Christine Grahame
Scottish National Party · Scotland
“To ask the Scottish Government what discussions it has had with the United Kingdom Government regarding whether any of the support announced in response to the increased cost of heating oil will help the agriculture sector and other rural industries in Scotland that are dependent on that fuel. (S6O- 05695)”
“At a recent First Minister’s question time, I raised the matter of the successful prosecution against the Hamiltons, who are part of the cruel puppy- farm trade. That case was concluded after a five- year investigation by the SSPCA that started when 33 puppies were found in dreadful conditions.”
“Of course, some can go online or use an app, but there will be many who cannot, and for them, it is essential that they speak to a real person at the bank, not a chatbot. Therefore, I would impress upon the Bank of Scotland the need for it to take up my suggestion of reintroducing mobile services, which I understand it abandoned in 2024.”
“My first prize at school was for an essay on animal welfare, but being a vet was out of reach for a girl from a council house scheme. However, I got to the right place at last, chairing the cross- party group on animal welfare for more than a decade, with two acts of Parliament—the Control of Dogs (Scotland) Act 2010 and the Welfare of Do…”
“I made my first speech in June 1999, and one Mary Scanlon, a Conservative, broke my peroration—I thought that I was doing rather well—with a point of order that challenged the relevance of my contribution to the motion. I was devastated, but I ploughed on.”
“The Scottish Sentencing Council is developing guidelines for environmental and wildlife crime, but companion and farm animal welfare cases, which make up the vast majority of investigations, are not included.”
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“She says: “I was told that to get my state pension that I would have to apply for it so at 58 I contacted the DWP to better understand how I go about this. I was then told that I would not get my state pension until I was 66 years old. I was shocked and said but you never told me to which they replied, ‘WE DIDN’T NEED TO’. I felt powerless for the first time in my life. Who was going to fight for me as there was no union to help? I then discovered WASPI and set up the group across the Borders. Obviously we now have the Ombudsman’s findings that indeed the DWP did not inform these women about the changes to their pension age to give them time to set up alternative pensions.”
“Now in government, its MPs have erased their online comments in support of the WASPI women, just as eagerly as they once stood for photo opportunities with the campaigners. I have some questions for them, especially for Kirsty McNeill MP, who was recently elected to represent Midlothian. Do they support the compensation recommendations from the ombudsman? Are they ashamed that, before the election, there was not a peep about abandoning the WASPI women? I also have a question for Labour members who are in the chamber tonight: how will they vote next week when the matter comes up for debate? I end with the words of Clair Ramage, who, for health reasons, took early retirement at 58 and who established the Borders WASPI group, which currently has 168 members in its Facebook group alone.”
“The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, in its 2023 report, which was confined to the question of maladministration by the DWP in informing the women who were affected, stated: “Given the scale of the impact of DWP’s maladministration, and the urgent need for a remedy, we are taking the rare but necessary step of asking Parliament to intervene. We are laying our report before Parliament ... and asking” it “to identify a mechanism for providing appropriate remedy for those who have suffered injustice.” In other words, the PHSO is asking for compensation not for lost pension years—the lost pension is another matter, which was not in its remit—but for a failure to inform so that the women who were affected could adequately adjust for their financial future. That brings me to Labour.”
“We can also factor in the single, divorced or widowed women, whose future financial security was based on—crucially—retiring at 60. Now, with the changes to pension rights, too many are in poverty. For example, 23 per cent of single female Scottish pensioners live in relative poverty, and 66 per cent of pension credit claimants are women. WASPI women have no argument with the equalisation of the pension age—the issue is the way in which it was done, compounded by the failure to publicise and inform women of the changes.”
