Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill Debate
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Pete Wishart
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Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill
Pete Wishart Excerpts(1 day, 14 hours ago)
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Stephen Gethins
I will not take the hon. Lady’s intervention just now. I very much look forward to the contribution of the hon. Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington). I know Kent well, and I think there will be a valuable contribution to be made from that part of the United Kingdom, including on the impact that Brexit—I know that she talks about this issue—has had on young people in her area.
The Liberal Democrats have traditionally talked about greater decentralisation of government. That is a point that they stand on, having a federal party. I would have loved to have taken an intervention from a Liberal Democrat Member today, but of course, they are not here. Alex Cole-Hamilton, the leader of the Liberal Democrats in Scotland, accepts that immigration is essential for maintaining growth, but also for the sustainability of services—I will talk about that in a moment. He has also talked about how we need
“both of Scotland’s Governments to work together”
on migration
“to ensure that rules are sensitive to the skills that are needed in every corner of these islands and in every sector of our economy.”—[Scottish Parliament Official Report, 9 January 2025; c. 69.]
We can pick that up in Committee, if we can work together. I note talk at the Liberal Democrat conference about a special visa for those fleeing Donald Trump. I am not sure what representations the Liberal Democrats have made to the Government on that—maybe the Secretary of State can tell us—but there are always opportunities to be had.
I move on to a point of common ground. I concede that we are not all on the same page. There are differences on this issue, but that is the whole point of Parliament. We come together to debate and see whether we can find solutions. Sometimes, the majoritarian nature of this place does not help. I conceded that Labour and Scottish Labour won the election, and I congratulated them and the Prime Minister on that. We have seen what has happened to their poll numbers since, but they won the election. However, they did so based on a small percentage of votes. Unfortunately, that is the system we have. I ask Labour Members to not make the same mistakes that the Conservatives did, particularly Boris Johnson’s Conservatives, and to appreciate that 34% or 35% of the vote is not a majority. It might give Labour a majority of seats, but the party needs to listen to other parties, other bits of the country and all sectors. That is crucial.
We can debate and discuss, and I can quote bits from Scottish Labour manifestos, from the SNP, from the Scottish Liberal Democrats and—yes—even the Conservatives, but we all have a responsibility to try to listen to the sectors that are doing such valuable work. We all try to do so in our different ways, including in our constituencies, which is important. For example, this week, I went to East Scryne farm in Angus, just outside Carnoustie, and spoke to a local farmer about the value of migration to the berry industry—I know other Members will have done similar. A number of us will have enjoyed berries from Angus over our breakfast this morning.
Stephen Gethins
We will also have enjoyed berries from Perthshire—and even Aberdeenshire. All of that depends on migration. I know that, in order to improve their work here, Members will try, whenever possible, to engage with and listen to constituents. I am not asking us all to come to the same conclusion, but it is in that engagement that we all seek to do our work better.
The hospitality and tourism industry is vital for rural and remote communities, for every sector in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. Leon Thompson, the executive director of UKHospitality Scotland, says:
“The hospitality and tourism industry across Scotland has been calling for a Scotland visa for some time. We believe it really is one of the ways in which we can help address the skills and workforce shortage that we have in the industry.”
The Scottish Tourism Alliance says:
“Failure to find a tailored solution risks having a further detrimental impact on the economy and opportunities for economic growth”
as staff shortages are leading to tourism and hospitality businesses closing for longer outside the summer visit season, reducing opening hours and shutting down certain services, such as food offers in hotels.
Regardless of our own thoughts, we can see straightaway the impact that has on growth and the sustainability of our services. The Scottish Tourism Alliance also says:
“Introducing a Scottish specific visa scheme not only would match immigration to the demand for certain skills”—
as it has done for centuries—
“but also encourage more people coming to live and work in Scotland, particularly in rural and island communities that are experiencing a drain in people of working age and families.”
Stephen Gethins
I will answer the Secretary of State’s point first and then give way. The Secretary of State has been here for longer than me.
Stephen Gethins
My hon. Friend says he has been here longer than the Secretary of State.
The Secretary of State knows that this is a Second Reading debate. I have been keen to say that from the start. I have been saying it to the media this morning, and I said it in my letter to Anas Sarwar, which I copied to the Secretary of State. I wanted to do that and to make sure that my letter went to Scottish leaders—I am not sure how often they talk, but I wanted to ensure that the Secretary of State had seen the letter as well. The letter talked about us coming together and talking to each other. On that point, I will give way to a very experienced Member, my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart).
