Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill

Johanna Baxter Excerpts

Friday 25th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way. He is right to talk about growing the economy. Does he agree that if the Scottish Government had used the powers they actually have to grow the Scottish economy between 2012 and 2023, it would now be £8.5 billion larger and my constituents would be much better off?

[Stephen Gethins]

I am a great admirer of the hon. Lady—she joined me on the Russia sanctions list this week and I pay credit to her for her work for the children of Ukraine—but I am somewhat surprised that, given those growth figures, she has now turned out in favour of independence! We all know what happened when Scotland remained part of the UK and the hit that we took. It is disappointing that Labour has embraced that. I will take a second intervention before I make some progress.

[Stephen Gethins]

As usual, my hon. Friend makes an excellent point.

I want to come on to the way in which we discuss and debate migration. Migration is a good thing. It benefits all of us. All of us throughout time have benefited from migration. I have been deeply disappointed by—I am sorry to say, Mr Speaker—the poison that often seeps into our rhetoric whenever we discuss this issue. We need to be honest: nobody is talking about uncontrolled migration and we need a migration policy. I want to talk about some of the industries that have talked to me, in a really sensible way that I think this House should listen to, about how we deal with migration.

I said to the hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter) that I would mention Labour. Analysis by the Labour Mayor of London reckons that Brexit, which this Government have embraced—I do not know what happened to the Secretary of State for Scotland; I consider him a colleague—loses us £40 billion a year. So when the Government are making cuts to the winter fuel allowance and cuts to the disabled, that is all to go and pay for a Brexit that nobody voted for and nobody wants.

While I am talking about people embracing a hard Tory Brexit, I want to refer to a former Member of this place, Michael Gove. Even before the Brexit vote, the architect of Brexit could see the damage that would be caused to Scotland’s economy. What did the architect say?

“If, in the course of the negotiations, the Scottish Parliament wants to play a role in deciding how a visa system could work, much as it works in other parts of the European Economic Area, then that is something we’ll look into.”

He went on to say that

“the numbers who would come in the future would be decided by the Westminster Parliament and the Holyrood Parliament working together.”

That is a commitment made by a Conservative Minister prior to the Brexit referendum. I remember listening to it on Radio Scotland.

I am loath to quote Michael Gove. Frankly, when the history is written of this place hence, there can be few politicians who, along with former Prime Minister Johnson, will have caused as much damage. His legacy will be one of costs and damage economically, as well as in terms of opportunities for our young people. But in that moment of self-reflection, Mr Gove did say that Scotland needed a particular solution. I also thought that I would quote him because I was going to appeal to Scottish Labour today, and they appear to have embraced Michael Gove. They are now getting prepared to stick him in the House of Lords to make him an unelected bureaucrat for life—something he railed against. The Secretary of State is making faces; I am not sure if he has signed off on that yet, or how keen he is on it, but the Government, having heard what Mr Gove said about unelected bureaucrats, are about to stick him in the Lords. I understand from the Press and Journal—I believe everything that I read there—that he is about to become Lord Gove of Torry. I am not sure what the good people of Torry think of that, or what they have done to deserve it—my right hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn) will have a better idea than I do—but I am not sure they will think an awful lot of that. Having embraced a hard Tory Brexit, Scottish Labour is now—

[Johanna Baxter]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Stephen Gethins]

Oh, here we go! If you can tell me why on earth Labour is putting Michael Gove in the House of Lords, I will gladly give way.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. Can I remind the hon. Gentleman to do less you-ing, please?

[Johanna Baxter]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for indulging me a second time. He references Brexit. Can he clarify for the House why his party spent less on campaigning against Brexit than on a local by-election campaign in Scotland? The newfound conversion to opposing Brexit might be welcome, but that clarification would be helpful.

[Stephen Gethins]

I am glad to respond to that. I was deputy director of our Remain campaign, and I was delighted when not only did every part of Scotland vote overwhelmingly to remain in the EU, but every local authority area voted to remain in the EU—even those that had voted against joining the EU.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

I was in the north-east of Scotland yesterday, in Buckie, turning on one of the largest offshore wind farms. Ocean Winds employs 45 to 70 local people from a 40-mile radius from Buckie. That is the kind of opportunity there is. Most of the people in Ocean Winds were from the oil and gas sector. There is no disagreement about the challenge, which is about how we transition a world-class, highly skilled workforce from an industry that is declining because of the age and maturity of the basin to the new opportunities and industry. There is no doubt that the green revolution is one of the biggest economic opportunities this country has had in generations, and we need grab hold of it. I also met Offshore Energies UK yesterday and had very productive discussions its representatives about Government policy and the consultation on the North sea transition. Those discussions will obviously continue.

These issues—as I have laid out, based on the National Records of Scotland—are not unique to Scotland, nor have they been solved by the increase in net migration in recent years. The Bill would not address the issues that the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry has raised, because the reasons that the resident population moves away from an area will also encourage any migrant population to follow suit as soon as they are allowed. The former Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire, mentioned Quebec. I have tried to have this checked—if it is slightly incorrect, I will write to the hon. Gentleman—but when I was in Quebec back in 2013, it had introduced a particular social care visa because it had a particular social care problem. It had to scrap that visa, because after the end of the two-year restrictions, everyone moved to other parts of Canada to work. Most went to Alberta to work in the oil and gas sector. That is a key point about having a different system from the one that is part of those net migration figures.