“I congratulate Mr Gibson on securing the debate, and I declare an interest as a pensioner who— thankfully—just missed out on the changes, although my sister siblings did not. In my constituency, as many as 5,630 WASPI women in Midlothian and 8,740 across the Borders have lost out, and many of them have campaigned tirelessly for decades to right this wrong. Women of our generations were especially vulnerable to changes in the state pension. Many left work to raise a family, as I did, and did not have a work pension or did not pay what was known as the big stamp. It was only as retirement loomed that we found out how small that pension would be and that we would perhaps have to rely on our husband’s or partner’s pension.”
“I hope that that responds to the direct ask from Christine Grahame; it is an important point that we are endeavouring to build into the system in future years.”
“Shirley-Anne Somerville: I thank Christine Grahame for that question, because that is a very important aspect as we try to look at the best way to use the finances that we have in order to support people. Under our plans, clients will be able to opt out of our universal pension-age winter heating payment if they do not wish to receive it. In order to opt out of a payment, clients will first need to be on the Social Security Scotland systems. For that reason, for the first year of launch, clients will not be able to opt out until after Social Security Scotland has received and processed the client data from the Department for Work and Pensions. From year 2 onwards, we are working towards the introduction of a system within the agency where we will have the data available to manage client opt-outs.”
“I welcome the universal £100 winter fuel payment for 2025- 26 for all pensioners who are not able to access the Labour Government’s means-tested UK winter fuel payment—which was not, of course, in its pre- election manifesto, and suddenly left many pensioners literally out in the cold. However, many pensioners, such as me, were fortunate enough not to require the previous £300, and we paid it over to local charities. Although that option—that is, to remit to local charities—would still be available with the £100, would it be possible for the Scottish Government to provide a means by which pensioners such as myself could repay that money to the Scottish Government or, indeed, opt out?”
“All in all, with what lies ahead, it is not good for our public services and our economy unless we have control of these matters. Migration is natural. It is in our DNA, and, broadly, it is a good thing. We Scots should know that. The Scottish diaspora worldwide is estimated to be between 28 million and 40 million people. Two years ago, one of my sons and his family became migrants, moving to a welcoming Canada—another family lost to Scotland. It is time for our country to do the same: let us regulate migration to Scotland, bring employment law here and welcome families and young people who will contribute so much to our economy and our services. 16:28”
“With independence and a return to being a member state of the EU, new visas would be introduced to support people to live and work here, including a live-in-Scotland visa, which would allow people to live and work here without employer sponsorship if they met certain criteria. A Scottish connections visa would give certain people immediate rights to live and work here if they had been in residence for five years and met other criteria. A work-in-Scotland visa would be a visa through employer sponsorship, with simplified rules to allow more employers to recruit from abroad. A family visa could remove the minimum income requirement that is currently in place for a UK family visa, making it easier for families to choose Scotland as a place to live; it would also help to reunite families who have been separated.”
“We need a tailored migration system to help to grow our economy in key sectors such as tourism and agriculture—but not to exploit people, Richard Leonard. If you had taken my intervention, I would have asked you whether you would agree with employment legislation being devolved to this Parliament—but, no, you want to stick with the union and all the problems that it has. The Deputy Presiding Officer: Please speak through the chair. Christine Grahame: Richard Leonard wishes to stick to the union on his soapbox—no matter what. We could once again have international students, with opportunities for them to live and work here after studying.”
“The 2022 Scotland census recorded more than 1 million people who are aged 65 and over, which is more than a quarter of a million higher than the number of people who are under 15. By mid-2045, the number of people aged 65 and over is projected to grow by nearly a third to 25.4 per cent of the population, while the number of children is projected to fall to 13.3 per cent of the population. That matters because, as a result, Scotland’s dependency ratio is projected to increase from 60 per 100 to 68 per 100 by 2033. We need young people and families, and migration provides that. That is obvious in rural areas, which I have referred to, where 21 per cent of the population is aged over 60 compared with 17 per cent across the whole country.”