Pete Wishart
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I know that most Labour Members are new to the procedures and workings of this House, but the Secretary of State is not, so he will know from experience that private Members’ Bills are practically rewritten in Committee. My hon. Friend is asking that we be allowed to take the Bill through to Committee, where this can be worked out. Surely even the Secretary of State, who I believe has been in this House since 2010, understands how these things work.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman, before I call the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) to continue, that interventions should be on the Member who is speaking.
Stephen Gethins
Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker.
Now that we have clarified that point of reference, I look forward to the vote today that the Secretary of State is committed to, and I look forward to meeting him so that we can work together, because that is the right thing to do, and we will have to make concessions. Of course we want to see the devolution of immigration—we want to see independence. We differ from other Members in this Chamber; we accept that we have differences and that we were voted in on different manifestos. But it is not beyond the wit of man—to be fair, this is something that the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar has already referenced—to try and find a bit of common ground.
Now let me talk about some of the think-tanks and other organisations and what they have said, because I am keen to let other Members have the opportunity to speak.
Stephen Gethins
That is the most effective heckle I have heard all day, though that was not where I expected it to come from.
The Law Society of Scotland said:
“Bespoke visa schemes for Scotland, combined with expanding international outreach activities in relation to immigration to advertise these new arrangements, would be an effective way of ensuring that immigration policy meets Scotland’s needs.”
Prosper, formerly the SCDI, says:
“SCDI supports greater flexibilities on immigration for Scotland to respond to its distinct demographic and employment needs... Other countries”—
this is something my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross-shire has worked on very hard—
“successfully operate regional migration schemes which target the specific needs of their economies and SCDI believes that there are workable options for more differentiation in the UK’s system.”
I agree with that.
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.
Joani Reid
The hon. Member talked about the consequences of Brexit. One consequence is that we have seen record soaring net migration rates across the UK, but the proportion of people coming to Scotland is low. Has he looked at how the SNP can attract immigrants and migrants to Scotland without blaming Westminster?
Pete Wishart
I wondered how long it would take to get to this point. That is utter bunkum and rubbish. The suggestion started by the Conservatives—but it seems to have been readily picked up by the Labour party—that we are not able to attract to Scotland people from the rest of the United Kingdom is utter rubbish. The figure is at a record high. Why does the hon. Lady not look at the National Records of Scotland report, which will tell her that? We have the highest net migration to Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom that we have ever had.
Pete Wishart
The hon. Lady shakes her head. She has obviously not read the report. I extoll her to do so, because this nonsense has been allowed to take hold for too long and it cannot continue any longer. We have record net migration from the rest of the United Kingdom. Believe me, Madam Deputy Speaker, we do not get depressed about that. We do not think that is a bad thing. We think it is a positive. We encourage people to come to Scotland, unlike Labour Members, who discourage people from coming to the United Kingdom, and who do everything possible to put up barriers and make life difficult and miserable for people trying to come to the shores of the United Kingdom. We are the exact opposite in Scotland. Scotland is not full up, and we need people to come to our country. I welcome anybody from the rest of the United Kingdom who wants to come to a beautiful place and a fantastic country to live in. Come to Scotland! I challenge any Labour Member to say to the rest of the world, “Come to the United Kingdom.” It is not in their cultural or political DNA.
We are in a difficult situation. The simple fact is that Scotland needs more working-age people to refresh our population. If we do not get that, we will be in serious trouble. The same thing is happening all around the world, but what the Government are doing with Brexit is getting in the way and making our issues worse. Do you know what else they are doing? Although our birth rate is falling, they are trying to suppress it further through social engineering; they are using the benefits system to deny benefits to working-class people seeking to have large families. This is at a time when we should be doing everything we can to encourage more children. I want to hear the Minister defend that policy when we have a crisis in Scotland.
Oliver Ryan
How would the hon. Gentleman defend the SNP Government in Holyrood, who have failed on all the issues he has mentioned? There is a broader point here about nationalism: the SNP Government have to keep the circus on the road, and have to keep telling people a line. This is the latest in a string of subjects that keep people from talking about SNP failure.
Pete Wishart
I have no idea what the hon. Gentleman is saying. We are trying to offer solutions. We have identified a range of difficulties that we have as a nation. It is right and proper that they be examined, analysed and addressed. Then we get down to the business of fixing them, and that is what we are doing today. This Government are making our situation 10 times worse through their inept, callous and heinous attempt to socially engineer the benefit system to suppress our birth rate, at the very time when we need more children. We need larger families.
All around Europe, countries face the same range of issues. What are they doing? They are not having a two-child benefit cap. They are incentivising young people to have children by giving tax breaks and positive benefits to make sure that the birth rate increases. What are the Labour Government doing in the UK? They are, shamefully, trying to suppress our birth rate. I challenge any of them to get to their feet and tell me how a two-child benefit cap helps to increase our birth rate in Scotland. Go on!
Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)
Order. I remind the hon. Gentleman that this debate is about devolving immigration to Scotland.
Pete Wishart
Okay. Right, let us look at Scotland’s population then. Scotland’s population is probably in the region of 5.5 million. Some estimates are 5.43 million and some are 5.7 million. We have been in population decline since the latter part of the 20th century. This is an issue that particularly interests and excites me. I think the Scottish Affairs Committee has done three reports on it, and I think Secretary of State served on the Committee during one of the inquiries on Scotland’s migration issues. Those were helpful reports, and hopefully they add to the debate. I am glad that a few people have referenced them. We got down to the serious business of trying to address the issue. I congratulate the Blair Government, which was visionary when it came to immigration; it was imaginative. Tony Blair opened up eastern Europe through accession, which helped our issues in Scotland. For a while, that reversed our long-term population decline.
The Tony Blair Government also gave us fresh talent. It gave people an opportunity to come to study at one of our world-class universities and stay and contribute to the Scottish economy for a period of their early lives. It was fantastic. It was backed by the UK Government and the Scottish Government, with overwhelming support from hon. Members in this House. The policy was then subsumed by a general UK policy, which meant that we lost our advantage.
Pete Wishart
I know that fresh talent is exciting and of interest to the Secretary of State, so I give way to him.
Ian Murray
I sat on the Scottish Affairs Committee when it was chaired by the hon. Gentleman and produced one of those reports on migration and depopulation in Scotland—I think it was during the 2015 to 2017 Parliament —and I remember that one of the conclusions of the report was that the biggest type of migration out of Scotland was 19 to 26-year-olds migrating to the rest of the UK. We never answered why.
Pete Wishart
Absolutely. I was going to come to that, but it is good to look at that now. There are reasons for that, although I am not entirely clear about them; the Committee did not get to the heart of that in its analysis. We live in a United Kingdom and have a massive mega-city, London, so there is always the allure for young Scots to come down to London. I did it myself, and I am pretty certain that the Secretary of State spent a good part of his young life in London. Most Scots at some point find themselves living in London. But it is worse than that for Scotland, because we have a centuries-old historical culture and tradition of emigration. Immigration has not really been that big an issue for us. We obviously benefit from it, but the key feature in the history of Scotland and this debate is emigration. As everybody knows, there are Scots communities all around the world, from Canada and New Zealand to the United States, and they have always acted as a draw for our young people. Not so much now, but previously, young Scots settled abroad, so we got into this cultural trend of people leaving Scotland. We have to address that.
One other thing that the Scottish Affairs Committee looked at but did not come to any great conclusion about was deindustrialisation and its impact on encouraging people to emigrate. We obviously have deindustrialisation in Scotland, and we need only look at some of our major cities, and at the difficulties and features of life in those cities, to see why people would leave. We are wrestling with problems that successive UK Governments have bequeathed Scotland, whether through Brexit policy or the two-child benefit cap, mixed with the historical attitude to emigration and deindustrialisation. Those are the things that my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry and his modest Bill invite us to address.
My hon. Friend has not got the solution in the Bill; he said that, and that it is an open Bill. I am quite surprised that the Secretary of State does not understand how Committee works for private Members’ Bills. My hon. Friend is giving an invitation to the House. I am laying out the difficulties and issues that we have identified—I will get on to demography in Scotland in a minute; hon. Members should wait till they hear about that—and my hon. Friend is saying, “Help us.” Let us work together. We have a real problem in Scotland. There are some fantastic contributions to be made, with real in-depth analysis by people who understand how to look at critical questions and come up with solutions. Help us deal with this, so that we can address the range of issues that we have. Believe me, if we do not start to address them, we will be in really serious trouble.
Dame Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
I have been listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman. We see from other countries that there are ways of dealing with the issue without having full devolution, for many of the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) laid out. As was highlighted earlier, the Home Secretary made the Scottish Government an offer to work with the Migration Advisory Committee on solutions. Full devolution would be expensive and time consuming, and it would not deliver.
Pete Wishart
This is helpful, and I think my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry was hoping for such positive contributions. I am very much aware of the work that the Migration Advisory Committee does, and I commend it for that, but its list of occupations required in Scotland is not nearly enough—it does not even touch the sides of our difficulties. If the hon. Lady has some thoughts on how that could be beefed up and made more effective and useful, we are all ears—come and serve on the Committee and help us. We need positive solutions to identified problems. That is the territory we want to get into.
