Seasonal Migrant Workers

Debate between John Lamont and Deidre Brock

Thursday 1st March 2018 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. I would say that this debate is focused on the agricultural sector. There are definitely challenges in other parts of the economy, but that does not remove anything from the fact that in the past 10 years there has been a downward trend in the number of workers who are coming from the EU to work in our economy.

Seasonal work in the United Kingdom now appears less attractive than it was a decade ago because of a range of factors. A number of Members have described those, but the most notable is the drop in the value of the pound. Many voices in the industry favour the reintroduction of the seasonal agricultural workers scheme, which came to an end following the admission of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU. We now have the opportunity to bring this scheme back or at least to look at something similar—an opportunity that has only been brought about because of Brexit. I join in calls for the United Kingdom Government to look closely at reintroducing the scheme as a way of meeting the seasonal needs of farmers not just across Scotland and in my constituency, but across all the United Kingdom.

A final point I want to make is that this issue starkly highlights the importance of maintaining the United Kingdom’s internal market and the easy movement of staff across the UK—something that the Scottish National party Government in Edinburgh seems unable to understand. Seasonal migrant workers often start working in one part of the United Kingdom and travel across the country on different jobs in one season. The effect of the SNP’s call for a separate immigration policy would make it harder for workers to do that. As Jonnie Hall, the director of policy at the National Farmers Union Scotland said, the last thing that farmers need is a “checkpoint at Berwick”. As is often the case, the needs of the farming sector are the same north and south of the borders, and it is in the farmers’ interest that this is dealt with on a UK-wide basis, rather than on a Scottish-only basis.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Christine Jardine]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Rural Communities in Scotland: Broadband

Debate between John Lamont and Deidre Brock

Wednesday 22nd November 2017 Westminster Hall

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the roll-out of broadband to rural communities in Scotland.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Howarth. One of the biggest issues raised with me as Member of Parliament for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk is the poor or non-existent broadband service that many of my constituents have to endure. In my maiden speech in the House of Commons in June, I committed to pursuing better broadband for all my constituents. I am therefore pleased to have secured today’s debate on a topic that affects so many people in the Scottish borders.

We bank, shop, make travel plans, watch TV and speak to relatives on the other side of the world on the internet, so a reliable superfast broadband connection is essential. Superfast broadband is not a luxury. I view it as a fundamental service to which everyone should be entitled to have access. Having superfast broadband is comparable to being connected to the mains electricity, water or gas supply. It is also essential to allowing businesses to operate and to advertise, and to allowing farming businesses to manage essential paperwork. The model of how people do business has changed. Yes, the large employers and multinationals are still based in our bigger towns and cities, but increasingly a large part of our country’s economic activity is undertaken by micro- businesses outwith the urban environment—people working from home and people working in their attic or garden shed. More importantly for the purposes of this discussion, this economic activity is happening in some of the most remote parts of our country.

In my area of the Scottish borders, successful businesses operate at the end of farm tracks at the top of the Ettrick valley, in the Lammermuirs above Duns, or in the foothills of the Cheviots, south of Kelso. The opportunity to set up a business in a rural area should not be limited for lack of a good broadband service. The attractiveness of moving to rural Scotland, either to live or to set up a business, should not be diminished because of inadequate broadband connectivity.

My constituency is in the bottom 30 constituencies for average broadband speeds. I suspect that we will hear from hon. Members representing other constituencies towards the bottom of that list too. According to figures from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, 45% of my constituents receive slow internet speeds. The House of Commons Library briefing paper for this debate states that Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk ranks 621st out of the 650 constituencies in the United Kingdom for superfast broadband availability. Indeed, two council wards in my constituency—Mid Berwickshire, and Jedburgh and District—have superfast availability below 50%, which puts them in the bottom 10% of wards for that in Great Britain.

That is backed up by a broadband survey that I recently carried out across the Scottish borders. Hundreds of responses were sent in—I had never seen such numbers before. Of those who responded, 71% said that their broadband speeds were slower than 10 megabits per second, and 80% said that they were unhappy with their broadband service. More than half of respondents said that they used their broadband connection for business, and only a handful of these respondents said that they were happy with their service. In this day and age, that is just not acceptable.

Who is responsible? It is of course true that legislative competence for broadband is reserved to the UK Parliament. Indeed, when official figures show that Scotland is lagging behind the rest of the United Kingdom for broadband roll-out, the Scottish National party Members and their colleagues in the Scottish Parliament like to jump up and down and blame the UK Government, but they do not like to remind us that the Scottish Government have the task of delivering superfast broadband in Scotland and implementing UK Government targets to improve broadband.

[Deidre Brock (Edinburgh North and Leith) (SNP)]

The hon. Gentleman is surely aware of the Ofcom report entitled “Connected Nations 2016”, which highlighted the fact that superfast broadband coverage in Scotland saw the largest increase in the UK over the previous 12 months.

[John Lamont]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for making that point. Of course, we are playing catch-up in Scotland, because of the dither and delay from the SNP Government and Digital Scotland. I will come to the Ofcom report shortly.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Lamont]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. The constituents we represent do not really care about the infrastructure and who is responsible for delivery; they just want better broadband servers connected to their homes and communities.

I urge the United Kingdom Government to consider alternative models for broadband roll-out across Scotland. The time has come for the Scottish Government to be stripped of their responsibilities for future broadband delivery projects and for the job to be given to local councils in Scotland instead.

[Deidre Brock]

Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Ross Thomson) about coverage in Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire, coverage across that city and the shire has reached 95% and 81% respectively. Without direct intervention by the SNP Scottish Government, coverage would have been only 72% and 25% respectively. That clearly shows the benefits and progress of Scottish Government-led broadband investment.

[John Lamont]

I thank the hon. Lady for that point, but the fact is that Scotland is lagging behind the rest of the United Kingdom in superfast broadband delivery. That is a failure of Digital Scotland and a failure of the Scottish Government—I suspect they have been distracted by priorities other than the delivery of broadband for the communities that we represent.