Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill

Debate between Ian Murray and Harriet Cross

2nd reading
Friday 25th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

We should not rerun the Brexit debate in this House, but it is worth acknowledging that the Bill is written in a different way from what the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry wants to deliver. He wants to pretend that it will go to Committee, and we will all sit around the campfire with marshmallows and decide on a wonderful way forward, but that is not what the Bill says.

My hon. Friend gets to the heart of the problem, because ultimately this is all to do with the advancement of the Scottish National party’s independence agenda. Nothing else gets them out of bed in the morning. I get out of bed in the morning to try to make sure that everybody in this country, including in my constituency, has better lives and better opportunities. SNP Members get out of bed to push for independence. That is the difference. When the Division bells rang on that occasion—I remember it very well—everybody thought that the vote would be carried. Those SNP Members sat on their hands and the vote was lost by six. All their credibility in trying to push something else through was completely shot at that moment—and do not forget that they also pushed for the 2019 general election at the same time.

I will now canter through page 2 of my speech. It is important for us to work together to ensure positive integration outcomes and improved processes overall. Let me turn to the valuable contribution that workers from overseas make to our economy, our public services and national life throughout the United Kingdom. As the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry has highlighted, the remote parts of Scotland face depopulation issues, and they have for a long time—I talk to my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) about this on a regular basis. Skills shortages also remain across Scotland, as they do in different places across the UK. Indeed, according to the latest population projections from the National Records of Scotland, the factors driving population change are exactly the same across the whole United Kingdom.

[Harriet Cross]

The Secretary of State mentions depopulation in rural areas of Scotland and deskilling. North-east Scotland—as I am sure he is aware, because we have mentioned it more than once in this Chamber—is facing exactly that because of Labour’s policies on the North sea. Skills are being driven abroad at an unimaginable rate compared with the rest of the UK. We are depopulating and deskilling the north-east of Scotland because of Labour’s North sea oil and gas policies. Will he reflect on that or at least accept that that is the impact Labour is having on north-east Scotland?

[Ian Murray]

I was in the north-east of Scotland yesterday, in Buckie, turning on one of the largest offshore wind farms. Ocean Winds employs 45 to 70 local people from a 40-mile radius from Buckie. That is the kind of opportunity there is. Most of the people in Ocean Winds were from the oil and gas sector. There is no disagreement about the challenge, which is about how we transition a world-class, highly skilled workforce from an industry that is declining because of the age and maturity of the basin to the new opportunities and industry. There is no doubt that the green revolution is one of the biggest economic opportunities this country has had in generations, and we need grab hold of it. I also met Offshore Energies UK yesterday and had very productive discussions its representatives about Government policy and the consultation on the North sea transition. Those discussions will obviously continue.

These issues—as I have laid out, based on the National Records of Scotland—are not unique to Scotland, nor have they been solved by the increase in net migration in recent years. The Bill would not address the issues that the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry has raised, because the reasons that the resident population moves away from an area will also encourage any migrant population to follow suit as soon as they are allowed. The former Chair of the Scottish Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire, mentioned Quebec. I have tried to have this checked—if it is slightly incorrect, I will write to the hon. Gentleman—but when I was in Quebec back in 2013, it had introduced a particular social care visa because it had a particular social care problem. It had to scrap that visa, because after the end of the two-year restrictions, everyone moved to other parts of Canada to work. Most went to Alberta to work in the oil and gas sector. That is a key point about having a different system from the one that is part of those net migration figures.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ian Murray and Harriet Cross

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

The national mission of this Labour Government is to get to clean power by 2030, but that means three things: renewable power, nuclear power, and oil and gas. As I have said already, oil and gas will be with us in the Scottish and UK context for decades to come.

[Harriet Cross]

A recent report by Offshore Energies UK showed that if the UK oil and gas basin continued to be used until 2050, it could produce half our oil and gas needs. That would do wonders for jobs in the north-east of Scotland, the north-east economy, our energy security and the energy transition, and it would also bring in £12 billion to the Treasury. On top of that, it would bring in £150 billion of economic growth to the UK, which I am sure everyone in this House and the Government would welcome. Will the Secretary of State please have a word with the Energy Secretary and ask him to stop his policies, which are continuing to ruin our oil and gas sector, and for once back north-east Scotland?

[Ian Murray]

On the oil and gas sector in 2050, I have already mentioned at the Dispatch Box, as has the Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, that oil and gas will be with us for decades to come, including to 2050.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Ian Murray and Harriet Cross

Wednesday 5th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Ian Murray]

Sorry, Mr Speaker. I lost the thread of that question about halfway through, but one thing I did take from it is that it was absolutely identical to the question from the Tory shadow Secretary of State. That tells you all you need to know.

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

4. What assessment he has made of the potential impact of changes to employer national insurance contributions on levels of employment in Scotland.