from Afghanistan. Inflicting collective punishment on a country will drive even more people to flee to other countries. The international approach must be to recognise that Afghanistan remains a poor country that remains heavily dependent on outside aid. Any disruption to the flow of that aid will have serious consequences.

Meanwhile, all of us in the Parliament are worried about the position of women and girls and LGBT people who are left under Taliban rule. As Sarah Boyack says, we must not forget them. It is a huge human rights crisis and a geopolitical nightmare in the region. We did not need the distraction of our Foreign Secretary, Dominic Raab, giving a dreadful performance yesterday when trying to answer questions on his role. Now, we must focus on what we can do.

Lisa Nandy has described the situation as

“The biggest foreign policy failing in a generation”.

The scenes from Kabul airport are shocking. The evacuation process from Afghanistan has been, and continues to be, at best, a shambles and, at worst, life threatening.

Warnings were given that there would be a bomb blast outside Kabul airport last week, but still, sadly, 92 people died. Their willingness to risk their lives to get to the airport demonstrates the desperation felt by many Afghans, who see no future for themselves under Taliban rule. Who can forget the footage of hundreds of people at Kabul airport running alongside a US Air Force plane as it gathered speed on the runway, with several men clinging on to the side? Harrowing videos posted on social media appeared to show two people falling to their deaths from the US aircraft after it took off. One was an Afghan teenager, Zaki Anwari—a 19-year-old footballer who played for the national youth football team. It is an absolute tragedy that his life was cut short in such appalling circumstances.

The shadow Home Secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds, noted that

“The appalling mishandling of the collapse in Afghanistan by Conservative Ministers has left huge numbers of lives at risk and a potential humanitarian crisis”

and said that the lack of planning to get people out is totally unforgivable.

In the past week, the UK Government has announced that it will create safe routes for Afghans to come to the UK, and I whole-heartedly welcome that. However, we still do not know how those supposed safe routes will be opened up, and many people obviously fear for their lives in relation to being able to access those routes.

In the past fortnight, 15,000 Afghans have arrived in the UK, 8,000 of whom are former British Government employees. Those who were working for the UK Government were brought in under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy, so they will get indefinite rather than temporary leave to remain, and that is to be welcomed. However, as has been said, under the Nationality and Borders Bill and current immigration rules, Afghans who try to escape through what are obviously not safe routes on boats will be automatically refused and disqualified. It would be helpful for Conservative colleagues in particular to add their voices to highlight the seriousness of that, if we are serious about providing safe passage and refuge for Afghans who are trying to get out of the country.

It appears so far that those who were considered at risk have been flown out, but those who have not been working for the UK Government will have the usual long wait to have their applications considered, and they will not be able to work in the meantime. There is quite a lot to consider in terms of the immigration rules that will apply to people whom we want to help.

I want to raise some questions around the current Syrian refugee resettlement scheme, which the minister mentioned. It is great to hear that 18 councils have come forward, but in the past some councils have complained that financial support for the scheme has not been as good as it should be. I would like some reassurances on that, although I welcome the announcement of the emergency fund.

I share the view of the First Minister and the minister, Angus Robertson, that we in Scotland should make a big commitment to settle Afghan refugees. That would be humanitarian, and it is something that Scotland has done in the past. It would be helpful to have some clarity on the numbers that we hope to take. I appreciate that there is a debate over how many of the 5,000 refugees the Scottish Government hopes to take, and around the numbers that it would like to take beyond that, with regard to funding. We need financial support, as we can see that difficulties might otherwise arise.

Bob Doris talked eloquently about Glasgow, which has a fairly large Afghan community, and there will be a much bigger Afghan population around the country. Those Afghans who have settled in Scotland have been absolutely amazing in providing support, and it would be worth considering whether some of that money could go towards ensuring that they can give advice and support to people who come to Scotland, because they themselves know what it is like. It might be quite helpful to give them access to some funding as part of the whole programme.

I thank Paul Sweeney for bringing this important and timely debate to the chamber and for the work that he has done on the matter so far. The campaign has been incredible because of the amazing workforce at McVitie’s, and it has given us hope and motivation as politicians. We must win this fight.

The GMB, of which I declare that I am a member, and Unite have left no stone unturned in the resources that they have applied to the campaign, working with Kate Forbes, who we will hear from later.

I have worked with McVitie’s on various issues over the past five years, and there were points at which we felt that changes to the production line signified a lack of commitment. We were always given an assurance, but it has to be said that we had that doubt in the back of our minds.

As Paul Sweeney said, the Glasgow factory has been the highest performing of all the United Kingdom sites and there is no reason, on the face of it, for it to be selected. It has performed against key performance indicators in areas such as efficiency and maintenance, manufacturing and running on time, despite the fact that it has been up against it, given that it clearly needs investment.

I listened to John Mason’s speech. I have spent a lot of time in this Parliament and I have been a constituency MSP and a regional list MSP. I feel that there is something in him, as the constituency member, that seems to be holding back. He seems to be giving up this fight too easily. The lines at McVitie’s were adjusted to reduce the amount of sugar in the biscuits in order to accommodate what is an obvious concern for many factories that make products that contain sugar, so I think that that is a bit of a diversion.

The factory worked through the pandemic as an essential service. As MSPs, we all helped the workforce to get through that difficult time when it was there serving its community. When the workforce was told of the plans to close the site, it was shocked and devastated at the news, and the ripple effects and financial implications for Glasgow’s east end and the Scottish economy are deeply concerning.

I welcome the fact that Kate Forbes and Susan Aitken got together very quickly to work on an alternative plan, and we must work together on it.

I have said from the beginning, when I addressed rallies and spoke to the workforce, and also in the chamber directly to the First Minister, that I have always believed that her status as an international figure, which she is, was instrumental in getting Pladis to the table and I know that she has met the company. I am sure that the cabinet secretary, who has been dedicated to the fight, will appreciate the point that I am making: the involvement of the First Minister has added something and we need to make sure that she will fight with us on this to the death.

That the Government has more to give was one of the central points that Paul Sweeney made. There is more that the Scottish Government can do and can give to ensure that Pladis does not walk away from the site because the offer is too good to refuse. Those are the terms that we need to offer.

I will continue to fight alongside the workforce, the unions, Government ministers, my colleagues, John Mason and anyone who believes that we cannot give up the fight on behalf of the workforce, the people of Glasgow and the west of Scotland, and the industrial landscape that does not need the closure of the McVitie’s factory.

To ask the First Minister what plans the Scottish Government has to tackle public displays of anti-Irish racism and anti-Catholic prejudice. (S6F-00189)