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Scotland: Demography and Devolution

I am grateful to the Minister for leaving me a few minutes to sum up what has been an important and informative debate. First, I thank my colleagues from the Scottish Affairs Committee, my hon. Friends the Members for Dundee West (Chris Law), for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) and for Edinburgh North and Leith (Deidre Brock), for contributing to the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara) for contributing, too, as well as the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson) and the Minister.

I could have written that Government response. We saw it with the woeful response we had to our report, which was an in-depth look at the demographic requirements and population needs of Scotland. We hear this again and again—it always seems to boil down to the same thing. We raise lots of important issues and facts, and we sit and take evidence across Scotland, going to places such as the Isle of Skye, and people tell us clearly that we have particular issues when it comes to the demographic quality of our community and society. They ask us as a Committee and as Members of Parliament to take that issue forward, to do a report and to look at what we could do to resolve these problems and give Scotland some sort of chance to address them properly. We bring them to the Minister and the Minister says, “We’re not interested. All we are interested in is a one-size-fits-all UK immigration policy right across the United Kingdom.”

That is a singular failure to take into account the specific requirements and difficult challenges we have. We are left in a dreadful situation by the Minister. We are leaving the European Union against our national collective will. We wanted nothing whatever to do with that. Only one Member of Parliament was returned from Scotland with a pledge to have a referendum on the European Union. We voted against that referendum when it came to Parliament. Our nation voted to remain in the European Union. We put forward the solution that would spare us the worst of the madness by keeping us in the single market, which is just about to be rejected by the Government. Again and again, they give us no opportunity and no hope to try to address the real issues, problems and concerns that we consistently raise.

I do not know what a single UK immigration policy is. I do not think even the Minister knows what a single immigration policy is as we approach Brexit. I thought it was going to be a points-based system, but the UK Independence Party’s points-based system is actually too liberal for the Government, so they are looking to design something else. He talks about a single UK immigration policy, but I would like to know what that looks like. I suspect and suggest that he does not even know that himself—and he is only the Immigration Minister, bless him.

We need to say that there is something going on within our United Kingdom; something is singularly not working. A part of the United Kingdom has emerged, the nation of Scotland, which has a whole different history, culture and approach to issues of immigration and emigration, and that requires to be addressed. There is a particular difficulty with the quality of our demography, our ageing population and the shrinking of our working-age population, and that needs to be looked at and needs solutions. If the Government are not prepared to do that for Scotland—I sense they are not, because we keep bringing it to them and they keep on saying no and, to a certain extent, “Just get stuffed”—they must devolve responsibility to the Scottish Government, who are prepared to do the work. If the Minister sits complacently, just telling us that we have to go along with what the UK Government decide, that is not good enough. He must devolve these policy areas to the Scottish Government so that we can do the critical work required to address the issues identified in the report.

The requirements, problems and challenges are many, and they are manifest. If we do not start to challenge and address them, Scotland will be economically disadvantaged. We cannot proceed with a population gap to the rest of the United Kingdom, and we cannot proceed with a dependency ratio that is out of kilter with the rest of the UK. If we try to do that, there will be a cost to our economy and our community, and that will have an impact on every single constituency in Scotland.

England is different. We accept that. We know there is something particular going on when it comes to immigration in England that requires a different type of solution. However, the situation for England practically works against the interests of the nation of Scotland. That is why we require a different immigration solution. We require the powers to attack and challenge the issues we are confronted with.

If the Minister is not prepared to work with us in order to do that, he has to devolve the powers to us now. He has to give us the opportunity to address them, because if he does not there will be real issues and problems for Scotland’s economy. We have a way to deal with that if the Minister does not do it: we are at 50% for independence today—what a place to start for a new independence campaign. If he will not listen and will singularly, defiantly refuse to give us the powers, we will take them in a referendum of the Scottish people. Then we will get the powers, and then we will make progress.

Motion lapsed (Standing Order No. 10(6)).