Scotland: Demography and Devolution

Chris Law Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr McCabe, and to follow two wonderful and detailed speeches.

I said in this Chamber only three months ago that

“the Government’s current immigration policy is completely failing Scotland.”—[Official Report, 8 December 2016; Vol. 618, c. 164WH.]

The Scottish Affairs Committee is now leading another debate based on a report that has concluded, yet again, that a different immigration system is needed for Scotland, rather than a one-size-fits-all UK policy. Hon. Members may ask why. Well, our report examined the different population trends in Scotland and why the challenges presented by those trends should be reflected in the UK Government’s policy making. One of the key challenges we found was that over the next 25 years, the average age of the Scottish population will increase dramatically, resulting in far fewer people paying taxes and fewer people being available to work in health and social care to support an ageing population.

The good news is that after years of decline, the population of Scotland is now gradually increasing, mainly due to the decrease in outward migration. However, if a hard Tory Brexit has a negative economic impact on Scotland, it is highly likely that outward migration will increase again. Over the next 25 years, the population of Scotland is predicted to increase by 7%, but London’s population is predicted to increase by more than triple that rate, meaning that the economy of the UK will be even more dominated by the needs of London and the south-east of England.

[Steven Paterson]

It strikes me that we have had debates in the House of Commons recently on boundary changes, during which the Government argued that those changes had to be based upon population. Based on the point that my hon. Friend has just made, does it not signal the failure of the current policy that according to the Government, Scotland’s number of MPs relative to England will be decreased again and again and again, as it has been over the last 20 or 230 years?

[Chris Law]

My hon. Friend makes a valuable point. In fact, if the number of MPs in one area, the north-west of Scotland highlands, is reduced, the area covered by one MP will be larger than Belgium. That is completely unacceptable, particularly in the face of Brexit and the amount of work that will result from it, which is likely to be a burden for all MPs.

Scotland’s recent population increase is partly due to inward migration. However, UK Government policies will undoubtedly have a negative impact on Scotland’s population growth. Those policies include barriers to immigration resulting from Brexit, which I have already mentioned; the scrapping of post-study work visas, which is already causing considerable damage; and the continuing uncertainty about whether EU citizens will be allowed to remain in the UK.

Our Committee’s report also found that population is a key issue in rural areas in Scotland that already have extremely low levels of population density and a pattern of younger people leaving to look for work elsewhere. On a Committee visit to Dumfries quite recently, we heard that in rural areas it is already hard to fill posts in social and health care, and it is predicted that that situation will get worse.

While Scotland’s land reform and rural broadband schemes are intended to boost economic activity in rural areas, which can only be a good thing, achieving that aim will not be possible if there are not enough people living in those areas to develop the economy. Again, the situation will become even worse if our exit from the EU reduces immigration and leads to more young people leaving Scotland to find work elsewhere.

I will give a more detailed example from my own constituency in Dundee. There are many issues in the demography report that have particularly serious implications for my city. To put things into perspective, Dundee has the highest proportion of students in higher education of anywhere in Scotland. The university sector is vital to the economic health of our city. Indeed, a quarter of University of Dundee students come from outside the UK and, as was set out in a report last week, more than 175 jobs in Dundee are fully or partially funded by EU grants. If Brexit leads to a reduction in the number of international students and a loss of EU nationals working in our universities, without doubt that will have a significant negative effect on the economic wellbeing of my city.

As many Members will know, Dundee is currently undergoing a £1 billion regeneration of its waterfront, at the heart of which is the new V&A Museum of Design. Immigration and population growth have the effect of enhancing economic activity and creating jobs. Therefore, any threat to immigration will hinder the positive transformation that Dundee is currently undertaking.

I will focus on one sector for a moment, because Abertay University was the world’s first university to have a degree in designing video games. I chair the all-party group on video games, so I will touch on that sector briefly. My constituency is a cluster for game designers. To give people a flavour of the kind of games that come out of Dundee, one of them—“Grand Theft Auto”—has already broken six Guinness world records. Within the video games industry, talent is the No. 1 priority for businesses, and it is vital that the industry is able to recruit highly skilled international talent without there being immigration barriers to their working here.

A UK-wide survey by the video games industry body UK Interactive Entertainment, which was published just yesterday, showed that more than 98% of respondents—we might as well say 100%, as we are just about there—believe that EU nationals with skills needed in the games industry should have a blanket right to live and work in the UK.

I turn to a sector that is important in my neighbouring constituencies, in particular that of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart). Each year, large numbers of temporary migrants from the EU come to work in the fruit picking industry in the constituency next to mine. If that flow of workers is cut off by Brexit, that will have a hugely negative impact on this vital part of our local economy.

[Pete Wishart]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning my constituency, and he is absolutely right that we have great concerns about what will happen in our world-class berry fruit sector. However, the situation is even worse than that. I am sure that he will have heard examples similar to those I have heard of European nationals in our constituencies who, just because of the current climate, are thinking about leaving, because there is a sense that they are not welcome here any more. They are feeling the chill wind blowing from the UK Government, which is putting their very existence here at risk, as they are used as bargaining chips. Has he come across anybody like that in his constituency?

[Chris Law]

Yes indeed. In fact, tomorrow, which is my constituency day, I have four surgery appointments with EU nationals who are similarly concerned about the future. The biggest issue that we have is in social and health care, particularly in our care homes, where there is a large percentage of EU nationals among the staff. As Dundee is growing to meet the needs placed on it to be a creative hub for Scotland, we also have a growing hospitality sector, which is again largely served by EU nationals.

However, despite all the evidence that the UK Government received though the Scottish Affairs Committee report, they have once again completely disregarded calls to ensure that any new immigration policies meet the needs of Scotland’s demography. Not only that, but they have once again completely rejected calls for a more flexible post-study work visa system for international students in Scotland. Therefore, it is crystal clear that Scotland has different immigration needs from other parts of the UK, and a one-size-fits-all approach simply is not working.

In 2014, the UK Government told Scotland to lead the UK and not leave it, claiming that it would be treated as an equal partner within the UK. Last weekend, however, the Prime Minister said that control over policy areas that have already been devolved, such as fishing and agriculture, may not go to Holyrood in the wake of Brexit, further raising fears that devolution will be undermined rather than enhanced. That is nothing short of a scandal and flies in the face of the devolution settlement of 1998.

If anyone is in any doubt about how difficult the UK Government have made our immigration system, they only have to look at a tweet put out by Faisal Islam the other night. It pointed out that under the same EU law a permanent residence form in Ireland is five pages long and free; in Germany, it is two pages long and costs eight euros; and in the UK, it is 85 pages long and costs £65.

Scotland is not full up. As I have said, our demographic and workforce needs are different to those of the rest of the UK. With the UK Government’s current rhetoric signalling a move towards a hard Tory Brexit, it is becoming increasingly obvious that their polices will seriously damage Scotland’s population growth. The UK Government’s immigration policy in no way recognises Scotland’s needs or serves our economic and societal interests. The UK Government continue to resist pragmatic change that would not only reduce the impact of Scotland’s ageing demographic but help Scotland to attract international students. What would really benefit Scotland would be the full devolvement of immigration power, so that we can ensure our country’s prosperous future. If the UK Government are unable to tailor their immigration needs for Scotland, then Scotland’s independence will be the only solution.