We have long-term population decline in Scotland. When I started to engage in this debate in the early 2000s, there was a real fear that, for the first time since the 19th century, Scotland’s population would drop below the iconic 5 million mark. That was only reversed because of the imagination of the previous Labour Government and their generosity when it came to immigration policy—something that the current Government would never even think about. The vision of Tony Blair about how Europe would work and how the single market would develop helped Scotland to address some of the issues.
Kirsty Blackman
Around the turn of the millennium, I remember hearing Lord Jack McConnell, the First Minister of Scotland at the time, talking about that iconic 5 million mark. I was only 13 or 14, but I remember it being so important, and it was so important to Labour that immigration happened in order to keep that population. Why does he think Labour has changed its position so drastically in a relatively short space of time? Why is immigration now apparently bad?
Pete Wishart
That is such a profound question. I do not know how Labour has got itself into this situation. I suspect it is some sort of fear of Reform, whose Members are not here today, and Labour is probably right to be frightened. I think I saw an opinion poll showing that Labour is now behind Reform across the United Kingdom. Labour Members think—and this will only exacerbate the problem—that if they somehow pander to Reform’s agenda, that will help them beat it. Nothing could delight Reform more than going on to its agenda. That is why we in Scotland take Reform on and tackle it.
I was so pleased and impressed that the First Minister of Scotland this week got together a summit to take on these very challenges, and I was delighted that the Scottish Labour leader attended that summit and took it seriously, because this is the sort of thing we have to do when there is a challenge from the right. We do not go on to their agenda—that is what they want. We take on their assumptions, we take them on politically, and we beat them.
That is why the SNP has not been so impacted by the rise of Reform in the United Kingdom: because we take it on. Labour is starting to experience difficulties at the hands of Reform because it is looking to pander to Reform’s agenda and move on to some of the uncomfortable territory. We take Reform on; we do not pander to it. That is the lesson of history.
Andrew Lewin
Many Labour Members are actively in the business of taking on the Reform party, whose Members are absent once again from the Chamber today—I am not sure whether that is to our detriment or not. Many Labour parliamentarians, including me, are proud of the contribution of immigration to our country. We are still going to have net immigration under a Labour Government. I am proud of the University of Hertfordshire—based in my constituency—where more than 50% of students are international students. I am pleased that the hon. Member praised the Scottish Labour leader, but please do not mischaracterise the position of Labour Members.
Pete Wishart
I have no doubt that the hon. Member is utterly sincere. I have listened to several remarks from his Labour colleagues, and some of them greatly impressed me. It encouraged me to think that there is a little bit of a fight-back. I sat on the Committee considering the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, and I did not enjoy that for one minute. What I saw was a range of initiatives and policies that could basically have come from the Conservatives. It was very much the same sort of theme and trend: immigration was bad, it had to be curbed, it had to be taken on and dealt with. It was never seen as a positive. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to speak up, do more of this, and encourage his colleagues to speak out clearly on these issues. That is what we need. We are in a political crisis—at a juncture in our political culture and history—and we need brave gentlemen like him to stand up there and take it on, rather than listening to his Front Benchers. The Home Secretary in particular has a track record on this. He needs to challenge her and the Home Office.
Sean Woodcock
The hon. Member has spoken at great length about the benefits of immigration. I am married to an eastern European immigrant, so I am well aware of the massive benefits of immigration to this country. What I am bit confused about, though, is how adding an extra layer of red tape and a potential border between England and Scotland would improve or make a difference to what he has just talked about.
Pete Wishart
I was going to leave that point until later in my speech, but the hon. Gentleman tempts me to get on to that territory now—he is obviously looking for some sort of solution. I will try to explain our plans and intentions to him as best I can, as well as where I think this matter should eventually go.
When I chaired the Scottish Affairs Committee, we were lucky enough to go to Quebec to look at its state-wide immigration system, which is fantastic. Members should go to Montreal and have a look the construction there—it is a boom city. It is able to do that because the Quebecois state Parliament was able to gain control over immigration from the state Government. As a result, Quebec can appeal to Francophone Europe to think about settling there, thereby attracting the specific skills that are lacking. That has led to such incredible growth in Quebec, which is in charge of its immigration system. That works in Canada. Are we trying to suggest that what people call “the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world” could not come up with a similar or even more effective system than what we saw in Canada? That is what we can do if we have the imagination.
The hon. Member for Banbury (Sean Woodcock) asks how this would work. I think I heard somebody talk about border guards and passport controls between Scotland and England. In the past 10 years, Scotland has acquired significant new powers over taxation—we can have a debate about that at some other point—which has allowed us to set up Revenue Scotland, so all of us in Scotland have a different tax code from everybody else throughout the United Kingdom. That individual Scottish tax code allows us to know where people are living and working. If they have such a tax code, they are paying taxes in Scotland.
