argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Stuart Campbell McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): There should indeed be wholescale reform of the visit visas and related decision-making processes. Families find themselves in a particularly horrendous position because the family visa rules have been tightened so much that so many family members cannot come here permanently. But when they come to visit, they are then accused of coming here under false pretences in order to stay deliberately, so they are in a Catch-22 situation. I will return to family visas in a moment. The point I am trying to make is that if we do not learn the lessons from these disastrous mistakes, we are bound to repeat them, and there is a serious risk that the Government are going to do just that with the 3 million EU citizens As an increasing number of voices across the House—including the Home Affairs Committee—have said, the EU settled status scheme has a fundamental flaw at its heart. Even with the best will in the world and even with the Home Office pulling out all the stops to try to make the scheme work, hundreds of thousands of EU nationals in this country will not be aware of or understand the need to apply. They will lose their rights overnight and will be thrown even deeper into the hostile environment than the Windrush generation. The Government must therefore enshrine the rights of EU nationals in law, leaving them to use the settled status scheme as a means of providing evidence of status, rather than actually constituting the status itself. The Home Office must listen; otherwise this Parliament will have to make it listen to protect our EU citizens from the same disastrous fate as the Windrush generation.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The situation is even worse for seasonal workers who are not permanently settled here, is it not? The whole hostile environment attitude has driven perhaps the most stupid policy from this Government, who will ask 60,000 seasonal workers—essential labour—from the European economic area to go home and then perhaps invite 2,500 of them back on an expensive pilot scheme to do the work that the 60,000 people did previously. Has not this whole attitude just delivered some of the most sclerotic policy making that any of us can remember?
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I want to take the opportunity of the Minister being here to intervene, because the Scottish Affairs Committee has been looking at the very issue of seasonal workers. We have found that the hostile environment is having an impact on a Government pilot by making it as difficult as possible for visas to be secured in a Government pilot scheme. The Government are asking for extra fees—over and above—to get people here to see whether they can work in the Government pilot. Does not that that just demonstrate the excesses of the hostile environment—that it even applies to Government pilots?
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Stuart Campbell McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Every individual must make their own call about whether they want to apply. I, for one, would certainly encourage all my constituents and all the EU nationals watching this to sign up for the scheme, but that does not take away from my essential point that they should not be asked to apply to stay in their own home in the first place. These rights should be enshrined in law right now It is not just in terms of the 3 million that we need radical change. All across the field of immigration, there is a massive job of work to do to help to fix the lives that have already been messed up by migration policies and to ensure that we avoid messing up so many more—to build a system that actually benefits our economy and society instead of undermining them and sowing division. Everyone in this House will have had many cases, as we have already heard, where we think that the rules are unfair This debate provides an opportunity to make the case for reform as we look ahead to the next chapter in immigration law form. I want to mention four areas very briefly, but there are a million more that I could flag up. First, I turn to the issue of families, which has already been raised. In pursuit of the net migration target, this country has adopted almost the most restrictive family rules in the world, with an extraordinary income requirement and ludicrously complicated rules and restrictions on how that requirement can be met. Over 40% of the UK population would not be entitled to live in this country with a non-EU spouse. The figures are even worse for women, for ethnic minorities, and for different parts of the UK. The Children’s Commissioner previously wrote a damning report about the 15,000 Skype children—there must now be many, many more—who get to see their mum or dad only via the internet, thanks to these rules, which force too many to pick between their country and their loved ones. It is appalling that the Home Office seems determined to extend these rules to EU spouses so that many more thousands of families will be split apart. We should be ditching these awful rules, not making more families suffer. Secondly, there is citizenship. I have met with the Minister representatives of the Project for Registration of Children as British Citizens, and I know that last week she met the organisation, Let Us Learn. The Home Secretary has acknowledged in evidence to the Home Affairs Committee that over £1,000 is an incredible amount to charge children simply to process a citizenship application when they are entitled to that citizenship. The administrative cost is about £400, so over £600 is a subsidy for other Home Office activities. There is no excuse for funding the Home Office by overcharging kids for their citizenship. At the very least, the fee must be reduced to no more than the administrative charge. More broadly, we need to reduce the ridiculous fees that are being charged across the immigration system, especially to children.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Stuart Campbell McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Lady makes an interesting point. I do not know whether she is planning to contribute to the debate; if so, she can speak more about that Thirdly, our immigration detention system remains outrageously bloated, and detention without time limit makes the UK an outlier in Europe. We detain too many people for too long, including many vulnerable adults, such as torture survivors, who should never be detained at all. It is a national scandal and an affront to the rule of law, as myriad reports have shown. We have had some small forward steps from the current Home Office team, but also some missteps. We need radical reform so that detention is a matter of absolute last resort and not routine Fourthly, there is our asylum system, which could command a whole debate in itself. There can be few areas that require as big an overhaul. We need to ensure better-quality decisions and proper financial support. We must support the wonderful coalition urging the Government to lift the ban on asylum seekers working. We need a better managed move-on period and properly accountable and funded systems of accommodation. We need a caseworking system so that we are never left with dreadful mass evictions like those we look set to see in Glasgow.