Chamber and committees

I acknowledge the work that you do. If you could mirror the success that we had in Canada by getting haggis reinstated as an import to the US, that would be good, too.

Katrine Feldinger, do you have any comments?

We have been given a really good briefing from the Scottish Parliament information centre, which includes details on the number of people who left the two ships, Ambition and the other one. In each case, quite a small number of people left to go to hosted accommodation. I think that the figure for the other one was 1 per cent and for the Ambition, it was 7 per cent. Do you have a figure for how many people generally—by which I mean not just the people on those ships—went to hosted accommodation?

It was not the ideal way for people to come, but it was necessary at the time and, like the convener, I have to say that Clackmannanshire Council did a superb job, as did Stirling Council in Killin. Is any work being done to look at how that might be kept as an infrastructure, almost like a resilience facility? The committee has talked about whether people coming from Gaza could be accommodated in a similar way. Are we keeping that infrastructure? I have not heard a word about the scheme since the family left and I wonder whether we are thinking about how we might use it for the future.

I have one small point to make, which is that we should always take refugees because they are refugees; we should need no other reason. However, although this may sound a little cynical, I wonder whether any part of the argument that you are making to the UK Government to move on with the visa extension—if that is what happens—is informed by the skills needs that we have in Scotland and the skills that the refugees who have come here have. Are you making the case that those skills are very important to Scotland?

On a personal note, I hosted a Ukrainian family for six months and was able to get them both permanent accommodation and a job—in fact, two jobs. We have stayed in contact—they are now in the minister’s region—and their real worry is about what happens now. They see the 18-month deadline looming. Their home in Nikolaev was destroyed, and they have no idea where they would go back to. Having taken the opportunity to get a quite specialist job and having settled, after moving from Killin to me to where they are now, they are still really worried. Is the UK Government giving any reason why it will not confirm what its intentions are?

Secondly, given the possibility—I will put it no higher than that—that there could be a change in Government next year, and I know that you will have Government-to-Government relations, is there any indication of where the Labour Party stands in relation to the three-year visa?

To return to a couple of the strongest themes of the debate, I note that the Conservative approach is to say that the bill does not really affect Scotland, so why are we even discussing it? The reason, which Monica Lennon put her finger on when she talked about the underfunding of public services, is that, if there is a piece of legislation that will enable the suppression of wages in the rest of the UK, that will have a direct consequence in Scotland, and it will increase the pace at which the Tories run down our public services in this country. That is why it is extremely relevant.

I imagine that Brian Whittle must be the only person in the chamber who cannot see the link between restricting trade unions’ ability to strike and the suppression of wages. However, perhaps if he goes away and researches a bit, he will work it out.

There has been a great deal of talk over many years about legislation on trade unions in the UK, which has, more often than not, been caused by the UK Government of the day introducing legislation, or failing to repeal legislation, that actively seeks to curtail the effectiveness of trade unions. That is the case with this bill. I speak as somebody who was a trade union member for many years, as well as a branch officer and shop steward, and who went on strike during the Thatcher years—against a Labour employer, I should say—in 1989.

I do not necessarily want to look for points of difference between us and the Labour Party, but it is important to explain why Clare Haughey is not filled with trust in the Labour Party. As I said, it was the Labour Party that we had to campaign against and strike against in 1989. It was the Labour Party that initially made huge commitments in the 1990s to repeal very far-reaching Tory legislation but, in many cases, failed to do so, which has led to that loss of support. Many of us have dealt with Labour employers over the years.

I remember being threatened with legal action by an ex-member of this chamber for my trade union activities, and I remember my trade union, Unison, encouraging Labour members to spy on SNP councillors and clype back—[Interruption.] I am not sure what is bothering Brian Whittle. I do not know whether he knows which debate he is attending. There is a long history of distrust and some merit in trying to overcome that distrust.

