Skills and Labour Shortages

Joanna Cherry Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) on securing this very important debate. She has given us an excellent exposition—referring to data, expert research and statistics—of the extent of the problem we face across the United Kingdom in relation to skills and labour shortages.

Like me, as a Scottish Member of Parliament, she has focused on the particular problems that the Scottish economy faces as a result of the loss of free movement, particularly because of our demographics. Her message was clear: we have lost a lot as a result of the end of free movement. What has replaced it involves far too much red tape for employers, and indeed for universities, which I will come to in a moment. That red tape needs to be cut. The British Government must not be prisoners of their own rhetoric; we need change driven by common sense. We in the SNP would like to have retained free movement. Our ultimate aim is to become an independent nation and rejoin the European Union, and again enjoy the benefits of free movement. However, while we are in our current situation as part of the United Kingdom, we would like the British Government to take a much more pragmatic approach to replacing what has been lost as a result of the end of free movement.

The right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Theresa Villiers) made an important contribution on the importance of apprenticeships. I commend her and her cross-party colleagues on the work they do in the all-party parliamentary group on apprenticeships. We have a good news story to tell about apprenticeships in Scotland. That is not just the view of the Scottish Government; Liz Cameron, the chief executive of Scottish Chambers of Commerce, wrote in The Press and Journal just nine days ago that

“apprenticeships and the services delivered by Skills Development Scotland”—

the Scottish Government’s national skills agency—are

“a shining example of aligning with economic trends and industry demand”.

At the moment, 12,000 companies in Scotland are employing apprentices and 43,000 people are employed in apprentice training, so that is a good news story for Scotland.

Turning to the remarks made by the hon. Member for Wirral West (Margaret Greenwood), it was very important that she reminded us of the need to look at the long term as well as the short term, although, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran said, we face an acute short-term problem. However, it is important to look at the long-term problem. It was good to hear what the hon. Member for Wirral West said about adult education, which was based on her experience as a former adult education tutor. We will all have experience of constituents or family members whose lives and working capabilities have been transformed by adult education.

Very importantly, the hon. Lady also reminded us of the contribution that trade unions can make to improving skills and addressing labour shortages. Indeed, the Labour spokesperson, the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), intervened on the hon. Member for Wirral West on that subject. It is important in this week particularly—when the trade unions are coming under attack from the Government, and the right of freedom of association and the right to strike are coming under attack—for us to remember what an enormous contribution trade unions make to the life of the nations of this Union, in encouraging people to move forward in their employment and gain new skills, particularly through their adult education programmes. It was good to hear something positive about the contribution of trade unions to our society.

Last, but most certainly not least, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about the difficulty of filling vacancies in the food production sector in his constituency. That is a familiar story across the United Kingdom for those of us who have those sorts of services in our constituencies. He also spoke about the difficulties faced by small businesses, such as coffee shops and those in the hospitality sector, which have a quick turnover of employees. I can speak from personal experience, as my constituency is in the centre of Edinburgh and contains a big chunk of the financial sector. There are lots of little coffee shops that face that problem, particularly now that they cannot employ expert baristas from nations in the European Union.

The hon. Gentleman also spoke passionately about an issue that was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran: the need to let our asylum seekers work. I will say more about that in a moment. In my constituency of Edinburgh South West, we have faced particular employment problems in hospitality venues. I have met many business owners in the food and drink sector who are struggling to attract and retain staff. They are struggling with increasing wage bills, a lack of available staff, and increasing food and energy inflation, which all makes for a difficult situation. I am sure many hon. and right hon. Members will have had the experience over the holiday period of being unable to book a table to eat and then walking into a half-empty restaurant, only to be told that no tables were available because the restaurant was operating under capacity due to staff shortages. As a result of the pandemic, I have been holidaying at home a lot more, and I have noticed staff shortages in hospitality venues across Scotland and in the north of England, where I have been on holiday.

Heineken UK is headquartered in my constituency. Through its Star Pubs & Bars, it leases almost 2,500 pubs and bars across the United Kingdom. It tells me that feedback from its licensees is that staffing is a really big problem for them and that, in particular, a shortage of chefs is forcing many pubs and restaurants to close for one or two days a week, so that they need only one chef and one team to work for the other five days. That helps the business to survive, but it means losing one or two days’ trade per week. Consumers get used to fewer visits to the restaurant or pub, and that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and creates problems in the sector.

