Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill

Josh Fenton-Glynn Excerpts

Friday 25th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

And the bedroom tax. [Interruption.] The Secretary of State is chuntering from a sedentary position—I have always wanted to say that in this place—but in all these areas the Scottish Government are offsetting the damage that Westminster policies have caused. For how long do we have to put up with damaging Westminster policies? This Bill is a way of offsetting some of the damage that has been done by a hostile environment and by Brexit, which I am astonished day and daily that the Scottish Labour party continues to endorse.

Let me talk about the Scottish care system. All of us will benefit from the care system at some point—all of us—and we will all have loved ones who benefit, so the voice of that sector is particularly pertinent. Scottish Care has said:

“The current UK immigration system is failing the social care sector in Scotland. The recent rule changes, particularly the ban on dependents”—

which has had a big impact on other sectors as well—

“and the incompatible increase in the minimum salary threshold, exacerbate existing recruitment challenges and pose significant risks to the sustainability and delivery of essential care services.”

I talked about one bit of my constituency in Angus, and now let me talk about another bit. The Secretary of State and I had an exchange about this. We know that the ban on dependants has also had a significant impact on the higher education sector. I am glad to see the convenor of the all-party parliamentary university group, the hon. Member for Erewash (Adam Thompson), in his place. Those of us with higher education institutions in our constituencies—I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests—will know of the damage that has been done by the ban on bringing dependants to this country.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)]

Care is an issue that matters deeply to me, but the problem with care is not that we are not getting cheap labour from elsewhere; it is that we are not paying care workers enough. That is one of the things that a national care service would seek to solve. Why did the SNP waste so much money—£28 million—on its failed national care service, rather than working across the House in good faith to deliver the care that people need?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. I remind all Members that the Bill is about why Scotland should have devolved powers over immigration.

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[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

May I wholeheartedly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) on introducing this vital and critical Bill this morning? I also commend him for the diplomatic and charming way that he always introduces these debates to the House. He was very generous in taking so many points of view this morning.

Before I make my substantial points, I want to say a little bit about the tone of this House today. When it was the Conservatives sat on the Government Benches, we collected what they said about Scotland and all the issues to do with devolved government. We stowed them away and we used it against them. Now they are gone—utterly and totally gone. When Scottish Labour Members speak Scotland down, as they have this morning, we collect, collate and keep those comments to use back against them. I ever so gently suggest to my Scottish friends on the Labour Benches that they look at the by-election result last night. It was absolutely damning for the Labour party. Whatever Labour is doing through this new attack of line against the Scottish Government, it is singularly failing. It will fail Labour in the way that it failed the Conservatives. I caution Labour Members not to try to pit this House against the Scottish Parliament. It did not work for the Conservatives and it will not work for them.

Today is about the Bill. We are in real trouble in Scotland, and that is why the Bill is critical. There can be no doubt whatsoever that Scotland is in the early stages of a population and demographic crisis that will get a lot worse unless we do something. We cannot leave things in the condition that they are in. With our falling birth rate, we have too few working-age people available to look after an ever-older population. We are in the early stages of population stagnation, and we already see the impact. We need only look at our health service, which has difficulties recruiting staff. In our social care sector, we are approaching something like a workforce crisis. I appeal to people to go and look not at the nuclear subs in Clydebank, but at rural areas of Scotland like mine. They will find that hospitality and tourism businesses are cutting back hours or closing because they do not have the staff to keep themselves properly functioning and organised.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

I am somewhat confused by the hon. Gentleman’s speech. He started off by accusing Labour Members of talking Scotland down, but then told us that Scotland was in crisis—one wonders who was in government at the time—and continued his peroration by saying that there is an aging society. I wonder if he will take some sort of responsibility, or reflect on the fact that he seems to be talking down the independent Scotland of which he dreams.

[Pete Wishart]

I am almost grateful for the intervention, confused and clumsy as it was, because I have a solution for the hon. Gentleman. What we need when we face a crisis, as we do now, are solutions. What my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry has offered by starting this conversation is a way to deal with the issues we face in Scotland. Scotland is not unique; the same thing is happening throughout the whole western industrialised world. We face issues because birth rates across the world are falling calamitously. Every nation needs to do something about the conditions that they find themselves in. Today we are asking for a Scottish response to the distinct circumstances we are dealing with, because we have got it really bad.

Our issues with the falling birth rate have been exacerbated, not by anything that the Scottish Government are doing, as Labour Members suggest, but because of what my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry said about Brexit. Brexit has killed our population sustainability and population growth.