“However, we do not need statistics to know that there are shortages in health, social care and hospitality in some rural areas, all directly as a result of Brexit. Even in this Parliament, I know of staff—hospitality staff, in particular—who left during Covid to return to Europe, and who, with the loss of free movement because of Brexit, have not returned. They were young people, some of whom had families. There are particular difficulties for the Scottish economy as a direct consequence of UK migration policies and Brexit, which, of course, we opposed—62 per cent overall—in every area from Shetland to the Scottish Borders, without exception. I will focus on health and social care.”
“In rural areas, younger people tend to migrate to urban areas, while older people stay put. The demographic balance changes even more as others seek to retire to rural locations such as the Borders, which I understand. In 2023, non-EU nationals accounted for 91 per cent of work-related migration to the UK, with the main countries being India and Nigeria. We can contrast that with migration from the EU, which has been negative since Covid, and following Brexit, which was pursued by Boris Johnson notwithstanding the pandemic, as at June 2024, EU net migration was down by 95,000. The year before, only 5 per cent of visas were issued to EU nationals and the enrolment of new EU students fell by 53 per cent, which had, as we know, a substantial impact on the funding of further and higher education institutions.”
“Yes, we need to regulate migration, but it must be done in a way that is just, humane, compassionate, balanced and tempered to the requirements of the country. I also fully support allowing asylum seekers to earn after a period and to contribute to society as their applications are processed. What is apparent is that the current revised UK immigration system does not fit the needs of Scotland and that that fact, combined with Brexit and an increasing proportion of older people—I declare an interest as part of that demographic— have exacerbated the problems of workforce availability, particularly in areas such as health, social care, hospitality and some parts of the rural economy. Recent news reports about the issues of an ageing population in the Western Isles and Orkney testify to that.”
“Both Labour and Tory Governments have made the word “migration”, or, perhaps more accurately, the word “migrant”, something of a dirty word—a headline- grabbing problem and a blight on the UK. I immediately dissociate Jackson Carlaw from those remarks. He made a very interesting and thoughtful speech. Focusing on stopping the boats—those fragile dinghies packed with desperate people, mainly the young, who are in hardship, traversing continents and paying vast sums, with the real risk of drowning at sea, all for a chance of a better future—is not appropriate. In fact, the vast majority of migrants are here legally. Targeting the boats distorts the debate, but it is a very easy target.”
“I have always been struck that those same people who oppose the freedom of movement of labour always seem to support the freedom of movement of capital. So we have to keep taking on the argument. That means defending, resisting, speaking out and standing up for the rights of migrant workers on our farms, in our service economy, in the factories and across our public services. That is what I will continue to do. That is what this Parliament must do. That is the test. That is the measure of the kind of society we are— whether we are hostile or welcoming, racist or anti-racist, striving for equality and for social justice or callously turning our back. That is the choice before us, and I know which side of that choice I am on. 16:07”
“The Government should use the powers that it has got now to act to protect these workers, to improve their quality of life and to close this loophole. Finally, the edition of the Wallraff translation on my bookshelf has an introduction by the intellectual giant, A Sivanandan, who back then was the director of the Institute of Race Relations and the editor of its journal Race & Class. It was Siva who famously challenged those who questioned immigration with the great aphorism: “We’re here because you were there”. That serves as a timely reminder that we have to keep challenging not just Nigel Farage and his groundless claims that British culture is directly under threat from immigration, but those others as well who peddle the idea that migration is a negative, that it should be reduced and that it is a problem.”
“Will the member take an intervention from a grumbler? Richard Leonard: No. I have heard it said that the Scottish Government’s aim is to support migrant workers in a timely fashion, but where is the urgency? What about the people who will be arriving in a couple of months’ time to work in horticulture? Do they not deserve a “humane and principled approach”? What about the women among them? Do they not deserve support in a timely fashion? Our debate on migration in this Parliament cannot simply be about “the needs of Scotland’s employers” as expressed in the Government’s motion. It has got to be about human rights, because it is about human beings. Neither can the changes that we demand be deferred. Housing is devolved.”