If we had a Scottish visa, one of the conditions for people coming to Scotland from outwith the United Kingdom would be for them to have a Scottish tax code that would allow us to monitor where they are living and working. One of the conditions for their coming in would be to be resident and working in Scotland. If they broke the conditions for their entry to Scotland, they would no longer be entitled to a Scottish visa and would be made illegal. Who on earth would do that? Why would somebody not want the opportunity to live in Scotland. There are practical solutions that other nations use. Surely nobody is suggesting that Scotland could not introduce such a scheme. It has been done before. We have already talked about fresh talent. Labour has given Scotland an advantage in immigration before and could do it again. It is not beyond the wit of the Scottish nation to ensure that we have an immigration system and a specific tax code, but we need the means to do it.
There is another issue that I wish to take on, which I addressed in response to an intervention, and that is the idea that Scotland does not get any migrants from the rest of the UK—that they do not want to come to Scotland. That is just utter bunkum and rubbish. I hope that, after this debate, that suggestion will never be made again, because it is just rubbish. I will give the House a few statistics. According to the National Records of Scotland, in the year leading up to mid-2022, net migration from the rest of the UK to Scotland increased to 12,500, up from 8,900 the previous year. The trend continued, with net internal migration rising to 13,900 in the year to June 2023—the last figures. [Interruption.] That is a 21-year high, and 39% higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Pete Wishart
Just a minute—be patient.
People come to Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom because of our more affordable living costs, things such as free university tuition and free personal care, our progressive social contract, and the fact that it is a beautiful and great country to stay in. Of course people come to Scotland—let us knock this on the head. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has got a point about this; I am keen to hear what it is.
Joani Reid
The hon. Gentleman is mischaracterising what I said—we are not talking about absolute figures. Yes, the figures have risen, but they are disproportionately lower than for the rest of the UK. Once I find it, if the hon. Gentleman will let me, I will quote directly from the National Records of Scotland.
Pete Wishart
I am sorry—I thought I was going to get the figures. We do way beyond our national share when it comes to inward migration, so please let us have no more of this. Let us just agree that people come to Scotland and we want more to do so.
Regardless of how successful we have been in attracting people, we are still in a situation of long-term population decline in Scotland. That is the population, but the demography of Scotland is a bigger horror story, and it is one thing that we really need to look at. Some 22% of Scotland’s population is over 65, which is one of the highest ratios in the whole of the western world—I think the figure for England is 17%. We have a birth rate of one child for every three women—again, one of the worst rates in the whole of the industrialised world. I do not need to lecture hon. Members about what the birth rate means. We need two children for every woman just to sustain the population at its current levels; a birth rate of one child for every three women cannot be sustainable. That is what makes the two-child benefit cap all the more absurd, heinous and callous. This Government are working contrary to what we need in Scotland to address some of these issues.
Therefore, given our falling birth rate, we are entirely dependent on immigration to keep our population at current levels, and maybe to increase it modestly for the prospects of economic growth. One of the few ambitions and commitments that this Government are sticking to is to cut net migration—that is their absolute and utter mission. They will not even bring forward a youth mobility scheme in all its glory because of their concern about the impact on net migration. Scotland is burdened with an immigration system and a set of Government policies that make our situation so much worse. Why do you think that we consistently call for this power to be devolved? No Scottish Labour MP has stood up and opposed that commitment. If they are not going to do it, they should give the power to us and allow us to do so.
All over the world, the populations of Western industrial countries are facing these difficulties. They have got the powers to address them—we have seen examples in Italy and Spain, which have particularly bad birth rates, almost on a par with what Scotland has. They have ministries devoted to trying to increase the birth rate and do something about the impending crisis that is coming their way. Even in China, population stagnation is beginning to take hold. The world population will stop growing in about 2055, and at that point there will be stagnation before rapid population fall. It is at the point where that curve starts to bend that we get stagnation, which is why nations are addressing the issues that they have.
Have a look at Japan: historically resistant to immigration, Japan is going through a structural economic crisis because of its demography and population issues. Its population is due to fall by 20% in the next 10 years because of the falling birth rate. It is going to fall from third in the GDP rankings to 10th. That is what awaits the United Kingdom over the course of the next 20 or 30 years. This Government cannot look further than the nose on their face; all they are seeing just now is Reform, and all they are thinking about is, “How do we take them on; how do we beat them?” There is no strategic thinking or long-term vision about what we will do towards the end of the century when all of this starts to take hold. Nothing, no imagination, no inquiry, but this is where we are going.
