Chamber and committees

As the cabinet secretary has indicated, the situation with horizon Europe is a product of an unwanted Brexit. However, does he agree that the UK Government should see horizon Europe as part of a process of reopening more doors to our European neighbours and that it should scrap the disastrous Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill and remain aligned with high EU standards?

Despite, rightly, moving to a housing first solution wherever we can in Scotland, having places where people can sleep safely while a more suitable long-term arrangement is identified remains vital. As the minister acknowledged, it is clear that families should not be in temporary accommodation if it can humanly be avoided.

The reasons for homelessness across the UK are inseparable from the wider picture of poverty, austerity and benefits changes. The recommendations that have been set out by the temporary accommodation task and finish group represent a key opportunity to make progress. As is set out in the report, we must see more social housing built, existing housing stock maximised and the provision of suitable support put in place for those who are moving on.

Homelessness is often viewed as an urban issue, but in my island constituency house prices and rent increases, coupled with high numbers of second homes and short-term lets, mean that even people working full time can find themselves needing temporary accommodation in some form.

Backed by significant Scottish Government funding, the local authority and housing association, as well as community landowners, have made steady progress on house building across the Western Isles in recent years. Even small projects, such as adding five to 10 homes to local housing stock, can make a huge difference to businesses being able to employ people in a community, and therefore to the viability of that community.

However, demand still outstrips supply in many island areas, particularly for social housing. For example, individuals on the housing waiting list in Stornoway have to endure a similar length of time to people who are on the Edinburgh list, and they often wait more than two years before being able to secure housing that is close enough to their place of work. People in other areas of the islands often confront the reality that little or no social housing exists at all.

Of course, global supply chain issues continue, and the impact of inflationary pressures makes it impossible to make housing budgets go anywhere near as far as they could even 12 months ago, but the need for more social and other affordable housing is one of the key issues in my constituency. When working-age people cannot access affordable housing in their area, they are forced to move away, contributing further to depopulation and the drain on suitable employees for essential local services.

That is why I whole-heartedly welcome the Scottish Government’s recent commitment of £25 million to bring empty homes back into use in rural and island areas to enable them to be used by key workers and others. I also hope that, following the on-going consultation, councils will be given the power to increase council tax on second or empty homes.

Finally, I believe that measures to allow for limits to be introduced on the proportion and number of second homes in specific communities would represent a key step in helping to ensure more equitable access to the local housing market and avoid the imminent hollowing out of some communities, which other members have alluded to. I look forward to discussing that in more detail with the new housing minister at our meeting in a fortnight’s time.

Addressing housing issues across Scotland requires co-operation, commitment and creativity from all levels of government and working collaboratively with local communities. I hope that the temporary accommodation task and finish group’s recommendations will help shape our response to this specific and real problem while work on wider housing issues continues apace.

Will the member give way?

I think that we can all agree on the point that the member has just made about the evils of the people traffickers and the people who run the small boats. However, the Conservatives have not yet given us a real opportunity in this debate to assess their reaction to the complaint that there are virtually no legal routes to take. What are the legal routes that these people are supposed to take?

I was.

Today’s debate is an opportunity for this Parliament to say, without apology, that Scotland welcomes refugees. As others have indicated, it is also a chance to make clear that we reject the notion that the legal obligations that this country has to offer shelter to people fleeing war and persecution should be abandoned.

The UK Government’s Illegal Migration Bill is the latest move in a long line of actions that have damaged the UK’s international reputation as a place of refuge. It is worth reminding ourselves why refugees come to the UK. According to the British Red Cross, about half of the refugees coming into the country are doing so to be reunited with their families. It is, of course, common for families to become separated as they flee from their homes or during what can be arduous journeys in search of safety. Language and culture are certainly also factors. At one point, nearly a quarter of the world’s population lived under the British empire. That fact created, along with some other less creditable things, cultural ties with countries round the globe. It is only natural that people will seek shelter in countries with which they have some familiarity.

Despite what certain publications would have us believe, refugees do not come here for a generous benefits system. A single asylum seeker gets £45 a week, which is less than in many other countries, such as Germany. Asylum seekers cannot work or claim other benefits; they do not get the choice over where they get to live; and too many refugees in the UK end up exposed to poverty, homelessness and abuse.

The UK takes in fewer people than comparable European countries. Germany takes into two and a half times more refugees than the UK; France takes one and a half times more; and Spain and Austria take in more. The UK takes fewer refugees proportionately than most European Union countries, with the application per capita rate being almost half the EU average.

Against that background, it is difficult to explain the UK Government’s focus on such an unworkable and inhumane policy as the one that it presently proposes. We heard the Home Secretary stoke up tensions with talk of invasions and claims that arrivals are only here to game the system. Language like that makes it hard to escape the conclusion that the policy is being pursued as part of some fairly ugly political calculations.

However, let me put that to one side and keep our minds on the real lives affected by the bill. OpenDemocracy cites the story of a former police major in Iran. That police officer fled the country in 2019, after refusing to act against fuel demonstrations. He later fled Turkey after being found and harassed by Iranian intelligence agents, eventually arriving in Britain after crossing the Channel on a small boat last year. He was held in an immigration detention centre, privately run for the UK Home Office, living in constant fear of deportation. Now, he is in a hotel that is run by Home Office contractors.

The point is that the man was one of 3,594 Iranians to arrive by small boat between January and September last year, according to figures from the Refugee Council. There has been continuous widespread unrest in Iran following the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini. She was arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly wearing her headscarf incorrectly. UN human rights experts have condemned the killings and the state crackdown on protesters, which has been alleged to include arbitrary arrests and detentions, sexual violence, excessive use of force, torture and enforced disappearances.

Had refugees fleeing the Iranian regime arrived in the UK with the proposed bill enacted, they would have faced deportation to Rwanda and would have been told that their method of entry was illegal and that they should have come via the official route. For context, I note that, over that time, the official route was able to resettle a grand total of nine people from Iran.

That gets to the heart of the problem, as Mr Doris and several others have described. More than 4,000 people arrive from Iran every year, and we all agree that that country is run by a repressive and dangerous regime. The vast majority of asylum claims—82 per cent—are therefore granted at the initial stage, and even more are granted on appeal, but the official route managed to resettle a grand total of nine people over nine months. There is, in effect, no official route.

The figures for channel crossings by people from other countries show a similar situation. Tiny numbers of Afghans, Iraqis, Sudanese and Eritreans come to the UK via official routes.

The total failure to provide safe routes allows the criminal people smugglers to prosper, and it is forcing refugees into dangerous journeys and exploitation. Instead of improving safe routes, the UK bill will arbitrarily detain and remove victims of modern slavery and trafficking. Victims of modern slavery will, in effect, be punished, while traffickers will often be able to continue to operate with impunity.

Scotland’s Parliament will take no lectures about what it can and cannot discuss. Today, it is saying very clearly that Scotland wants no part at all in this awful and dehumanising piece of Westminster legislation.

The problem is that it implies that there are no people.

But that will not work in an area that is made up of peat.

Thank you, convener.

This question is not meant to sound provocative. I understand the need to tackle the climate emergency. However, I am curious to know whether Mr Boyd-Livingston has ever had a meeting with a common grazings committee in the crofting counties and used the phrase “stock free”. As a representative of such an area, I am struggling to visualise what stock-free agriculture would look like, other than agriculture-free agriculture. Do you recognise the ecosystem resilience that already exists within low-intensity farming that includes stock?