Meeting of the Parliament 07 November 2024
I apologise, Presiding Officer.
Jim Walker, former president of NFU Scotland, said earlier this year:
“Scottish farmers have been waiting three years for some kind of direction—but we are still in the dark.”
Cabinet secretary, I am afraid that that is very true. It is not just farming that is impacted by the Government’s inertia. We are all aware of the impact of rural depopulation and what has caused it. That includes a lack of affordable homes in rural Scotland and a lack of investment in rural transport infrastructure, whether that be the lack of upgrades to the A9, the A96, the A83, the A82 or the A87—I could go on. There is the Government’s failure to deliver superfast broadband to 100 per cent of homes and businesses, which was supposed to have been delivered by 2021, and then 2026; the date is now 2028, but I have no doubt that the deadline will be pushed even further. There is even the Government’s failure to deliver new ferries to support our island communities. Could I tell members the horror stories that I hear on the islands about ferries?
All those failures, and many more, have had the effect of hollowing out many of our once-thriving rural and island communities. No number of SNP task forces, reports or working groups will resolve those long-standing problems.
I will touch on one aspect of the SNP Government’s motion, which is labour shortages. We know that, across a range of sectors, labour shortages and issues with skills gaps existed long before Brexit came into being. The answer to that problem is not in devolving responsibility for immigration. The previous UK Conservative Government showed that it could address the needs of particular sectors through the creation of a seasonal agricultural workers scheme—for example, for the fruit-picking sector. We know that immigration to the UK continues to be far too high, but immigration to Scotland is far lower. I say to the cabinet secretary that blaming Brexit gets us nowhere. A positive working relationship with the UK Government to develop reasonable solutions to shared problems is the answer.