Chamber and committees

I am going to make some progress.

Sadly, depopulation is increasing. It has been projected that Comhairle nan Eilean Siar will experience a population decline of 13.7 per cent between 2014 and 2039. That is the largest decrease for any council area in Scotland. According to the Scottish Fiscal Commission and National Records of Scotland, the population of the Highlands and Islands could decrease by up to 16 per cent in the next 20 years. Without Government action, those areas will soon be unsustainable.

Fundamentally, depopulation means that we need local interventions. There must be enough jobs and houses and reliable transport. The lack of access to services is causing people to leave those communities.

I welcome the opportunity to debate ways of bringing more workers and families into areas that face depopulation. There needs to be a longer-term approach that looks at the fundamental issues that cause depopulation in remote and island communities. Inward migration will be successful in rural and remote communities only if there is the infrastructure, housing and jobs to allow people to live in them. The Scottish Government should prioritise using the powers that it has to attract businesses and retain families instead of focusing on the powers that it does not have, which, even if it had them, might not really change the dial at all with regard to rural depopulation.

Does Jim Fairlie not agree, though, that the Scottish Government’s intervention on rural housing covers commuter areas and country towns as well as remote rural areas? How many such houses does he think the Scottish Government will actually build in remote rural areas?

All those interventions are welcome. The trouble is that, without the infrastructure, we cannot expect to have inward migration or expect people in those areas to stay. Expecting migrants to fill the gap simply exploits their vulnerability rather than providing them with vibrant communities.

Those issues were addressed recently in Labour’s Gaelic plan. We have focused on providing good homes for rural communities; building resilient and reliable ferry networks; delivering a skilled workforce; supporting small businesses; ensuring that there is a transition to net zero that provides communities with energy benefits; and, obviously, promoting Gaelic, especially in Scotland’s creative industries. That recognises that, when a community dies, so does its language, and that we need to sustain those communities.

All those actions will lay stronger foundations, and people will move into and stay in those communities. Those points were also made in the Scottish Council for Development and Industry’s report “An Economy for All of Scotland: Harnessing Our Potential for Everyone, Everywhere”.

Instead, 33 per cent of households in remote rural areas are in extreme fuel poverty, compared with 12 per cent in accessible rural areas and 11 per cent in the rest of Scotland. Although fuel poverty is always unacceptable, those figures show starkly the urban-rural divide.

Transport services are also abandoned in rural areas. There is no progress on the A9 or the A96 dualling. Transport Scotland has estimated that £19 billion-worth of goods are carried on the A9 between Perth and Inverness each year and that 40 per cent of the traffic on the A9 is goods vehicles, including large articulated lorries. The CalMac Ferries fleet is not fit for purpose. This year, the fleet has had 65 per cent performance for reliability to timetable in the Outer Hebrides, with 11 cancellations. Flights are not faring much better, with lifeline services being cut. For most rural communities, buses are non-existent. It is little surprise that people are leaving.

I cannot speak in a debate on migration without looking at illegal migration and especially human trafficking. We have a Conservative Government in the UK that is legislating on migration in a way that provides a gift to traffickers. The national referral mechanism, which people who have been trafficked are referred to for their situation to be verified, takes far too long to process their applications. That delay leaves victims in danger from their traffickers. While they wait, their traffickers can seek revenge.

The threat of deportation and the Rwanda policy prevent people from seeking help from the authorities because they risk being categorised as illegal migrants with no rights or protections. The conditions in which people are kept while they wait also leave them vulnerable. Children are being kept in hotels, which is absolutely unacceptable.

Lone children are even more vulnerable, and more than 400 are missing. What on earth has happened to those children? Traffickers force them to take on the danger of the Channel crossing alone and pick them up easily at the other end. Sadly, only 12 per cent of police investigations into global trafficking lead to a conviction.

We need to deal with this. Inward migration can help us to repopulate our declining communities and provide a much-needed labour force, but, first and foremost, we must provide a response of compassion and humanity to migrants while growing resilience in our communities.

To ask the Scottish Government how it works collaboratively to tackle depopulation in rural areas of the Highlands and Islands region. (S6O-02700)

The minister will be aware of the redundancies being made by BT and its subcontractor Blue Arrow in Alness. The only option open to BT staff is to relocate to Dundee or Manchester, causing rural depopulation. BT Group has been the benefactor of hundreds of millions of pounds of Government money through its partners Openreach and EE, yet it thumbs its nose at and undermines Government policy. Has the minister met BT to discuss the issue? If so, what response has she had? What interventions have been made by the Government and its agencies and what action are they taking to protect BT’s loyal workforce in Alness?

Both of you have spoken about how you source from Scotland, but what are the constraints on sourcing locally? What do you take into account when you are deciding whether to source from Scotland, from the rest of the United Kingdom or from other countries?

That is maybe something that the committee should look at more closely—it seems strange to me.

On the ability to process, I was told about a supermarket—not Morrisons or Asda, I hasten to add—that was sourcing local potatoes but sending them to England for washing and packaging before bringing them back to the local supermarkets. Everyone thought that the potatoes were coming just five miles down the road rather than travelling for many miles in order to be processed. Is there a way that we can overcome that sort of thing? Is that common practice?

We have talked about training, but I wonder, Mike, whether you will need more trained officers to carry out the role. Do you see the role expanding with the new powers? What are the resourcing impacts of the proposed provisions? I know that you are closing offices in Caithness, in my region, but I do not suppose that we are the only ones having SSPCA offices closed. Do you have the resources to take on the work?

I agree with the cabinet secretary and with Mr Balfour about the need to compensate farmers for lost crops. However, could we involve farmers in offsetting floodwater at the start of a flooding episode in order to stop damage downstream and make sure that that is properly compensated and planned for?