Meeting of the Parliament 21 January 2016
I thank Christian Allard for securing this important debate, and I also thank those who have spoken for their thoughtful, forceful and robust speeches. Before I get into the substance of the Immigration Bill and the ways in which it touches on areas that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, I will consider the bill as a whole and reiterate some points that my colleagues have made.
There has been, on the part of successive UK Governments and the current UK Government in particular, an undue focus on irregular migration. The increased criminalisation of migrants completely ignores the contributions that they make to our economy, our demography, our society, our communities and our culture.
The UK Government seems to be obsessed with immigrants—everything is the fault of immigration. Sometimes, immigrants can be too easy a lightning rod for accusations about the faults in our society. There are economic faults because we have not been careful enough with the economy, but we hear, “Let’s blame the immigrants.” We have not brought forward the correct housing legislation, but we hear, “Let’s blame the immigrants.” Whatever the problems—be they with education, the health service or anything else—people say, “Let’s blame the immigrants.”
That is the completely incorrect approach to take. It ignores the important point that immigrants have made an incredible contribution to this country. A report by University College London showed that, between 2001 and 2011, European Union migrants alone contributed £21 billion to the economy. It also showed that non-EU migrants have made a considerable contribution to this country over the years and decades.
The Scottish Government supports a system of sensible, managed migration that meets the needs of Scotland’s economy and society. Alongside our efforts to create more jobs and develop the skills of our workforce, we must be able to attract and retain world-class talent to fill the vacancies that cannot be filled by resident workers.