[Johanna Baxter]

On the point about social care, does my right hon. Friend agree that instead of looking to a one-line Bill on immigration to solve the issues in social care in Scotland, perhaps the SNP Government in Holyrood could have avoided wasting £28 million on a flawed national care service Bill, which was ill-conceived and ill-thought-out, much like the Bill that is before us today? Perhaps instead they could have invested that money in properly paying the workers who carry out the care. [Interruption.] Sorry?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. The debate is taking place with the Secretary of State, who has the floor.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ian Murray]

Let us do a little mathematics. Some 2.3% of the population in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency are unemployed, and nearly one in six young people across Scotland are not in education, employment or training. That is nearly 100,000 young people alone. The question must be: why are those young people not seeking out those jobs in his constituency and the constituency of the hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter)? The hon. Gentleman wants to say to those young people, “You stay not in employment, education or training, and we will pull a separate immigration lever to get people to work in poorly paid industries, rather than boosting pay, careers, progression and the places that people want to live and work in.”

Scotland has a proud industrial past—indeed, we all know that from history—and it can have a bright industrial future that delivers jobs and wealth for families for generations to come. For too long, Scottish workers have missed out on work, and I worry that a new generation will miss out on the skills required to take up the new opportunities. While the Scotland Office will seek to work in co-operation with the Scottish Government, I am afraid that this debate is just another example of the SNP demanding more powers to distract from its own failures rather than take responsibility for them.

UK visas are tied to locations already—an international student at the University of Edinburgh is not commuting from Somerset. The question is then: at a time when the previous Government presided over record levels of immigration, why is Scotland not a more attractive place for people coming to the UK to work or study? I suggest that it is down to 20 years of SNP failure on policy delivery.

[Johanna Baxter]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we want to attract people to work in our great nation of Scotland, it is important that he continues the work he has been doing to promote businesses and services globally in Brand Scotland? [Interruption.]

[Ian Murray]

The flippancy with which SNP Members deal with these relevant and serious issues is there for all to see. I hope that a lot of our non-Scottish colleagues who are here today have seen how utterly deplorably they operate in this Chamber and how rude and patronising they are when we are dealing with serious issues for our constituents. Brand Scotland is there to do exactly that: to ensure that we get inward investment into Scotland, to sell Scotland to the world and to have a much more thriving economy for our communities.

--- Later in debate ---

[Brendan O’Hara]

My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) cannot respond to the hon. Gentleman, so allow me to do so: what amendment? What is he talking about? He has got no idea.

To return to the point, the UK Government, having taken that away from the rural communities in Scotland, now have a responsibility to provide a solution. If they will not do it, for ideological reasons, the least they can do is allow the Scottish Government to do it, because we cannot go on this way. I am not surprised that all we have seen from Labour Members is them lining up to kick the Scottish Government and the SNP. That is politics; and, to be fair, they would be as well taking every opportunity to do it, because they will probably not last for long.

By 2047, the proportion of working-age people in Scotland will be smaller than it is now, and the number of people of pensionable age is expected to rise. That is a huge threat, not just to our economy but to our ability to provide public services. Of course, there is no magic bullet, and nobody has said that about this Bill, but what it proposes is a hugely important tool in the toolkit.

[Johanna Baxter]

The hon. Gentleman talks about the needs of his constituents, which is worthy and notable. Can he explain to the House, then, why he opposes the nuclear deterrent, which is based in his constituency and is the second biggest employer in Scotland? The jobs it provides could go some way to addressing the points he makes.

[Brendan O’Hara]

Madam Deputy Speaker, allow me to veer ever so slightly from my promise to remain within the scope of the Bill in order to answer the hon. Lady’s question. I think I joined the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament when I was 16, before I joined the SNP. I have been a lifelong opponent of nuclear weapons. When I stood in my constituency in 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2024, I made no bones about my position on nuclear weapons, and my constituents voted for me. She suggests that this is a massive issue, but it is not an issue for the people of Argyll, Bute and—now—South Lochaber. I would gently point out that my position is also the position of the Labour party in Scotland.

I will conclude. The introduction of a regional immigration policy to reflect the needs of the circumstances at the time has worked in Australia, Canada and other parts of Europe, and there is no reason, other than a complete lack of political will, why that cannot happen here. We have heard a lot of quotations from the Migration Advisory Committee, and it would be remiss of me not to quote it myself. It has said that

“the current migration system is not very effective in dealing with the particular problems remote communities experience… If these problems are to be addressed something more bespoke for these areas is needed.”

It said that six years ago. Here we are, six years on, and while we have had a change of Government and a change of Secretary of State, we have seen absolutely no progress on this issue. Indeed, I dare say that what we have heard today is the Labour party backtracking on it.

Allow me to finish by saying this: we need a bespoke immigration policy in Scotland. We have been done in by the insanity of Brexit. We are reeling from what has happened to us and the impact it is having, particularly on our rural communities. Everyone can see that, but there is intransigence on the part of the Government to recognise what is in front of their nose. I fear for them that the people of Scotland will recognise that when it comes to Scotland and the needs of Scotland, we do not figure particularly highly on this Government’s agenda.