Meeting of the Parliament 14 November 2023
I do not think that we will get an answer as to why no mitigation is forthcoming.
As I said in my answer to Kate Forbes, a UK Labour Government would reform and strengthen the Migration Advisory Committee so that it has input from across the nations and regions of the UK to ensure that a visa system can work for all nations and regions, not just Scotland. That is why a UK Labour Government would follow through on a plan to fix the asylum system, scrapping the unethical and unworkable Rwanda scheme and reforming the legal routes for refugees to ensure that people are no longer exploited by smuggling gangs. That is the height of my ambition for this country.
When the people of Scotland are thinking about a more realistic, more actionable plan to support Scotland’s population and reform migration in this country, there are two visions to compare: a Labour plan that can be enacted at speed from day 1 of a UK Labour Government next year, and the Scottish National Party’s proposal, which involves wishing on the never-never to set up a migration system the look of which we are not certain about, while failing to deal with the real issues that exist right now. The Scottish Government is choosing not to mitigate or to deal with those issues in the myriad of ways that are available to it. That is why I am pleased to move the amendment in my name.
I move amendment S6M-11237.2, to leave out from first “welcomes” to end and insert:
“deplores the UK Conservative administration’s hostile rhetoric towards migrants; notes the Scottish Government paper, Migration to Scotland after independence; agrees that a decline in the working population would damage Scotland’s public services and economy; expresses its concern that recent UK and Scottish governments have left Scotland lacking the skills that it needs for the future; welcomes, therefore, the commitment from the UK Labour Party to build an immigration system that works for all the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, and agrees that, as well as ensuring that skills bodies in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK are frequently consulted, in order to inform the immigration system, there is more that the Scottish Government should be doing now to plan for the skills needs in the Scottish economy.”
15:19Motions, questions or amendments mentioned by their reference code.