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[Andrew Bowie]

I am very happy to talk about our record on higher education and compare it with the Scottish National party’s. It is a fact that someone from a deprived background in England is more likely to get into university than someone from a similar background in Scotland. That is a record of which the Scottish National party should be ashamed. There are fewer opportunities for Scottish students to get into world-leading Scottish higher education institutions than before the Scottish National party came into office.

The SNP cannot admit that its funding model has failed, although the University and College Union in Scotland has said so and has repeatedly called on the Scottish Government to address the decline in Scottish university funding. If the hon. Gentleman acknowledges and apologises for the Scottish Government’s failures, I might then engage in a debate about whether we should look at an immigration system that does more for Scottish higher education.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Listening to the Conservatives after 14 years in government and the Scottish National party after 18 years in government argue about who is responsible for the problems in universities is a bit like watching two bald men argue over a comb. However, the point is well made that this is a national problem. National problems are not solved by having a different policy for different parts of the country; they have national solutions across the British Isles.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Will hon. Members please note that interventions and speeches are two very different things?

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[Ian Murray]

I thank my hon. Friend very much—I hope Hansard heard that. I did say that the attractiveness of Scotland as a place to live and work is down to policy delivery, and let me mention one policy in particular.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Like the shadow Secretary of State, I will be running the London marathon on Sunday. I mention that because people do not run marathons by making excuses, yet when we hear from SNP Members about skills, growth, health and universities, the excuse is always either immigration policy or a lack of devolution. If there is always an excuse for their failure, they will not achieve anything. That is why we need a serious debate about how we will get more people into Scotland.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I am not sure that the hon. Member highlighting his prowess in running the London marathon is appropriate to the Bill, but I wish him well.

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[Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) on bringing forward this Bill. It takes me back to the halcyon days when I served as an immigration Minister. I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak about that experience and explain why I therefore disagree with the premise of his Bill.

There were things the hon. Gentleman said that we might find agreement on. He says that migration is a good thing. I would add that, yes, it is, but it needs to be controlled and it needs to be where there is need. I recognise that there is certainly need in Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom. We need to make sure that any immigration policy that we support and any changes that the Government introduce are led by those principles.

The hon. Gentleman talked about pooling and sharing sovereignty. We are in a United Kingdom, and I agree that being part of the United Kingdom is the right thing. That is why I am a Unionist at heart. I am proud to have served in what was then Her Majesty’s Government as a Home Office Minister, working on a number of issues that covered the entirety of the UK.

The hon. Gentleman spoke at length about young people. We know that the demographics of Scotland are a particular challenge, but as the Secretary of State and others highlighted, the Scottish Government’s record on young people is woeful, with one in six not in education, employment or training. It is a scandalous level of disregard for the future of the whole UK but in particular Scotland, where young people are the lifeblood of the future of economic development and can help us ensure that we do not have to deal with the issues that the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues have highlighted today.

It is shocking that the demographics of Scotland are as they are, and I compare this with England. I represent a constituency where our demographics are changing, and around one in five young people are now under the age of 16. We are investing in those young people. As I say when I go into schools, “You are the future of our country. You need to get good jobs and do well. You will be paying the pensions of older people. You will be caring for people and running the country. We need you.”

We believe in investing in our young people, and it is a shocker that the Scottish Government have sleepwalked into letting young people fail so badly. There is such talent among young people in Scotland, and they have been sorely let down. They should be the lifeblood of the country, and the Scottish Government should be doing more to support them.

A number of Members have mentioned the Migration Advisory Committee. I will go on to speak about it in more detail, but the fact that the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Home Secretary have indicated very clearly their willingness to engage rather undermines the hon. Gentleman’s argument for the need for the Bill in the first place. The Migration Advisory Committee has a role to cover the needs of migration across the country—that is, the whole of the UK, including Scotland.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned fresh talent. He talked about examples where the Scottish Government worked very closely with the Home Office. The Secretary of State highlighted an example, too—the Afghan women medical students. That is an example of how we can work together in the interests of the UK and Scotland. We are doing that already, so what on earth is the reason to have a separate Bill on migration?

I want to touch on the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) in his excellent speech. He spoke from a place of real knowledge about the challenges for island communities, including ferries. I have very fond memories of spending time in the Isle of Wight as child. It is smaller, but the challenges are very similar. I feel his pain in relation to the ferries. I could repeat what he said about the failure of the SNP Government on ferries, but given the many things I need to talk about in the next half an hour or so, I will just say that he highlighted that very clearly. He also laid out clearly some of the challenges and burdens of a separate system of immigration. It is not a cost-free option. It is costly to the taxpayer, duplicative and confusing for businesses. He also debunked the myths of a virtual border—something we heard rather too much about during Brexit.