Michael Marra asked earlier whether the SNP should support Labour’s stated intention. I was asked repeatedly in 2014-15 not to proceed with the biggest contract that the Scottish Government lets, which is the ScotRail contract, because Labour would be on in a second and would sort it all out, so we did not have to do it. That was eight years ago and we still do not have a Labour Government. Given Keir Starmer’s track record, nobody believes that Labour will stay true to what it is saying now.

All of that means that our trade unions are in a difficult situation, and they have been for some years. If we look at the actions of the Scottish Government, that is the way to deal with trade unions. We should get into a discussion and, where possible, compromise. Crucially, we should recognise the role of trade unions and how they can help in providing public services.

I have just explained a number of times why there is very little trust in what the Labour Party says it intends to do.

I should also say that strong trade unions are probably needed more now than they have been for many years. It is pretty obvious to any working person in Scotland or the UK just how much poorer their pay and conditions are now compared with just a few years ago. We know that wages have been largely stagnant in the UK for the past 15 years, while the cost of living has soared beyond all belief. According to the Resolution Foundation, an independent think tank that focuses on the living standards of low to middle-income workers in the UK, the average UK household is now £11,000 worse off in real terms than it was in 2008.

According to the Resolution Foundation, when we look at comparable countries such as France and Germany, we see that the typical French household is 11 per cent richer, and the typical German household 27 per cent richer, than the typical family in the UK. On that, I am happy to apportion the blame where it deserves to be, which is, of course, the 14 years of failed austerity that we have had from the Conservative Party. However, most European countries, including France and Germany, have a far better and more collegiate approach to trade unions than the UK does. That is reflected in the worsening living standards in the UK. The Tories are responsible for the biggest fall in living standards in living memory. That is an appalling record for them to preside over.

Why does the UK Government focus on the continual strengthening of anti-trade union legislation? Why does it always focus on taking away people’s rights, whether they are trans people, refugees or, in this case, trade union workers? Why is it always pandering to its base—I mean base in both senses of the word—by trying to attack people and by indulging in culture wars? The latest proposal, the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023, is just the latest in a line of anti-trade union legislation, introduced because the UK Government thinks that it appeals to its base supporters.

I remind the chamber that Scotland has not voted for the Conservative Party or any of its earlier iterations since 1955. In this coming election, which has been mentioned already, Scotland will have fewer representatives at Westminster than it does now—down to 57 from 59—whereas England will have 10 more. That means that, as a country, we will be even less able to stop legislation such as the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023. The Labour Party has to wrestle with itself. Daniel Johnson said that we should indulge in some self-analysis and reflection. If Labour were to get in next year, and if it were to repeal the act—two big ifs—what would prevent the same base, the Tory party, from getting in once again, two or three years after that? It would be the usual ding-dong of UK politics and workers in Scotland having to pay the price for being part of the union. That is what we are trying to avoid here. It would be just about the last nail in the coffin with respect to the UK’s conduct of our affairs.

Keir Starmer’s statements about his admiration for Margaret Thatcher worry me, given that this Parliament passed the Miners’ Strike (Pardons) (Scotland) Act 2022. At that point, various commitments were made by the Labour Party, including that, if it ever formed a Government, it would go further and provide that pardon throughout the UK and that it would also consider compensation for those miners, given that the UK Government took more than £4 billion from miners’ pension funds. I doubt whether Keir Starmer would even consider increasing protections for miners or compensating them.

That is why it is important that we support the motion. In the absence of the powers necessary to change the law, our opposition as a Parliament to the Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Act 2023 has to be absolutely clear. We can show what we would do differently if the powers over employment law were held in this chamber. For that reason, I support the motion in the name of Neil Gray.

I appreciate the reasonable tone that Carol Mochan has adopted, but does she understand the point that SNP members are trying to make, which is that what any Labour Government does can be changed as soon as another Conservative Government gets elected—or can she guarantee that there will never be another Tory Government to repeal the legislation? That is why we should devolve the matter: then, at the very least, it would always be in the hands of this Parliament.

Those are facts.