Rural Depopulation

Steve Witherden Excerpts

Wednesday 11th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Seema Malhotra)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) on his successful securing of this debate. I am extremely grateful to him and to right hon. and hon. Members for taking part in the debate. I will mention those who have made substantial contributions: my hon. Friends the Members for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) and for Hexham (Joe Morris), the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and the hon. Members for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper), for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald), for Ceredigion Preseli (Ben Lake) and for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). I acknowledge the contributions from the Opposition leads as well, including the hon. Member for Stockton West (Matt Vickers).

I want to address many of the issues raised in today’s debate, which has focused on a range of key points and has brought together the challenges and consequences of depopulation in an important and effective way. I am heartened by my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar also saying that he recognises this is an issue that goes way beyond the Home Office and that he plans to raise a number of the challenges with other Departments. I encourage him to do so.

The Government recognise the importance of this debate, and the challenges faced by rural and island communities in Scotland, as well as in Northern Ireland and more widely across the United Kingdom in Wales and England. Those challenges are now coming to workforces, and are about supporting local and national economies, as well as encouraging young people to feel that they have opportunity in the areas where they grew up. A range of issues was raised and important points were extremely well made, including on some of the generational shifts that are having impacts on families, as well as community cohesion, wider integration and the continued success of local services, the challenges in recruitment across primary local sectors and public services, and the running of our local communities.

One of the points raised was in relation to the fishing and fish-processing industries, which is of concern to many colleagues in Scotland. We recognise the contribution of those industries to the lifeblood of our nation, including to coastal and rural communities. Those industries generate almost £2 billion in exports. We recognise the challenges of recruiting domestically. Those and other valuable jobs are often done in difficult circumstances. As has been discussed, there has been a reliance on migration over recent years.

[Steve Witherden (Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr) (Lab)]

Under the last Conservative Government, too often we saw rampant exploitation of migrant workers in the seasonal workers scheme. Does the Minister share my concerns about such labour exploitation, and will she work with me on novel ideas to tackle it?

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank my hon. Friend for making that serious point, one that I will draw on in my remarks. I will continue to work with him and others on how we tackle that serious issue.

Migration has been an important part of the history of our nation, as was raised by the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire. He will know, as I do, that for generations people have travelled here from all over the world, contributing to our economy, studying in our universities, working in our public services and being part of our communities and the way we have built our nation together. All of us here are alive to the demographic challenges that remote communities particularly are facing. We are also committed to ensuring that the immigration system works in the interests of the whole of the UK.

We have seen net migration treble in five years, driven largely by a big increase in overseas recruitment. We are clear that net migration must come down, and that the immigration system needs to be properly controlled and managed. I make that point because it is for that reason we are setting out a new approach, which is integral to tackling some of the challenges outlined today. We will link migration policy and visa controls to skills and labour market policy so that immigration is not used as an alternative to training or tackling workforce problems in the UK.