On the basis of the SNP’s track record, any future Labour Government in Scotland, which we all hope to see in 2026, will have a lot on their plate. I do not think that dealing with immigration is anywhere near the top of the agenda, because a Scottish Labour Government would see very clearly the benefits of working across the United Kingdom, between Whitehall and Edinburgh, to make sure we all delivered for all our communities. Certainly, setting up a new system would not be a priority. It was a bit disingenuous of the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) to suggest that we were conceding victory to the SNP next year. It is precisely because of the SNP Government’s mess that we need to win next year and it is precisely because of their mess that the idea of a new immigration policy as a priority, when they have failed in so many other respects, is not something we should entertain.

I want to move on to my more detailed remarks. As I have said, I am very pleased to speak in the debate because I believe in devolution. I am a passionate believer in devolving power to the most appropriate level, to competent bodies. I served as a councillor in Islington in the days when we were devolving things to neighbourhoods. For my younger colleagues, this was in the days before the internet—those days did exist. We wanted services to be within pram-pushing distance and decisions devolved to the communities best placed to make them. I had the honour of serving in the Government of Gordon Brown as an immigration Minister for three years, spending a lot of time travelling across the UK to look at the issues. I will touch on that in relation to Scotland in a moment. I both debated the issue and followed it since in the UK generally, and specifically in Scotland.

The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) highlighted the recruitment issues and the workload crisis, but as my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) so eloquently put it, as is his wont, attracting people somewhere is not down to immigration policies. Immigration is one element, but as the academic Richard Florida highlights, people will go to places where there is good education, a good cultural offer, excellent transport links and a tolerant community. We can all learn about how we can make our own constituencies attractive.

Of course, we do not have problems attracting people Hackney South and Shoreditch, except on the knotty issue of the cost of housing, which is another very important factor to attract people. Given all the challenges of covid, many people moved from expensive areas like mine, where a typical two-bedroom flat is £750,000 and rents are through the roof, to areas where they could get cheaper housing, because they had the opportunity to work from home and good broadband. I therefore suggest to the SNP Government in Scotland that they think about broadband speed, and sweetening the offer on housing to attract younger people to live and work in Scotland. They should make sure that their schools, health service and so on are delivering to attract them to what is a beautiful country with much to offer. But why is it that people are not staying? That is a failure of the SNP Government and we need to be absolutely clear about that.

As I have said, I started my career devolving services to the most appropriate level, in Islington—a borough of that size! It started as 24 neighbourhoods, but we reduced down to 12, because we had to take account of costs and so on. I pay tribute to Councillor Maurice Barnes, who proposed that approach to delivering services to make sure that they were really embedded in the community. In 1998, when the Labour Government came in having promised devolution, we saw under Donald Dewar the new dawn of a devolved Scotland. The giants who led on that devolution proposal should be respected for what they delivered. Devolution in Scotland was a breakthrough, and it is something I support, but if we are going to devolve power, we also need to make sure that the authority is competent to deal with those devolved powers. The electorate in Scotland, of course, will have their say on that in 2026.

Today, we have not heard much of the nitty-gritty of exactly what the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry is proposing, so it might be worth pausing for a moment to remind ourselves of what this one-line Bill looks to be suggesting. The Scottish Parliament is governed by the Scotland Act 1998, and the devolution settlement in Scotland operates on what is known as a reserved powers model, of which a lot of our Scottish colleagues will be fully aware. Schedule 5 to that Act lists the powers that remain reserved—that is, which are the responsibility of the UK Parliament. Generally speaking, anything not listed in schedule 5 is devolved by default to the Scottish Parliament. Under paragraph B6 of part II of schedule 5, immigration and nationality is a reserved matter. Modifications to the list of reserved matters can be made in two ways: by an Order in Council under section 30(2) of the Act, or via primary legislation. The hon. Gentleman is proposing primary legislation, but with one line, no proper detail and no working up. We would be walking, ridiculously and recklessly, into the unknown if we were to adopt the Bill that is before us today.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

As a fan of the England cricket team, I am used to having a belief that something that is slightly rubbish will be able to achieve a lot more, but that is dwarfed by the belief of the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) that 17 words will solve all the problems with the Scottish Government that have been listed. Perhaps my hon. Friend could say a bit more about some of the work that needs to go into solving those knotty problems.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I plan to do so later in my speech, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Modifications under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 —that is, Orders in Council—require Scottish, as well as UK, parliamentary approval. However, modifications via primary legislation only require approval from both Houses of the UK Parliament. By taking this approach, the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry is saying that this is a matter entirely for this Parliament—this House and the other place—cutting out his colleagues in Holyrood. That is an interesting take on events, given that we already have a good relationship between Holyrood and Whitehall on many of the issues we are discussing today.

