Pete Wishart
MP for Perth and Kinross-shire · Scottish National Party · United Kingdom
“If these are indeed the last Scottish questions for the Secretary of State, we on these Benches will miss him almost as much as his Scottish Labour colleagues will do. If it is his swansong, when is he going to bring something—anything—to the table to help break this constitutional logjam? It could be an idea, a suggestion or a proposal.”
“Looking at the situation just now, I would say that, at best, it is 50:50 whether it succeeds or not. That is the context for the introduction of the Bill.”
“People who come to this country seeking refuge from conflict and persecution are not asking for special treatment—they just want to feel safe.”
“We are at a critical juncture in the whole debate about immigration. Look at what is going on across the UK—things are not good. Such is the noise that a general culture of anti-immigrant sentiment now sweeps this country, leading to whole communities feeling unsafe, demonised and scapegoated.”
“The news about Ann Widdecombe is truly shocking, and it is compounded by the way in which she met her death. The thoughts of the Scottish National party are with her friends and family today.”
“There were truly shocking and appalling scenes in Glasgow last week, fuelled by misinformation about the accommodation of asylum seekers. People were harassed in their own homes and roads were blocked.”
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“The right hon. Gentleman is right to remind us about journalism. What has been notable, along with the clumsy way in which the Government have approached these issues, is the unity that exists throughout the creative sector, taking on board what is happening in journalism. We have seen some fantastic coalitions of interests emerging from all this. That is another positive development, and I just hope that the Government are satisfied when they see the outcomes. AI and creativity can work together. I gave an example of that to the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett). We have all been encouraged to think that there is a divergence between the position of those in the creative sector, such as artists, and the position of those who are involved in the tech sector and, in particular, AI.”
“There is no other chance, because this is the only opportunity. We must offer some protection to our creative sector over the next few years, because nothing else will appear during that time. We will all become involved in the consultation and we will all be taking part in the legislation when it comes here, but that is years away. This is the only thing that we can do to offer some support to the creative sector, and I urge everyone to support the new clauses.”
“The hon. Lady is spot on. The Minister continues to go on about licensing arrangements, and I think that is the territory we want to move this on to. We need to hear more about the Government’s ambitions right now, and about what they are planning to do. The hon. Lady should have a look at the submissions to the consultation from the big tech companies such as OpenAI—it is a horror show. An opt-out is even too far for them. I have enjoyed working with Labour colleagues during these debates. They have said all the right things, and I think that, as usual, they recognise some of the difficulties in the sector, but I appeal to them now to support, in particular, new clause 2, if it goes to a vote. It is no good just saying all the right things; this is about voting in the right direction.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way. I know that most Labour Members are new to the procedures and workings of this House, but the Secretary of State is not, so he will know from experience that private Members’ Bills are practically rewritten in Committee. My hon. Friend is asking that we be allowed to take the Bill through to Committee, where this can be worked out. Surely even the Secretary of State, who I believe has been in this House since 2010, understands how these things work.”
“With our falling birth rate, we have too few working-age people available to look after an ever-older population. We are in the early stages of population stagnation, and we already see the impact. We need only look at our health service, which has difficulties recruiting staff. In our social care sector, we are approaching something like a workforce crisis. I appeal to people to go and look not at the nuclear subs in Clydebank, but at rural areas of Scotland like mine. They will find that hospitality and tourism businesses are cutting back hours or closing because they do not have the staff to keep themselves properly functioning and organised.”
“I ever so gently suggest to my Scottish friends on the Labour Benches that they look at the by-election result last night. It was absolutely damning for the Labour party. Whatever Labour is doing through this new attack of line against the Scottish Government, it is singularly failing. It will fail Labour in the way that it failed the Conservatives. I caution Labour Members not to try to pit this House against the Scottish Parliament. It did not work for the Conservatives and it will not work for them. Today is about the Bill. We are in real trouble in Scotland, and that is why the Bill is critical. There can be no doubt whatsoever that Scotland is in the early stages of a population and demographic crisis that will get a lot worse unless we do something. We cannot leave things in the condition that they are in.”