It might blow some Members’ minds, but towards the end of the century migrants might be at a premium and there will be a competition to try to get people into nations around the world. I know that is too much for them to start to contemplate just now, but that is where we are going. And yet for them the issue is about curbing migration. They see migration as a problem that has to be managed, with no concession or ground given to anything that might get in the way of the net migration figures. We are lumbered with that in Scotland. Where we want to move on and deal with our issues, we cannot do so but we should be able to do that.
We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry about the support that the measures in the Bill have in Scotland. That is no surprise because business organisations and think tanks have seen what is going on. They just need to look at some of our sectors to find that there is a crisis in practically every one and in our public services, so of course they support the measures. There is even political consensus in the Scottish Parliament that something needs to be done. The only thing is we need the UK Government to get on board, and the Bill before us today will help to achieve those goals.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry conceded from the outset, the Bill is not perfect—it is a one-line Bill—but invitation is there to get it to Committee—[Interruption.] I say to Members on the Labour Benches, including the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley), colleagues from the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats, who are not here: we have identified the issue. If somebody thinks that we have got all of this wrong, I want to hear from them. I do not want to hear about what the Scottish Government are doing with ferries or whatever it is they want to talk about—[Interruption.] This is the thing, Madam Deputy Speaker—Government Members do not want to talk about the issues that are important to us in this House. They want to talk about stuff that is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Is that because they think their Members of the Scottish Parliament are not up to the job, so Labour Members in this House have to constantly go on about those things? The Secretary of State can confirm, but I think Labour has about 50 MSPs up in Scotland. Why not let them get on with their jobs while we deal with the things that we need to fix down here?
Ian Murray
Immigration is wrapped up in a lot of policy areas that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Government themselves, in Parliament, declared a housing emergency. Does the hon. Gentleman think that the lack of housing in Scotland has anything to do with the inability to attract migrants to do the jobs in the places where they are needed to do them?
Pete Wishart
I think that we are going to have quite a few debates like this in the next few years, so I say this ever so candidly: that is a matter for the Scottish Parliament to resolve.
The Secretary of State’s party is trying to become the party in government in Scotland next year, but his party does not have any imaginative solutions, so over the next year we will be testing his proposals and policies against what we are doing. If people in Scotland are attracted to the Secretary of State’s policies and proposals, they will vote Labour in, but I do not think that will happen, and I think, in his heart of hearts, he also believes that now. We only need to look at the last by-election result. So when we are elected to this House, let us deal with the things that matter to us, and nothing is more important than this issue. If we do not get this fixed, we will have serious issues and structural problems in our public services and our economy. I appeal to the House: let the Bill go through and then let us all work together to resolve the situation.
Andrew Bowie
Michael Gove, soon to be Lord Gove of Torry, is answerable for his own opinions on whether immigration powers should be devolved to Scotland. I would not be in any way surprised if his views on that issue have changed, as indeed have his views on certain other issues over the years.
First, we should not enable regional immigration policies within the United Kingdom. Secondly, there is absolutely no case for a special immigration policy for Scotland outwith the United Kingdom’s legislative framework. Thirdly, the Scottish Government under the SNP over the past 18 years have demonstrated an unparalleled and unprecedented level of incompetence, which ought to preclude consideration of granting greater powers over, frankly, anything. We all know that there is such a thing as Scottish exceptionalism. The only exceptionalism that the Scottish Government have demonstrated is an exceptional reverse Midas touch to almost every single area over which they have responsibility, whether it is education, health or transport infrastructure. I could go on.
Pete Wishart
Just before the shadow Secretary of State gets into his usual anti-Scottish Government stuff, he has told us what he does not like about this Bill moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins). How would the Scottish Conservatives resolve our population demography crisis and the fact that we have a shrinking working-age workforce in Scotland? What would they do?
Ian Murray
I have said already that net migration has to come down. That is the view of the Prime Minister and this Government, because it is too high. The reason it has to come down—this goes right to the heart of some of the big issues in Scotland that the SNP Scottish Government do not want to talk about—is that nearly one in six young people in Scotland are not in education, employment or training. We have shipyards in Scotland that build the very best ships in the world, employing Filipino and South African welders who look from the top of those ships into some of the poorest communities in Scotland and the United Kingdom, where a huge number of young people are not in employment, education or training. We need to do something about that. That is why net migration has to come down.
Workforce and skills planning is a much more important way to tackle skills shortages. We have been leaving businesses unable to find the skills they need in the UK reliant on workers from abroad. That is the record of the previous Conservative Government.
