Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill

Debate between Ian Murray and Nusrat Ghani

2nd reading
Friday 25th April 2025 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Scotland (Ian Murray)]

May I begin by thanking all Members for their contributions, and the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) for bringing the Bill before us today? I am slightly confused, after his 42-minute contribution, about what he is actually promoting. He seems to be suggesting that the Bill should pass and go into Committee, and then he will invent another Bill to do different things. The Bill before us, which is what we should be debating, is a short Bill that would essentially remove immigration from schedule 5 to the Scotland Act 1998 and devolve it wholly to the Scottish Parliament. As I have said before, if nothing is in schedule 5—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. Forgive me, I may have misheard, but did you say it was a 42-minute contribution?

[Ian Murray]

Maybe it was 41 minutes.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

It was a 50-minute contribution.

[Ian Murray]

I stand corrected, Madam Deputy Speaker. It was an even longer contribution, at 50 minutes, and the hon. Member was still not honest about what the Bill does. The Bill before us today devolves the entirety of the immigration system to Scotland.

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[Johanna Baxter]

On the point about social care, does my right hon. Friend agree that instead of looking to a one-line Bill on immigration to solve the issues in social care in Scotland, perhaps the SNP Government in Holyrood could have avoided wasting £28 million on a flawed national care service Bill, which was ill-conceived and ill-thought-out, much like the Bill that is before us today? Perhaps instead they could have invested that money in properly paying the workers who carry out the care. [Interruption.] Sorry?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. The debate is taking place with the Secretary of State, who has the floor.

[Ian Murray]

I agree with my hon. Friend. Look at the money that was wasted for the national care service—again, just another headline in the newspapers that the SNP required in the run-up to an election. It also wasted £680 million setting up Social Security Scotland and wants to put in place a new immigration system that will not require checks, any money, or a border between Scotland and England. The key thing here, which SNP Members do not want to admit and which they voted against, is that this UK Labour Government just gave the Scottish Government the largest settlement in the history of the Scottish Parliament—£4.9 billion more—and there is still a social care crisis in Scotland. That tells us all we need to know about where they spent the money. If SNP Members want to pop up and tell us where they have spent it, I am sure that the Scottish people watching this debate would be pleased to hear from them.

It is important to address the underlying issues in a sustainable way and investigate other levers to encourage people to stay, such as boosting attractive job opportunities, affordable housing, which we have discussed, local services, transport link connectivity and suitable local infrastructure. This could include investing in the area or offering taxation incentives to individuals and businesses to do so, as we are seeing with some of the initiatives going on in Scotland at the moment.

I acknowledge the consideration that the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry has given to Scottish visas and his views on them, but a separate Scottish visa or a separate immigration system are not things that the Government are currently considering, nor have we asked the independent Migration Advisory Committee to consider them. That is a straightforward Government policy.

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[Ian Murray]

SNP Members keep shouting “Immigration!”, but as the Migration Advisory Committee has said, the immigration issue is complex, because it is about housing, health, education, skills, work and employment, and this is the First Minister’s record on that.

That is not all that the First Minister did as Education Secretary. We all remember the disgrace of working-class kids being marked down by the First Minister and the Scottish Qualifications Authority during the pandemic. Under him, poorer kids were penalised by postcode—penalised by their poverty. Poorer kids could not be getting the results that they were getting, so they were marked down. Bright and from a working-class area? The First Minister did not believe that you deserved the grades that your teachers decided you should have got.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. This is a very interesting riff on education, but can we get back to the immigration point, please?

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[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I am not sure if I am thankful for that point of order. The Chair is overseeing the debate. I have listened to it very closely. I appreciate that it is about immigration. I know that the Bill is very thin—it is only two pages long—but it is broad in scope. I will continue to listen very closely to the Secretary of State, and he will ensure that his comments are within scope of the Bill.

[Ian Murray]

If my comments fall out of scope, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would be very happy for you to tell me, as you have the right to, and as you do so well; I will then change my remarks. However, the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire spent three quarters of his rather lengthy contribution talking about the same issues that I am addressing. He may want to reflect on that.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. That is twice! “You” refers to the Chair. I think that is the end of that intervention. I call the Secretary of State.