“May I wholeheartedly congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) on introducing this vital and critical Bill this morning? I also commend him for the diplomatic and charming way that he always introduces these debates to the House. He was very generous in taking so many points of view this morning. Before I make my substantial points, I want to say a little bit about the tone of this House today. When it was the Conservatives sat on the Government Benches, we collected what they said about Scotland and all the issues to do with devolved government. We stowed them away and we used it against them. Now they are gone—utterly and totally gone. When Scottish Labour Members speak Scotland down, as they have this morning, we collect, collate and keep those comments to use back against them.”
“Our issues with the falling birth rate have been exacerbated, not by anything that the Scottish Government are doing, as Labour Members suggest, but because of what my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry said about Brexit. Brexit has killed our population sustainability and population growth.”
“I am almost grateful for the intervention, confused and clumsy as it was, because I have a solution for the hon. Gentleman. What we need when we face a crisis, as we do now, are solutions. What my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry has offered by starting this conversation is a way to deal with the issues we face in Scotland. Scotland is not unique; the same thing is happening throughout the whole western industrialised world. We face issues because birth rates across the world are falling calamitously. Every nation needs to do something about the conditions that they find themselves in. Today we are asking for a Scottish response to the distinct circumstances we are dealing with, because we have got it really bad.”
“I wondered how long it would take to get to this point. That is utter bunkum and rubbish. The suggestion started by the Conservatives—but it seems to have been readily picked up by the Labour party—that we are not able to attract to Scotland people from the rest of the United Kingdom is utter rubbish. The figure is at a record high. Why does the hon. Lady not look at the National Records of Scotland report, which will tell her that? We have the highest net migration to Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom that we have ever had.”
“Although our birth rate is falling, they are trying to suppress it further through social engineering; they are using the benefits system to deny benefits to working-class people seeking to have large families. This is at a time when we should be doing everything we can to encourage more children. I want to hear the Minister defend that policy when we have a crisis in Scotland.”
“I welcome anybody from the rest of the United Kingdom who wants to come to a beautiful place and a fantastic country to live in. Come to Scotland! I challenge any Labour Member to say to the rest of the world, “Come to the United Kingdom.” It is not in their cultural or political DNA. We are in a difficult situation. The simple fact is that Scotland needs more working-age people to refresh our population. If we do not get that, we will be in serious trouble. The same thing is happening all around the world, but what the Government are doing with Brexit is getting in the way and making our issues worse. Do you know what else they are doing?”
“The hon. Lady shakes her head. She has obviously not read the report. I extoll her to do so, because this nonsense has been allowed to take hold for too long and it cannot continue any longer. We have record net migration from the rest of the United Kingdom. Believe me, Madam Deputy Speaker, we do not get depressed about that. We do not think that is a bad thing. We think it is a positive. We encourage people to come to Scotland, unlike Labour Members, who discourage people from coming to the United Kingdom, and who do everything possible to put up barriers and make life difficult and miserable for people trying to come to the shores of the United Kingdom. We are the exact opposite in Scotland. Scotland is not full up, and we need people to come to our country.”
“What are the Labour Government doing in the UK? They are, shamefully, trying to suppress our birth rate. I challenge any of them to get to their feet and tell me how a two-child benefit cap helps to increase our birth rate in Scotland. Go on!”
“I have no idea what the hon. Gentleman is saying. We are trying to offer solutions. We have identified a range of difficulties that we have as a nation. It is right and proper that they be examined, analysed and addressed. Then we get down to the business of fixing them, and that is what we are doing today. This Government are making our situation 10 times worse through their inept, callous and heinous attempt to socially engineer the benefit system to suppress our birth rate, at the very time when we need more children. We need larger families. All around Europe, countries face the same range of issues. What are they doing? They are not having a two-child benefit cap. They are incentivising young people to have children by giving tax breaks and positive benefits to make sure that the birth rate increases.”