“I say to Mr Adam that I will watch with interest to see how the collaboration goes forward, and I hope that it can potentially become a blueprint for the way in which other clubs can take their youth academies forward. 17:15”
“It seems to me that the situation has improved somewhat over the piece, but it would be interesting—and I would be keen—to see how the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee might revisit the issue and what might come out on the back of that. Back then, we heard in committee that the SFA would gather as many players as it could into its youth academy, and then just cut them, as Christine Grahame said. Promising young people the earth and then just cutting them off can cause mental health problems. The collaboration between UWS and St Mirren is therefore a fantastic way forward, and a way in which we can look after the youngsters—the academy players— in the club. I see that I am running well over my time, Deputy Presiding Officer.”
“Anything to do with football is dangerous territory for me to involve myself in, but when I chaired the Health and Sport Committee many moons ago, there were concerns about representatives from premiership clubs going to young children’s football matches and promising them the earth—of course, they were discarded later on. Can you advise whether the situation in that regard has moved on, so that we do not have that happening to young boys and girls who may be let down? Brian Whittle: That is good timing from my colleague, because we are currently considering whether to revisit the issue in committee to see whether anything has moved on. Since I was on the relevant committees, I now have two grandchildren who are currently with premiership clubs, at 12 years old, and I am very well aware of how they are being treated.”
“Enabling access to such technologies seems to be the right and decent thing to do for people with type 1 diabetes, and it will prevent more serious health issues in the mid to longer term. 17:44”
“Last year, the Scottish Government provided Scotland-wide funding of £8.8 million for the expansion of access to diabetes technologies to support the purchase of new kit, although that funding is not allocated directly to NHS boards but is, as I understand it, part of their overall support. I very much welcome the investment, not only—as others have mentioned—as preventative spend, but, more importantly, because it releases those who are living with diabetes from the worry and travail of the old methods. I know that issues remain with the supply of pumps and associated technologies, as others have mentioned, so I will check again with NHS Borders the position for 2025, and I await the minister’s comments in her summing up.”
“First, they must be clinically recommended, and then an individual must be taught how to use them and must feel confident in their use. However, it makes such a difference to everyday living, as I have observed with my family member. Managing diabetes becomes an everyday thing, without a constant and inhibiting concern about blood sugar levels. With experience and the right technical device, the technology takes care of itself. As I said, I have seen that with the experience of my family member, who has—as I explained—a hybrid flash device plus the automatic pump, which is very discreet. For parents and carers of children, it is a godsend. As members will appreciate, the technology can be accessed and monitored by a parent or carer, including overnight, when worries may grow.”
“Today, there are very welcome technical devices—I am not good on technicalities, so I will tread warily. For example, there is the flash glucose monitor and there is the continuous glucose monitor, and there are hybrid variations thereof. With a CGM, as I understand it, a person’s latest sugar levels show up on their device or mobile phone automatically, transmitted by Bluetooth. With a flash glucose monitor, it is only when they wave or scan their device over the sensor—the little white button on their arm—that they get their sugar readings. I have seen that in operation with a family member, who has also added to it an automatic pump for insulin. That is what I mean by talking about hybrid variations. Those systems have to be tailored to the individual; it is not simply a matter of the NHS handing over the devices.”
“I, too, congratulate the member on securing the debate. I take members back to a time when the only method to manage diabetes—indeed, it is still the case for too many—was the constant pricking of fingers to obtain a blood sample, checking it and then having to inject insulin to redress falling blood glucose levels. That had to be done not just once in the course of a day—a person’s type 1 diabetes dictated their daily life. I have had colleagues, and I have family members, with type 1 diabetes who were once required to use that system. Often, it was only when they became aware that their levels were falling that they tested their glucose levels. If the level had gone too far, there was the danger of a hypo, with all the health problems that would follow. That was a particular worry for children with diabetes.”