Let me say it again: net migration is too high, and the interaction between migration and skills in the labour market is fundamentally broken. All those organisations read out by the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry in support of his proposal also say the very same thing. Skills in the labour market is broken, and the link between migration and skills in the labour market is fundamentally broken. That is why we need confidence in the whole system, and that whole system needs to be fundamentally rebuilt.
That is the UK Government’s focus. We will face these challenges head-on by delivering on our missions in Scotland by kick-starting economic growth, which has been a disaster under the Scottish Government. If Scotland had grown at the same level as even Manchester, the Scottish economy would be tens of billions of pounds larger. If the city and region of Glasgow had grown at the same level as Manchester, its economy would be £7 billion larger. Kick-starting economic growth is therefore a key driver for this Government, as well as making Britain a clean energy superpower, in which Scotland will play a key part, and of course tackling poverty. I set out my Department’s priorities in Scotland during a recent speech at the University of Edinburgh. Given the relevance of that to the debate’s subject matter, let me draw on some of the points I made then.
Pete Wishart
I hope that the Secretary of State will get to the territory of how we address some of the issues we face. One of issues I pointed out is our poor birth rate in Scotland, with only one child for every three women. How does he think his Government’s policy of a two-child benefit cap helps address our birth rate issues?
Ian Murray
I do not think we can determine birth rate issues through the welfare system. The hon. Gentleman is essentially saying that people are choosing not to have larger families because of the welfare system. The fundamental problem of depopulation in Scotland has been around for 100 years—he mentioned that himself—but he sits on one small part of the welfare system to try to make a point that is not relevant to the debate.
Ian Murray
It gives me no pleasure to say this, but I take great pride in the fact that this Labour Government concentrated on getting the NHS back on its feet after the election, and for six months in a row—six winter months in a row—waiting lists have fallen. However, in Scotland they have not. Despite the Scottish Government having a record settlement from the UK Labour Government and despite £4.9 billion extra, the NHS is broken in Scotland because it does not have a Government who are solely focused on making sure that the health of their nation is a top priority.
Ian Murray
I know SNP Members do not like us speaking about the Scottish Government, but the Migration Advisory Committee that they have talked about a lot in this Chamber already is addressing these issues. They challenged me to tell them what this Government were doing in relation to this Bill and migration in the Scottish context, and I am telling them what the Migration Advisory Committee is saying in response to this Bill. [Interruption.] SNP Members do not want to talk about it, but I will continue to talk about it until health in this country improves, and I have to say that when one in seven of my constituents are on NHS waiting lists, I will continue talking about it until these lights go out.
Non-migrant populations would have the same problems as the rest of us in terms of inadequate health services, the declared housing emergency, a broader lack of investment in skills and training, and economic opportunities for young people.
The one element in common among all these proposals is they are designed to provide a means to avoid or lower the salary requirements that apply to skilled worker visas. The Migration Advisory Committee has repeatedly advised against salary variations as they could create frictions for workers moving around the UK and could risk institutionalising areas as being low wage. This could have the effect of entrenching low pay in some areas for the resident populations as well as migrant workers, which would do nothing to resolve the long-term causes of depopulation. I am very proud, as is everyone on the Government Benches, of our Make Work Pay commitment and our new deal for working people.
Having different salary thresholds for different parts of the UK would also add complexity to an already complicated immigration system and would create difficulties for employers who operate across multiple regions of the UK, potentially requiring them to monitor the physical location of their employees and report that information to the Home Office to ensure compliance.
Of course we are aware of the demographic and labour market challenges faced by certain areas, sectors and industries, but we have seen record-high net migration levels in recent years while depopulation has remained an issue for Scotland, suggesting that immigration is not a solution to those challenges, especially given that we cannot practically compel people to stay in a particular area indefinitely. Instead, we are taking action through a joined-up approach across Government, in the UK’s immigration, labour market and skills system, to train up our own home-grown workforce, end the over-reliance on international recruitment and boost economic growth in every single part of the UK.
At the same time, the Government have confirmed that the changes made to key visa routes earlier last year will remain in place to drive levels down further. Additionally, as we announced last November, shameless and bad employers that flout UK employment laws will be banned from sponsoring overseas visas, as part of tough new action to clamp down on visa abuse and prevent the exploitation of overseas workers. I hope that the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry and his colleagues will give us their support in Scotland to ensure that workers are not exploited by rogue employers.