“Tony Blair opened up eastern Europe through accession, which helped our issues in Scotland. For a while, that reversed our long-term population decline. The Tony Blair Government also gave us fresh talent. It gave people an opportunity to come to study at one of our world-class universities and stay and contribute to the Scottish economy for a period of their early lives. It was fantastic. It was backed by the UK Government and the Scottish Government, with overwhelming support from hon. Members in this House. The policy was then subsumed by a general UK policy, which meant that we lost our advantage.”
“Okay. Right, let us look at Scotland’s population then. Scotland’s population is probably in the region of 5.5 million. Some estimates are 5.43 million and some are 5.7 million. We have been in population decline since the latter part of the 20th century. This is an issue that particularly interests and excites me. I think the Scottish Affairs Committee has done three reports on it, and I think Secretary of State served on the Committee during one of the inquiries on Scotland’s migration issues. Those were helpful reports, and hopefully they add to the debate. I am glad that a few people have referenced them. We got down to the serious business of trying to address the issue. I congratulate the Blair Government, which was visionary when it came to immigration; it was imaginative.”
“We have a real problem in Scotland. There are some fantastic contributions to be made, with real in-depth analysis by people who understand how to look at critical questions and come up with solutions. Help us deal with this, so that we can address the range of issues that we have. Believe me, if we do not start to address them, we will be in really serious trouble.”
“We are wrestling with problems that successive UK Governments have bequeathed Scotland, whether through Brexit policy or the two-child benefit cap, mixed with the historical attitude to emigration and deindustrialisation. Those are the things that my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry and his modest Bill invite us to address. My hon. Friend has not got the solution in the Bill; he said that, and that it is an open Bill. I am quite surprised that the Secretary of State does not understand how Committee works for private Members’ Bills. My hon. Friend is giving an invitation to the House. I am laying out the difficulties and issues that we have identified—I will get on to demography in Scotland in a minute; hon. Members should wait till they hear about that—and my hon. Friend is saying, “Help us.” Let us work together.”
“As everybody knows, there are Scots communities all around the world, from Canada and New Zealand to the United States, and they have always acted as a draw for our young people. Not so much now, but previously, young Scots settled abroad, so we got into this cultural trend of people leaving Scotland. We have to address that. One other thing that the Scottish Affairs Committee looked at but did not come to any great conclusion about was deindustrialisation and its impact on encouraging people to emigrate. We obviously have deindustrialisation in Scotland, and we need only look at some of our major cities, and at the difficulties and features of life in those cities, to see why people would leave.”
“Absolutely. I was going to come to that, but it is good to look at that now. There are reasons for that, although I am not entirely clear about them; the Committee did not get to the heart of that in its analysis. We live in a United Kingdom and have a massive mega-city, London, so there is always the allure for young Scots to come down to London. I did it myself, and I am pretty certain that the Secretary of State spent a good part of his young life in London. Most Scots at some point find themselves living in London. But it is worse than that for Scotland, because we have a centuries-old historical culture and tradition of emigration. Immigration has not really been that big an issue for us. We obviously benefit from it, but the key feature in the history of Scotland and this debate is emigration.”
“When I started to engage in this debate in the early 2000s, there was a real fear that, for the first time since the 19th century, Scotland’s population would drop below the iconic 5 million mark. That was only reversed because of the imagination of the previous Labour Government and their generosity when it came to immigration policy—something that the current Government would never even think about. The vision of Tony Blair about how Europe would work and how the single market would develop helped Scotland to address some of the issues.”
“This is helpful, and I think my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry was hoping for such positive contributions. I am very much aware of the work that the Migration Advisory Committee does, and I commend it for that, but its list of occupations required in Scotland is not nearly enough—it does not even touch the sides of our difficulties. If the hon. Lady has some thoughts on how that could be beefed up and made more effective and useful, we are all ears—come and serve on the Committee and help us. We need positive solutions to identified problems. That is the territory we want to get into. We have long-term population decline in Scotland.”