The most significant and long-term changes to the legislative competence of the Scottish Parliament have been made by Acts of Parliament, rather than Orders in Council. That is also interesting; we could have a long discussion about that, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I suspect that I would be trying your patience if I started discussing the constitutional settlement for Scotland, so I will resist that temptation. However, the Scotland Acts 2012 and 2016 implemented recommendations made by the Calman commission and the Smith commission respectively, so there has been change along the way. Devolution was never intended to be a static thing; it was intended to reward the competencies, skills and needs of our devolved bodies, but those bodies need to play properly and professionally, not engage in cheap political gimmicks. I enormously respect the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, but the flimsiness of this Bill suggests that it has not been properly thought through.

If the Bill were to omit some or all of paragraph B6 of part II of schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998, it would transfer responsibilities for those matters to the Scottish Parliament. There is a really big issue here, which is why I believe we should not adopt the Bill. We have seen how the different tax rates in Scotland can create challenges, for example with how the armed forces are paid. The Ministry of Defence has a formula for different branches of the armed forces, so someone on a tour in Scotland is paid more to take account of the tax rate. We cannot have two members of our armed forces personnel doing the same job with the same title but earning differently. They are UK armed forces.

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[Dame Meg Hillier]

Absolutely. A lot of tripe was talked at the time about having virtual borders. Even with some of the tensions between Scotland and the UK, which were evident in what SNP Members said earlier, we are not, I hope, at the point where we would have watchtowers and border guards with guns, but once we have a border, that is a risk.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

Of course, there has previously been a border between England and Scotland: Hadrian’s wall was built between 122 and 138 in the Christian era, and the Antonine wall was built between 140 and 150. There is a history of borders—and I do not think any of us were there at the time—but none of us in this House wants to see a return to that, do we?

[Dame Meg Hillier]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Of course, there is another leader in this world who has talked about building a wall.

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[Dame Meg Hillier]

Certainly, it would not be cost-free. It would be a big burden on taxpayers across the UK, whichever tax system they were in. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire talked about using a tax code as a marker of whether people had moved. Has he not heard of working from home, or working on holiday? That is a trend that I have read about. People can be working for an employer in one country but living somewhere else. It can get very messy, and those complications are not dealt with by this one-sentence Bill.

[Josh Fenton-Glynn]

I am particularly concerned about the idea of tying everything to a certain tax code. Anyone who has dealt with modern slavery knows that the more a visa is tied to a place or employer, the fewer rights the person with the visa has, and the more likely they are to be exploited. The tax code example has a whole load of unintended consequences, none of which are considered in the 17-word Bill.

[Dame Meg Hillier]

My hon. Friend took the words out of my mouth; he says it better than I could. Let me turn for a moment to what the SNP-led Scottish Government wish to deliver. In 2020—I think this was referred to—they published a paper arguing for some devolution of immigration policy to Scotland. I remember well before then, when I was a Minister, having discussions about that and—I would not normally be so crass—slapping down the idea that there could be a separate immigration policy for Scotland. The paper argued that Scotland was more reliant on migration than other parts of the UK, and noted that the population of Scotland would be falling if it were not for migration from the rest of the UK and overseas. An Opposition day debate on a motion condemning the UK Government’s response to that paper took place on 11 February 2020.

At the time, Brexit was widely expected, and the Scottish Government’s expert advisory group discussed a possible fall in net migration to Scotland of between 30% and 50%, but so far the opposite has happened, as it has in the rest of the UK. Net international migration to Scotland in 2022-23 was an estimated 48,000, according to the most recent figures from National Records of Scotland. That is about four times the pre-pandemic average of 12,000. In January 2025, the Scottish Government said that the recent increase in net migration to Scotland could be largely explained by international students, but might not be sustained when restrictions introduced by the last Government feed through. There is an important point there about the education system. We have seen the Scottish Government introduce free tuition. That sounds like an absolutely wonderful policy, and a lot of people lobby for it, but the reality is that it squeezes the funding of our higher education institutions, so that they have no option but to find overseas students who will pay more. We have seen an element of that in England, but the problem is exacerbated in Scotland because of the proposals of the Scottish Government.