Rural Depopulation

Angus MacDonald Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Mr Angus MacDonald (Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) very much indeed for securing a debate on such an important subject. He consistently hits the nail on the head by bringing forward subjects that really matter to us.

We have talked about accommodation, and the Highland council, on which I was a councillor, has £1.2 billion of borrowing, yet 40% of our housing budget is spent on interest payments. That is a catastrophe. Basically, we cannot borrow any more money to build more housing. The utility companies that are building renewable energy projects across the whole of the highlands need to build properties that will remain there for generations rather than modular housing for the extent of the jobs or projects, and the same should go for the owners of fish farms. It would make a big difference if the private and public sectors worked together, because I fear that public sector housing will not be able to fill the gap.

Scotland has a £3.4 billion transport budget, but it is not coming to the highlands. The A82 up Loch Lomond must be one of the worst roads in the world; trucks cannot get past there. Mowi, the fish farm company, and BSW Timber just cannot operate safely, and it is extremely bad for the area. The railway from Glasgow to Mallaig has an average speed of just over 40 mph. This HS2 thing is a joke, and the ferries make Scotland a laughing stock.

The Scottish Government have done no favours to the highlands and Scotland on connectivity over the last 17 years, and the same can be said for schools in the highlands. Schools such as Mallaig high school and Gairloch high school are less than 50% full—there is a complete collapse. As the numbers drop, we are losing the breadth of subjects taught by the teachers, so we are desperate for computing, mathematics and engineering teachers—they are the jobs of the future. The attainment gap in Scotland is a great shame for our country. Again, the Scottish Government’s management of our educational system has been catastrophic.

Broadband coverage in Scotland is 96.8%, but in the highlands it is 86.6%. That is a disparity of almost 15%. Of course, we cannot have the jobs of the future if we do not have the connectivity. Places lose their population if the public sector pulls out, and that is what we are seeing. Eight care homes closed in the highlands in the two years that I was a highland councillor. People are getting shipped from the west coast of Skye up to Thurso or Inverness. There is a collapse in the care home sector. Care workers are being paid £12 an hour, which is less than they would get in the hospitality sector, and that is an increase on what it was before April. No wonder we have an absolute catastrophe in our care sector. Of course, we all know that the availability of dentists in the highlands is also a disaster.

We have heard about the importance of allowing immigrants to come to Scotland. We are losing more than 50% of our young. They choose not to work in the highlands; they want to leave home. We need to keep these guys. We need to offer them well-paid jobs and good accommodation, and cherish them, otherwise they will leave. At the moment, they cannot get accommodation and they are not being taught for the jobs of the future. We are not helped by the Scottish Government, and we all have a big job to do together.