Hansard

I welcome the opportunity to celebrate the news that Scotland has welcomed over 1,000 refugees since last year. Let me be explicit: today in the chamber, we are talking about refugees—not migrants, which the preceding speaker mentioned.

The determination that everyone involved has shown to ensure the successful settlement of those families has been exemplary and it has made me really proud of my fellow country folk. I hope that that work continues and that our success to date will ensure that more refugee families can be given the same welcoming start to the rest of their lives, safe here in Scotland.

The scale of the current crisis has been well described, as have the challenges. Like Ivan McKee, I want to focus on a small local success story. I want to take the opportunity to welcome the four Syrian families who have settled in Alness in Easter Ross. Fàilte gu Alba. In May this year, they became the first refugees to be settled in the Highlands. Four families equals 23 people, who—if you have heard me speak before—we badly need in the Highlands. We are all bursting with pride to see the wonderful work that the people of Alness did to give them a warm Highland welcome. I congratulate all of the partners who were involved. The families’ settlement was co-ordinated by the Highland Third Sector Interface, and numerous organisations made vital contributions.

Everything was taken care of—from language practice to shopping. New Start Highland’s staff not only furnished the refugees’ houses, but made sure that they felt at home in them. The organisation Highlands Support Refugees put together clothing parcels, toys, cleaning kits and extra bedding to ensure that the refugees could turn their houses into homes. Rosskeen free church provided training and meeting space for everyone to use, along with their minibus. Inverness mosque provided food parcels for each of the incoming families, as well as financing a day out to Landmark forest adventure park. A day out at Landmark has been enjoyed by nearly every family in the Highlands so it is great that our new Highland families were also able to enjoy that experience—I know that that means a great deal to them. In the public sector, Highland Council and Police Scotland have been phenomenal. Those organisations and similar organisations around Scotland have been crucial to the success of the resettlement programme.

In Scotland, we are definitely taking our responsibility seriously, and we have welcomed more than a third of the UK’s Syrian refugees. We must continue to press the UK Government to accept more refugees faster and to improve the asylum system so that the whole of the UK can help. It is absolutely appalling that so many people have died when we could have saved lives. While the Scottish Government has been working hard to ensure that we welcome refugees to our country and help them settle into their new lives, it seems that the UK Government has been more concerned with planning a Trump-inspired wall in Calais to keep the refugees out.

People and communities all over Scotland can be proud of our achievement. We are showing real leadership as an outward-looking and compassionate country. It is great to live in the kind of country that cares for all of the world’s citizens—we are all Jock Tamson’s bairns.

One thousand refugees settled in Scotland is 1,000 lives made safe and 1,000 people freed from the perils and burdens experienced by refugees every day. I praise the excellent work that has led to Scotland reaching that important milestone, but it has to be seen as only that—a milestone, not the finish line. There are still thousands of people who have been forced to become refugees through no fault of their own, and more refugees are created every day because of the civil war in Syria.

No one takes the decision to leave their home and become a refugee unless they see no other option. No one decides to live in a refugee camp, with limited food and medical resources, unless they see no other option. No one boards an overcrowded boat, risking death by drowning for themselves and their families, unless they see no other option.

In the space of one week at the end of May this year, it was estimated that 1,000 refugees died attempting the perilous crossing of the Mediterranean. Our birthright here in Scotland means that our people do not have to make that type of life-or-death decision. We are in the lucky position of being able to help those who do. That is why we cannot afford to rest on our laurels.

We have a responsibility not only to continue to take in and resettle refugees, but to encourage other countries and other parts of the UK to do the same. Scotland is doing what it can to address the refugee crisis. It is now time for the UK to step up and do the same.