Let me turn to skills and migration. The Government recognise and value the important contribution that overseas workers make to our economy and public services throughout the United Kingdom. As the hon. Gentleman has highlighted, remote parts of Scotland face depopulation, and skills shortages remain at their highest levels across Scotland. However, those issues have not been solved by the increase in net migration in recent years. Indeed, many of the actions needed to fix Scotland’s skills shortages are already devolved matters under the control of the Scottish Government, so his SNP colleagues in Holyrood already have the levers they need to address those challenges. They may wish to try pulling some of those levers—perhaps he can do so himself, because he wants to be a Member of the Scottish Parliament. Indeed, I think a high proportion of his colleagues think the same. Maybe that is why the leader of the SNP in this House, the right hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn), has already disappeared to go back to Scotland and make the case for his selection.
Let me just run through some of the levers that the Scottish Government could pull. They include powers relating to business rates, social security and tax; the record settlement of £47.7 billion, which is £4.9 billion more than before; and, of course, responsibility for education, health, housing, and employability and skills. They do not want to talk about any of those things. Businesses and unions consistently tell us that they worry about the skills gaps in Scotland. I am surprised that SNP Members do not care about this stuff. This is not just about skills and jobs; it is about opportunities for young people. Perhaps they do want to talk about it, because they all want to go to the Scottish Parliament and to refocus on what they are delivering.
The UK Government are focused on delivering outcomes and securing the future through our plan for change. Simply put, young people in Scotland—whether in work or seeking work—are not being supported with the skills and training that they need to succeed. Scotland’s rate of economic inactivity remains above that of the rest of the UK. I am not shy about repeating this: nearly one in six young people in Scotland are not in education, employment or training. Some 1,351 young people in Scotland left high school last year with absolutely no qualifications—an entire high school-worth of young people written off with no future because the Scottish Government refused to do something about it.
I am very proud that this UK Labour Government have relentlessly focused on getting people into work and developing their skills by increasing the national living wage and legislating to make work pay; strengthening workers’ rights and protections; providing £240 million for the Get Britain Working plan, which will overhaul jobcentres with a focus on skills and careers; and delivering a proper industrial strategy, developed in partnership with businesses and trade unions, to ensure that we get the economy, and the people in it, working. However, the Scottish Government also have a huge role to play, and they must use the levers that they have. As I have said before, I want co-operation between Governments to drive our economic growth, and skills are central to that.
I hope that the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry, his party and his colleagues in Holyrood will engage with all that work and replicate its focus in their programme for government next month, which I think is their fourth or fifth in four years—every other programme for government so far has been an abject failure. I would be particularly interested to see further work on skills and education, building on the work of the Withers review, because right now the SNP Government are failing on skills.
Ian Murray
We all wish my hon. Friend well, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope that “wishing him well” goes as far as going to his JustGiving page and throwing him a few quid. My record for 26 miles is based on how fast I can drive the car, not how far I can run; I know hon. Members will find that difficult to believe.
A key reason why it might not be attractive to live and work in some places in Scotland, and why reaching for this Bill would be wrong, is the provision of health services. There is no greater issue for our constituents; health is always the No. 1 priority for them, whether they live in Wales, Northern Ireland, England or Scotland. Concern about health services is top of the agenda for Scottish people. However, people in Scotland receive less cancer treatment than their neighbours in other parts of the UK, and the 62-day waiting time standard that was put into law has not been met in Scotland since 2012, more than 13 years ago. Over the winter, waiting lists in England fell for six months in a row, but over 100,000 Scots have been stuck on an NHS waiting list for tests or treatment for over a year. That is 26% higher than just a year ago.
Pete Wishart
It is. It falls to me to very humbly make this point of order. What can you, as Chair of the proceedings, do, within your powers, to ensure that we have an adequate debate on what this Bill is about?
Madam Deputy Speaker
I am not sure if I am thankful for that point of order. The Chair is overseeing the debate. I have listened to it very closely. I appreciate that it is about immigration. I know that the Bill is very thin—it is only two pages long—but it is broad in scope. I will continue to listen very closely to the Secretary of State, and he will ensure that his comments are within scope of the Bill.
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.
Pete Wishart
I have a lot of time and respect for the hon. Lady, and she has contributed so much to the work of this House, but she has been simply absurd in some of her proclamations in the last few minutes. All we are asking for is the opportunity to address some of our workforce issues, because we have a real crisis in Scotland. We have a distinct and separate tax code in Scotland. There would be a requirement that a person coming here would live and work in Scotland, which could be easily assessed and monitored because of our individual tax code. It is straightforward and simple. Watchtowers and border guards? Come on! The hon. Lady is 10 times better than that.
Dame Meg Hillier
If the cap fits, maybe the hon. Gentleman should consider his position. I am not suggesting for a minute that we would see border guards and towers, but once there is a land border there is a risk. We have seen in other parts of the world and among allies of ours more recently quite intemperate discussion about borders, walls and security. We would not want to go down that route.