[Ian Murray]

Just for clarity for Members of this House who are not Scottish, free personal care was a Labour policy of the last Labour Administration in Scotland. Let me deal directly with that intervention, which was well-meaning. The reason why we are talking about health is that the issue concerns the birth rate. We have heard already about the lack of maternity services, and the lack of maternity and paternity support, both pre-birth and post-birth. They are a key part of whether people determine to have more children.

People may have in the back of their mind the question of whether they want to go to Scotland and sit on a waiting list with one in seven of their fellow Scots, or want to live somewhere where the waiting lists are going down. Do they want to live in Scotland, where the Government have passed an Act committing to a 62-day waiting time, but have not met that target in 13 years? Do they want to be on an NHS waiting list that is 26% longer today than it was last year? Do they want to be in a place where in the first nine months of 2024, over 36,500 procedures were paid for by patients because they had to get their cataracts, hip and knee replacements done? They even had to pay for rounds of chemotherapy because their choice was pay or pain. That is the choice that this Scottish Government have given to patients. There is a two-tier NHS in Scotland: one for those who can pay, and one for those who have to wait in pain. Despite that abysmal backlog and Scots being forced to go private, almost 50,000 fewer operations are carried out a year than before the pandemic.

Does the hon. Gentleman want to intervene and say whether I have answered his question about why health is relevant to the debate? Perhaps not. The bodies responsible for community health and social care—a sector with a fair proportion of international workers—face a funding gap in Scotland of £457 million. Councils that have been slashed to the bone are responsible for social care services. The outsourcing of social care services and the driving down of wages are the only options that councils have been left with because of the constant underfunding of social care by the Scottish Government.

I make no apology for highlighting the SNP’s record in Scotland on the issues that it is responsible for. SNP Members never want to talk about the powers they have—just the powers that they do not have. But let me be slightly more positive and talk about our working together in a spirit of co-operation. The hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry might want to reflect on this. I will share an example of Scotland’s two Governments working together on an immigration issue. Last August, 19 female Afghan medical students, barred by the Taliban in Afghanistan from completing their medical university studies, arrived in Scotland to train to become doctors. Previously, the women were confined to their homes and unable to contribute to their society through a medical career. Many feared for not just their careers but their lives. They felt that their lives were in danger, and they lived in fear of the Taliban.

The UK Government’s Scotland Office proposed student visas as an alternative route to using the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, and the Scottish Government confirmed that they would introduce legislation to amend student funding regulations to ensure that the women could attend Scottish medical schools and complete their studies. It was a tremendous effort of co-operation between the UK and Scottish Governments, brokered by the wonderful Linda Norgrove Foundation. Linda Norgrove was an aid worker from the Western Isles in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar. The foundation was set up by Linda Norgrove’s parents John and Lorna in memory of their daughter, who was kidnapped and died during a failed rescue attempt in Afghanistan in October 2010.

The foundation aims to support women and children affected by war in Afghanistan. It has raised more than £3 million since it was established in 2010, which has been spent on a wide range of projects, from literacy programmes to calligraphy classes. It had been providing scholarships for women to study medicine, dentistry, the law and business at university. That came to an end when the Taliban banned women from attending university. On behalf of the UK Government, and I am sure the Scottish Government, I commend the foundation for its ongoing extraordinary work on this aspect of immigration. I highlight it not to make a political point, but because it shows that when we have an issue that needs to be resolved and the Scottish and UK Governments can work together, we can resolve these kinds of issues directly. Those Afghan women, when they complete their medical studies in Scotland, can contribute so much to the country and to their future.

This Government look forward to publishing the immigration White Paper. We will reduce immigration and work to provide Scotland with the economic growth, jobs and opportunities that it deserves and needs. We will continue to work with the Scottish Government on delivering for Scotland—we have reset that relationship—but we will also respect the devolution settlement. However, the UK Government do not believe that this Bill, devolving further powers on immigration, is the solution to Scotland’s depopulation or skills shortage. We need both Governments working together in this vital area, and if the Scottish Government are not willing to do that, I suggest that they stand aside next year and allow Labour to do it for them.