Spending Review 2025: Scotland

Debate between Harriet Cross and Stephen Gethins

Wednesday 2nd July 2025 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to be with you this morning, Sir John. I congratulate the hon. Member for Dunfermline and Dollar (Graeme Downie) on securing the debate and on making the points that he made.

The hon. Member, like other Labour Members, in particular, seems to like talking about the Scottish Government, who are not answerable to this place, rather than the UK Government, who are. To be fair, I am not surprised. We saw after last night’s debacle that they would rather talk about anything but the Labour Government, who have delivered very little over the past year apart from chaos and a continuation of failed Conservative policies—not much change there.

The fact is that this place still has a profound impact on the Scottish Parliament. It is where the majority of its budget comes from and it has a huge impact on the policies that can be pursued in the Scottish Parliament, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) will be well aware as a founding member of that institution, which he rightly highlighted. Scotland is still hampered by migration policies and the hostile environment, as we have witnessed recently at the University of Dundee, whose losses are overwhelmingly attributable to the drop in international students as a direct result of those policies.

[Harriet Cross]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Stephen Gethins]

On that point, gladly.

[Harriet Cross]

I thank the hon. Member so much for giving way so gladly. I have visited universities recently, too, and they also point to the real-terms cut in funding from the Scottish Government having a real impact on their budgets. In the interests of fairness, will he reflect on that too?

[Stephen Gethins]

I will gladly reflect on that, but I make the point to the hon. Lady—let us take universities as an example—that at the University of Dundee, the difference between Scottish and English fee income would not even have covered the national insurance increase, and that increase was further dwarfed by the reduction in international student income. Under the Conservative Government, universities had been encouraged to go out and recruit internationally, and they were joined in that venture by Ministers before the Conservatives changed their mind.

I am sure that we will all agree that the internationalisation of our universities has been a positive thing. I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests: it has been a privilege to work at the University of St Andrews, where internationalisation enhances both the learning process and the research, making us all better off in the process. However, the changes to migration policy had so great an impact—I am sure that the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross) will agree with me about this—that I asked the Home Secretary to come to Dundee and visit the institution, just to see and learn. She refused. Perhaps the Minister could encourage another Home Office Minister to visit.

I touched earlier on national insurance increases, which are hobbling businesses and therefore growth. Those have a particular impact on small businesses, which cannot expand or recruit. That has been raised not just by me and my SNP colleagues, but by other colleagues in the House. Even though Labour MPs want to do anything but talk about a Labour Government —that is quite telling in its own right—the increases have an impact, and the Labour Government deserve to be held to account.

Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill

Debate between Harriet Cross and Stephen Gethins

2nd reading
Friday 25th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Gethins]

We will also have enjoyed berries from Perthshire—and even Aberdeenshire. All of that depends on migration. I know that, in order to improve their work here, Members will try, whenever possible, to engage with and listen to constituents. I am not asking us all to come to the same conclusion, but it is in that engagement that we all seek to do our work better.

The hospitality and tourism industry is vital for rural and remote communities, for every sector in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. Leon Thompson, the executive director of UKHospitality Scotland, says:

“The hospitality and tourism industry across Scotland has been calling for a Scotland visa for some time. We believe it really is one of the ways in which we can help address the skills and workforce shortage that we have in the industry.”

The Scottish Tourism Alliance says:

“Failure to find a tailored solution risks having a further detrimental impact on the economy and opportunities for economic growth”

as staff shortages are leading to tourism and hospitality businesses closing for longer outside the summer visit season, reducing opening hours and shutting down certain services, such as food offers in hotels.

Regardless of our own thoughts, we can see straightaway the impact that has on growth and the sustainability of our services. The Scottish Tourism Alliance also says:

“Introducing a Scottish specific visa scheme not only would match immigration to the demand for certain skills”—

as it has done for centuries—

“but also encourage more people coming to live and work in Scotland, particularly in rural and island communities that are experiencing a drain in people of working age and families.”

[Harriet Cross (Gordon and Buchan) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way and for bringing forward this debate, which is interesting if nothing else. How does the SNP suggest we encourage people to live in Scotland, and particularly rural Scotland, given that anyone in Scotland earning over £28,500 pays more income tax; local government has a £760 billion-odd shortfall, which affects rural communities more, given how money is spent over a larger area; and Scotland has a housing crisis? How do those things attract people?

[Stephen Gethins]

I will maybe leave aside some of the hon. Lady’s sums—I am not sure whether she has been reading Labour briefings—but she does make a valuable point about rural areas, and I acknowledge her commitment to her constituency and her rural background. I commend her for the way she conducts herself in this place. There are a number of points here.

We know that bringing workers to rural areas, and the very high threshold to bring people into the country, is a challenge—that is not new—which is why so many rural industries have been calling out for a Scottish visa system to plug that gap. What is Scottish Government policy? Well, we have talked with our Labour colleagues —although not, I would expect, the Conservative party, for ideological reasons—about having a more progressive taxation system in which those who earn less pay less, and those who earn more pay more. I will not criticise the hon. Member for Gordon and Buchan (Harriet Cross), who stood for election on a Conservative manifesto and won, but I am always surprised that the Labour party does not take the opportunity to endorse such a system more strongly.

Some 70% of the Scottish Government’s budget still comes in the form of a block grant from Westminster—that is a huge amount. For all the talk we have heard of decentralisation, empowerment and so on, why do we not have a more sensible approach to that?