I mentioned the role of universities. I have two major universities in my constituency—Heriot-Watt University and Edinburgh Napier University—and many academics and administrative staff from the University of Edinburgh live there. I have had a lot of communication, particularly from professors, about how Government mismanagement of policies such as the academic technology approval scheme is preventing talented postgraduate students from overseas from coming to study in Edinburgh, which means that our universities are losing out on some of the best PhD candidates. That has a deep impact on UK skills and research. Often if those people come here to study at a high level, they end up working here. We need to be encouraging that, not discouraging it.

Another acute problem in Scotland is in the renewables sector. Obviously, the renewables sector is an integral part of the Scottish economy, and becomes more and more important as we attempt to make the just transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy necessitated by the climate crisis. One of my colleagues recently spoke to Green Cat Renewables, a group of successful Scottish companies located in Scotland whose shareholders are based in Scotland. For the past 17 years, it has been servicing the renewable energy and low-carbon sectors, but in recent years its ability to grow and service that market has been significantly hampered by the availability of suitably skilled staff. It told us that it has been at the forefront of developing subsidy-free renewable projects, multi-technology projects, and behind-the-meter and private wire projects. Since 2019, it has been growing steadily. However, as the country has come out of the pandemic, it has seen an unprecedented increase in the number of inquiries for new business, which it simply cannot keep up with, as its growth rate has slowed because it cannot get the skilled staff it needs. That means that it may lose out to international competitors. It pointed out to us that Governments in other jurisdictions subsidise part of the salary of fresh graduates and the retraining of candidates while they are in training. The Government could also help by assisting with the cost of training, new software and other resources.

As my hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran said, the Minister will probably want to deflect away from Brexit matters and focus on the slowness of the recovery of the labour supply and economic activity since the pandemic. I am sure the Government will also say that they have responded to some needs through the health and social care visa and the seasonal agricultural visa, but the fact remains that the supply of labour is not keeping pace with the return to economic activity. The Government must not be allowed to use the pandemic or the war in Ukraine to deflect from the effects of Brexit and the loss of free movement on our labour market, particularly in Scotland, where we have the demographic problems that my hon. Friend referred to.

The Scottish Government do not have full competence in these areas, and do not have competence over immigration. We have asked for it. We would like to see immigration devolved. As my hon. Friend said, other countries that have federal or provincial systems, such as Canada, allow the provinces to have their visa. That is what we want for Scotland, and indeed across the UK, although ultimately we want Scotland to become an independent country, return to the EU and get all the benefits that freedom of movement brings.

Finally, I would like to say something about giving asylum seekers the right to work, about which my hon. Friend and the hon. Member for Strangford spoke passionately. The Joint Committee on Human Rights, which I chair, took evidence yesterday afternoon about the rights of asylum seekers. We heard that they do not have the right to work while their claim is being decided unless they have waited more than 12 months. Even then, they can work only in jobs on the shortage occupation list. There is currently a campaign called Lift the Ban that aims to lift the ban on working and allow asylum seekers to work after six months, and not limit their opportunities to the shortage occupation list. The reality is that the majority of people who claim asylum in this country go on to get asylum, so they are going to be staying here. Why not give them the dignity of working and make them economically useful to the country that is going to become their home while they wait for their asylum application to be processed? Yesterday we heard that, as of October last year, 85% of the small boat arrivals who had received an initial decision on their application had been granted asylum or another form of humanitarian protection. That is 85% of the people who we are told should not be here at all. Many of them are bringing all sorts of skills that would benefit our country.

I was distressed to hear yesterday about the practice of dispersing asylum seekers and moving them from place to place with minimal notice, which means that their children often have their education interrupted. A child will have just got settled in a school and then his or her family are moved on. As well as being distressing for the child, it disrupts their education. That child will grow up to stay and live in the United Kingdom, and we need him or her to have a good education so that they can contribute to our economy.

The Government are not doing many things that they could be. Giving asylum seekers the right to work is just one glaring example that would save us a lot of money and contribute a huge amount to our economy. My hon. Friend the Member for North Ayrshire and Arran listed other examples, and I am looking forward to hearing some concrete answers to her asks when the Minister sums up.