“I was so pleased and impressed that the First Minister of Scotland this week got together a summit to take on these very challenges, and I was delighted that the Scottish Labour leader attended that summit and took it seriously, because this is the sort of thing we have to do when there is a challenge from the right. We do not go on to their agenda—that is what they want. We take on their assumptions, we take them on politically, and we beat them. That is why the SNP has not been so impacted by the rise of Reform in the United Kingdom: because we take it on. Labour is starting to experience difficulties at the hands of Reform because it is looking to pander to Reform’s agenda and move on to some of the uncomfortable territory. We take Reform on; we do not pander to it. That is the lesson of history.”
“That is such a profound question. I do not know how Labour has got itself into this situation. I suspect it is some sort of fear of Reform, whose Members are not here today, and Labour is probably right to be frightened. I think I saw an opinion poll showing that Labour is now behind Reform across the United Kingdom. Labour Members think—and this will only exacerbate the problem—that if they somehow pander to Reform’s agenda, that will help them beat it. Nothing could delight Reform more than going on to its agenda. That is why we in Scotland take Reform on and tackle it.”
“We are in a political crisis—at a juncture in our political culture and history—and we need brave gentlemen like him to stand up there and take it on, rather than listening to his Front Benchers. The Home Secretary in particular has a track record on this. He needs to challenge her and the Home Office.”
“I have no doubt that the hon. Member is utterly sincere. I have listened to several remarks from his Labour colleagues, and some of them greatly impressed me. It encouraged me to think that there is a little bit of a fight-back. I sat on the Committee considering the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, and I did not enjoy that for one minute. What I saw was a range of initiatives and policies that could basically have come from the Conservatives. It was very much the same sort of theme and trend: immigration was bad, it had to be curbed, it had to be taken on and dealt with. It was never seen as a positive. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to speak up, do more of this, and encourage his colleagues to speak out clearly on these issues. That is what we need.”
“According to the National Records of Scotland, in the year leading up to mid-2022, net migration from the rest of the UK to Scotland increased to 12,500, up from 8,900 the previous year. The trend continued, with net internal migration rising to 13,900 in the year to June 2023—the last figures. [ Interruption. ] That is a 21-year high, and 39% higher than pre-pandemic levels.”
“It has been done before. We have already talked about fresh talent. Labour has given Scotland an advantage in immigration before and could do it again. It is not beyond the wit of the Scottish nation to ensure that we have an immigration system and a specific tax code, but we need the means to do it. There is another issue that I wish to take on, which I addressed in response to an intervention, and that is the idea that Scotland does not get any migrants from the rest of the UK—that they do not want to come to Scotland. That is just utter bunkum and rubbish. I hope that, after this debate, that suggestion will never be made again, because it is just rubbish. I will give the House a few statistics.”
“That individual Scottish tax code allows us to know where people are living and working. If they have such a tax code, they are paying taxes in Scotland. If we had a Scottish visa, one of the conditions for people coming to Scotland from outwith the United Kingdom would be for them to have a Scottish tax code that would allow us to monitor where they are living and working. One of the conditions for their coming in would be to be resident and working in Scotland. If they broke the conditions for their entry to Scotland, they would no longer be entitled to a Scottish visa and would be made illegal. Who on earth would do that? Why would somebody not want the opportunity to live in Scotland. There are practical solutions that other nations use. Surely nobody is suggesting that Scotland could not introduce such a scheme.”
“That has led to such incredible growth in Quebec, which is in charge of its immigration system. That works in Canada. Are we trying to suggest that what people call “the most powerful devolved Parliament in the world” could not come up with a similar or even more effective system than what we saw in Canada? That is what we can do if we have the imagination. The hon. Member for Banbury (Sean Woodcock) asks how this would work. I think I heard somebody talk about border guards and passport controls between Scotland and England. In the past 10 years, Scotland has acquired significant new powers over taxation—we can have a debate about that at some other point—which has allowed us to set up Revenue Scotland, so all of us in Scotland have a different tax code from everybody else throughout the United Kingdom.”
“I was going to leave that point until later in my speech, but the hon. Gentleman tempts me to get on to that territory now—he is obviously looking for some sort of solution. I will try to explain our plans and intentions to him as best I can, as well as where I think this matter should eventually go. When I chaired the Scottish Affairs Committee, we were lucky enough to go to Quebec to look at its state-wide immigration system, which is fantastic. Members should go to Montreal and have a look the construction there—it is a boom city. It is able to do that because the Quebecois state Parliament was able to gain control over immigration from the state Government. As a result, Quebec can appeal to Francophone Europe to think about settling there, thereby attracting the specific skills that are lacking.”
