Hansard

It is timely that, as the only Parliament in the UK that is allowed to sit today, we hold the Westminster Government to account for its immigration policy and the impact that it will have on further and higher education in Scotland. As the chaos in Westminster continues, we hear increasingly alarming and anti-democratic language from the Prime Minister. For example, he has said that he would rather die in a ditch than request an extension to the article 50 deadline—making such a request being something that he is now required to do by law—and that he is exploring every possible way to circumnavigate that law to deliver a no-deal Brexit.

Despite the UK Parliament’s best efforts, the prospect of crashing out of the EU without a deal remains a possibility, which would be disastrous for universities and colleges in Scotland. Immigration and free movement have underpinned the success of our further and higher education sectors. More than one fifth of university students in Scotland are from somewhere else. That represents more than 50,000 students, about 31,000 of whom are from outside the EU, which is a higher proportion of international students than in the rest of the UK, reflecting the world-leading status of Scotland’s universities. Of course, the benefit of international students coming here is not limited to the skills of those individuals. They enrich our society, contributing to our local and national economies, bringing new cultural experiences and ideas that they integrate into Scottish society, and contributing to the development of a more outward-looking Scotland that is open to the world and comfortable with its place in it.

Many international students also settle in Scotland after their studies, using their expertise and skills to benefit this country. They often fill some of the acute skills gaps from which we suffer. More than 30 per cent of academic staff at universities are from outside Scotland, and that figure rises to almost half for research staff. Such international expertise has ensured that Scotland remains a leading centre of research and innovation. It has driven huge international investments in research and development here, which means that institutions such as the University of Edinburgh’s Scottish centre for regenerative medicine and the University of Strathclyde’s technology and innovation centre, which is part of the international technology and renewable energy zone in Glasgow, have benefited immensely from international expertise and funding. I commend both of those institutions to all members, because they are well worth visiting. They are excellent examples of the benefits of European collaboration.

However, we are all here today because all that is threatened by the Conservative Government at Westminster. As we edge closer to leaving the EU, with or without a deal, we run the serious risk of seeing that Government’s cruel and destructive immigration policies—and the dysfunctional, arbitrary administration of them—extended to EU citizens, who are currently shielded by their right to freedom of movement. That is the immigration policy that has seen people deported to their deaths and has denied child trafficking victims the right to stay in the UK. Whistleblowers have even accused the Home Office of having lied to other European states in order to deport victims of human trafficking, against European law. This summer, the Home Office was called out by 70 senior university research centre leaders for repeatedly refusing visas for researchers from Africa, including Ebola researchers from Sierra Leone. What on earth is the benefit to the UK of denying visas to those who are researching that disease?

Hundreds of thousands more people in Scotland could be subject to immigration rules that are designed to force them out and drain their incomes in the process. The hostile environment policy, which continues to this day, has already given us the Windrush scandal. People with every right to be here had their lives ruined: they were banned from working, evicted from their homes, denied public support—in some cases, medical support—and even deported to countries that they had not seen in decades and with which they had no realistic connection.

While institutional racism was central to the Windrush scandal, one of the key issues that made that generation so vulnerable to the hostile environment was people’s lack of records as to their residence and who they were. They lacked such records because they did not need them when they arrived, or for many decades thereafter—they were simply not required in law at that time. Well, EU citizens have not needed those records either. They did not have to apply to any state body to come to the UK. They simply exercised their treaty right to freedom of movement, in the same way that many UK citizens have done elsewhere across the continent.

There is, of course, a new settled status scheme for EU citizens, which is designed to give them such records. However, I have no faith in the Home Office. Already, I have seen cases of EU citizens who have been in this country for decades being denied settled status, allegedly for not having proof of residence, despite it being abundantly obvious and their having decades worth of paperwork to prove their cases. There is a chance that the crimes that the Home Office inflicted on the Windrush generation will be revisited on EU citizens. That is a chance that I am not willing to take, and I know that the majority of members here feel the same way. [Interruption.] I thank Clare Adamson for her applause.

We must not only dismantle the hostile environment; it is time that we abolished the Home Office in order to completely tear down the institutional racism that is embedded within it. It is imperative—now more than ever—that immigration policies be devolved to Scotland, in recognition of not just the social, cultural and economic benefits that are brought here by immigrants, but the injustice and rampant criminality that have characterised the UK Government’s immigration policies. When we finally have control over immigration here, we must create a free and open system that seizes the opportunities that citizens of the world have to offer us and respects the inherent dignity of all people, regardless of where they come from.

It can be easy to fall into the trap of populist and even racist rhetoric. That is something that has infected many parties, although it is the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats who are directly responsible for the hostile environment, through the Immigration Act 2014.

Until such time as we are responsible for our own immigration and asylum systems, I support the measures that are contained in the Government’s motion. It is clear that the proposal on a three-year temporary leave to remain does not take Scottish universities into consideration, and its amendment would be welcome. The UK Government could have amended it long before now. However, those proposals, along with the fresh talent scheme, only tinker around the edges. They are damage-limitation exercises for what is, at its core, a horrendously racist and discriminatory immigration system. Scotland’s colleges and universities, our students and their staff deserve so much better than that.