Ian Murray
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Scotland: Demography and Devolution
Ian Murray Excerpts(7 years, 2 months ago)
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Brendan O'Hara (Argyll and Bute) (SNP)
As always, Mr McCabe, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
I begin by commending the report of the Scottish Affairs Committee. It is a significant contribution to the debate and it is supported by numerous experts. It makes it very clear that Scotland’s population needs to grow and that Scotland requires immigration in order to make that happen.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and North Perthshire (Pete Wishart) rightly said, the United Kingdom’s population is projected to increase by 15%, while it is reckoned that the population of my constituency of Argyll and Bute will fall by 8%. That situation is unsustainable and unworkable, because despite being an exceptionally beautiful part of the world, my constituency is—almost uniquely—suffering depopulation. We have an ageing and increasingly non-economically active population, and our young people are leaving to spend their economically productive years outside Argyll and Bute.
We desperately need people to come to work in our rural communities. We need EU nationals and others to be able to come to Argyll and Bute, and we welcome the overwhelmingly positive contribution they make day in and day out to Argyll and Bute and to Scotland generally. We need that to continue, so we need a system that will allow Scotland to find a bespoke immigration policy, one in which Scotland’s needs are met, rather than simply being subsumed into the needs of the rest of the United Kingdom, and—
Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)
I apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman; he was in full flow and I perhaps should have waited. Nevertheless, I am delighted to be able to intervene now.
In this report, we have concentrated a lot on migration. I agree with the report, which says there should be a much more flexible approach to immigration, right across the country—in all parts of the UK and not just in Scotland. Indeed, there is maybe even an argument for internal Scottish-type different approaches to immigration. One of the key recommendations of the report was about the number of young people in particular who leave Scotland to live in the rest of the United Kingdom. We need to find ways of making sure that those young people not only stay but are able to contribute to the economy. That is not about migration, because I am talking about young Scots who are moving. How does he suggest that we should deal with that issue?