Meeting of the Parliament 13 December 2016
I agree with the sentiments that Liam McArthur has expressed about the responsibility that we all have for unaccompanied children and the especially concerning situation of people who have been through the experience of the camp at Calais. The Scottish Government has always made it clear that we stand ready to do our share, and more, in welcoming people from those and other difficult situations.
There is much in the EU’s actions that the Scottish Government can support—for example, the focus on taking action to save lives in the Mediterranean and the recognition that migration to Europe is a complex global issue that has its roots in other countries. I am also keen to highlight—especially in the current political climate—that European co-operation, and not isolation, is key.
As members will know, last Saturday was human rights day. On 10 December 1948, the United Nations general assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which set out for the first time the fundamental human rights to which all people are entitled. Although it is clear that those rights belong equally to all people, this year the UN urges each us to step forward to defend the rights of particular groups of people—among them refugees and migrants.
In Scotland, we are fortunate to live in a country where our human rights are, generally, respected; where the Government and society more widely are committed to defending the existing human rights protections that we have and to embedding human rights in everything that we do; where there are duties on public authorities to respect and implement human rights principles; and where an active civil society undertakes invaluable work to help make rights real in people’s day-to-day lives. That places us under a moral obligation to respond to the United Nations’ call to stand up for the rights of other people, both at home and throughout the world. I am pleased to be able to say that, in Scotland, we have responded positively to that call.
The past 12 months have been a time of unprecedented change for refugee resettlement in Scotland, as we have stepped up to play our part in responding to the refugee crisis. Scottish local authorities were quick to reflect the mood of the Scottish people by stating their willingness and desire to help, even although many had no experience of working with refugees. We have now received more than 1,250 Syrian refugees under the Syrian resettlement programme since October 2015—which amounts to more than 27 per cent of all refugees who have been resettled under the scheme in the United Kingdom—and 29 local authorities have now received refugees in their areas.
As I mentioned earlier, I also want today to focus on the contribution that all migrants bring to Scotland and to thank Scotland’s migrant community for the diversity and wealth of experience that they bring to our country, as well as thanking the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, local authorities, the Scottish Refugee Council and many other people and organisations that have worked to make the experience such a success.
Unfortunately, divisive, misleading and inflammatory information regarding migration is all too easy to come across. It concerns me that, following the Brexit referendum, some people now believe that it is socially acceptable to say some fairly extreme things, perhaps in ways that they thought in the past would not be accepted. Contrary to that rhetoric, migrants are not a drain on society and can contribute significantly if they are given the same rights and opportunities as other citizens.
In October, the Scottish Government published two reports: one on the impacts of migration and one on the characteristics of migration. Those reports help to debunk many of the myths around migrants, such as the claim that migrants create strain on the benefits system. Our research has disproved that claim and has found, in particular, that our recent non-UK migrants are more likely to be in work than people who were born in Scotland. Another popular myth is that migrants force down wages. In reality, studies have found that there is little or no impact on average wages as a result of migration, and that any adverse effects on wages due to migration are likely to be greatest for workers who are themselves migrants.