“Just a minute—be patient. People come to Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom because of our more affordable living costs, things such as free university tuition and free personal care, our progressive social contract, and the fact that it is a beautiful and great country to stay in. Of course people come to Scotland—let us knock this on the head. I do not know whether the hon. Lady has got a point about this; I am keen to hear what it is.”
“] This is the thing, Madam Deputy Speaker—Government Members do not want to talk about the issues that are important to us in this House. They want to talk about stuff that is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. Is that because they think their Members of the Scottish Parliament are not up to the job, so Labour Members in this House have to constantly go on about those things? The Secretary of State can confirm, but I think Labour has about 50 MSPs up in Scotland. Why not let them get on with their jobs while we deal with the things that we need to fix down here?”
“The only thing is we need the UK Government to get on board, and the Bill before us today will help to achieve those goals. As my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry conceded from the outset, the Bill is not perfect—it is a one-line Bill—but invitation is there to get it to Committee— [ Interruption. ] I say to Members on the Labour Benches, including the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley), colleagues from the Conservative party and the Liberal Democrats, who are not here: we have identified the issue. If somebody thinks that we have got all of this wrong, I want to hear from them. I do not want to hear about what the Scottish Government are doing with ferries or whatever it is they want to talk about— [ Interruption.”
“They see migration as a problem that has to be managed, with no concession or ground given to anything that might get in the way of the net migration figures. We are lumbered with that in Scotland. Where we want to move on and deal with our issues, we cannot do so but we should be able to do that. We heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry about the support that the measures in the Bill have in Scotland. That is no surprise because business organisations and think tanks have seen what is going on. They just need to look at some of our sectors to find that there is a crisis in practically every one and in our public services, so of course they support the measures. There is even political consensus in the Scottish Parliament that something needs to be done.”
“That is what awaits the United Kingdom over the course of the next 20 or 30 years. This Government cannot look further than the nose on their face; all they are seeing just now is Reform, and all they are thinking about is, “How do we take them on; how do we beat them?” There is no strategic thinking or long-term vision about what we will do towards the end of the century when all of this starts to take hold. Nothing, no imagination, no inquiry, but this is where we are going. It might blow some Members’ minds, but towards the end of the century migrants might be at a premium and there will be a competition to try to get people into nations around the world. I know that is too much for them to start to contemplate just now, but that is where we are going. And yet for them the issue is about curbing migration.”
“They have ministries devoted to trying to increase the birth rate and do something about the impending crisis that is coming their way. Even in China, population stagnation is beginning to take hold. The world population will stop growing in about 2055, and at that point there will be stagnation before rapid population fall. It is at the point where that curve starts to bend that we get stagnation, which is why nations are addressing the issues that they have. Have a look at Japan: historically resistant to immigration, Japan is going through a structural economic crisis because of its demography and population issues. Its population is due to fall by 20% in the next 10 years because of the falling birth rate. It is going to fall from third in the GDP rankings to 10th.”
“They will not even bring forward a youth mobility scheme in all its glory because of their concern about the impact on net migration. Scotland is burdened with an immigration system and a set of Government policies that make our situation so much worse. Why do you think that we consistently call for this power to be devolved? No Scottish Labour MP has stood up and opposed that commitment. If they are not going to do it, they should give the power to us and allow us to do so. All over the world, the populations of Western industrial countries are facing these difficulties. They have got the powers to address them—we have seen examples in Italy and Spain, which have particularly bad birth rates, almost on a par with what Scotland has.”
“Members about what the birth rate means. We need two children for every woman just to sustain the population at its current levels; a birth rate of one child for every three women cannot be sustainable. That is what makes the two-child benefit cap all the more absurd, heinous and callous. This Government are working contrary to what we need in Scotland to address some of these issues. Therefore, given our falling birth rate, we are entirely dependent on immigration to keep our population at current levels, and maybe to increase it modestly for the prospects of economic growth. One of the few ambitions and commitments that this Government are sticking to is to cut net migration—that is their absolute and utter mission.”
“I am sorry—I thought I was going to get the figures. We do way beyond our national share when it comes to inward migration, so please let us have no more of this. Let us just agree that people come to Scotland and we want more to do so. Regardless of how successful we have been in attracting people, we are still in a situation of long-term population decline in Scotland. That is the population, but the demography of Scotland is a bigger horror story, and it is one thing that we really need to look at. Some 22% of Scotland’s population is over 65, which is one of the highest ratios in the whole of the western world—I think the figure for England is 17%. We have a birth rate of one child for every three women—again, one of the worst rates in the whole of the industrialised world. I do not need to lecture hon.”
“If we do not get this fixed, we will have serious issues and structural problems in our public services and our economy. I appeal to the House: let the Bill go through and then let us all work together to resolve the situation.”
“I think that we are going to have quite a few debates like this in the next few years, so I say this ever so candidly: that is a matter for the Scottish Parliament to resolve. The Secretary of State’s party is trying to become the party in government in Scotland next year, but his party does not have any imaginative solutions, so over the next year we will be testing his proposals and policies against what we are doing. If people in Scotland are attracted to the Secretary of State’s policies and proposals, they will vote Labour in, but I do not think that will happen, and I think, in his heart of hearts, he also believes that now. We only need to look at the last by-election result. So when we are elected to this House, let us deal with the things that matter to us, and nothing is more important than this issue.”
“Just before the shadow Secretary of State gets into his usual anti-Scottish Government stuff, he has told us what he does not like about this Bill moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins). How would the Scottish Conservatives resolve our population demography crisis and the fact that we have a shrinking working-age workforce in Scotland? What would they do?”
“I hope that the Secretary of State will get to the territory of how we address some of the issues we face. One of issues I pointed out is our poor birth rate in Scotland, with only one child for every three women. How does he think his Government’s policy of a two-child benefit cap helps address our birth rate issues?”
“It is. It falls to me to very humbly make this point of order. What can you, as Chair of the proceedings, do, within your powers, to ensure that we have an adequate debate on what this Bill is about?”
“I have a lot of time and respect for the hon. Lady, and she has contributed so much to the work of this House, but she has been simply absurd in some of her proclamations in the last few minutes. All we are asking for is the opportunity to address some of our workforce issues, because we have a real crisis in Scotland. We have a distinct and separate tax code in Scotland. There would be a requirement that a person coming here would live and work in Scotland, which could be easily assessed and monitored because of our individual tax code. It is straightforward and simple. Watchtowers and border guards? Come on! The hon. Lady is 10 times better than that.”
“Let us make sure that we unravel the idea of copyright from that of transparency; we have to make sure that those are separated. Let us use the Data (Use and Access) Bill—it is there in front of us, so why cannot we use it to make real progress on this issue?”
“Have a look at OpenAI’s submission—even the opt-out proposal is too far for it; it wants unfettered access to our cultural treasure trove, without any inhibitions or difficulty. The first thing that the Minister has to say to the big AI companies is that our creative heritage—everything we have built in the past few decades—is not there to be plundered and taken for nothing. We must make progress, and I really hope that the Government now decide that they will not pursue the opt-out proposal—it cannot work; there is no way that it could be a technical solution. We have seen that within the EU. The Government have to drop it. Look at this licensing system—the Minister has talked about it consistently in the past few weeks and months.”
“They have got behind it and started to understand it and see that it is the basis of all the wonderful works they enjoy throughout their lives. They know it is our gold-standard copyright regime that gives our artists protection and renumeration and ensures that they are rewarded for producing all these wonderful works. One good thing that has come out of this is that the value of copyright has now started to be seen by all our constituents. The Government are sincere in trying to bridge the gap between artificial intelligence and the creative industries, and they want to satisfy all sectors, but we have to see what we are up against—just have a look at some of the big tech companies’ submissions to the consultation.”