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Stuart Campbell McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I think that all sensible people would be behind the arguments I am making The other point about reducing the threshold is that it does not fix the fundamental problem that ending free movement risks a demographic time bomb for Scotland, with implications for its workforce, its economy and its public finances. The Scottish Government have proposed ways in which additional Scottish visas can help to play a part in addressing that, learning from systems such as the Canadian system. I want the Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister to engage constructively with those proposals. But ultimately the best answer to the challenges Scotland faces is continued free movement We need to recognise that under the outgoing Prime Minister, migration policy has gone horribly wrong. The current Home Secretary accepts that the net migration target was wrong. The High Court says that key planks of the hostile environment were discriminatory and unjustified. Let us ditch both. Let us learn from the past and not repeat these mistakes, particularly regarding the 3 million. If the new system is to work for all of the UK, it will have to include different rules for different parts of it. Let us seize this opportunity to turn over an entirely new leaf on immigration and asylum policy.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Mixed Topics
Angus Brendan MacNeil (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister referred to the EU citizens who have made the UK their home, but what about those of them who were denied the right to vote in the recent European elections? What will the Government do to redress that? Was that not a shabby treatment of those very citizens in what should have been an all-inclusive democratic process? It is simply not good enough for that to be swept under the carpet by any manner of means.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Peter Wishart (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): We all know that the MAC does entirely what the Government want it to do. Is it not absurd that we educate international students to a high standard and then boot them out, because there is no post-study work scheme? I was in Montreal with the Scottish Affairs Committee just the other week, where they do everything possible to encourage their students to stay, because they have devolution of immigration policy. Should Scotland not have some of that too?
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Domestic Commerce
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The Minister says she wants to work with business, which I am very pleased to hear. Does she agree with the director of the Confederation of British Industry in Scotland, who said: "The proposals outlined in the White Paper don’t meet Scotland’s needs or the needs of the UK as a whole, and would be a sucker punch for many firms right across the country"?
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Peter Grant (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): May I take the Minister back to her comments on the Migration Advisory Committee? I note with interest that she wants us to accept everything that committee says, but seems reluctant to accept the findings of a House of Commons Select Committee. The creation of the Select Committees was celebrated by Mr Speaker not so long ago Can the Minister tell us which member of the Migration Advisory Committee has direct experience of the impact of migration in Scotland? I have just looked at the committee’s website, and there is no doubt that all its members are very august experts in their own field, but none of them has a job anywhere further north than York and, as far as I can tell from the potted biographies, none of them has ever worked in any of the devolved nations of the United Kingdom. Is it any surprise that we should get an Anglocentric set of recommendations from such an Anglocentric committee? If that is not true, will the Minister tell us the name of the member of the Migration Advisory Committee who has direct experience of working in Scotland and seeing how migration affects Scotland today?
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Housing
Stuart Campbell McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Well, Mr Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Will she address head-on the High Court decision that the right to rent scheme is causing terrible discrimination in the housing market? How can she possibly defend the Home Office decision to appeal that on the grounds that the discrimination is justified in any way, shape or form?
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I cannot let the hon. Gentleman move on from his statement about the impossibility of enforcing a differential immigration system within the United Kingdom without asking him what steps the Labour party has taken to look at other systems, such as the system within the Canadian federation, which operates perfectly satisfactorily without border checks, and I remind him that Hadrian’s Wall does not actually run along the border.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Christopher Charles Stephens (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. Will he tell me what is tedious about an intervention raising the issue of Serco, a multinational company, being willing in the next couple of months to throw 300 asylum seekers out in the street? Does he not share my concern that there is something wrong with Government policy in that regard?
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. He says that we should be representing the interests of our constituents. I assure him that my constituents have written to me in their hundreds about their desire to stay in the single market and their desire to keep freedom of movement. Businesses in my constituency tell me that they want that. The two major universities in Edinburgh South West, Heriot-Watt and Napier, want to keep freedom of movement, too. So may I just suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he shows a little bit more respect for SNP Members and the efforts we make to represent the views of our constituents? He may tell us that people in Stirling do not care about freedom of movement, but that is not my understanding from the way they voted in 2016. Can he just show a bit more respect?
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman says that there are no differences, except that England has developed an immigration issue because of population growth. The problem is that Scotland has a set population, with a diminishing working-age population. He quotes directors and business, but what about NHS Scotland? We need more people.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is sometimes a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr), but I am not so sure today. I was struck by his description of the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) as "tedious", by his use of the term "snake oil" and by his talking, as ever, at the end of his speech about the obsession with the constitution. It dawned on me that I have heard this speech before: it is his single, transferable British nationalist rant. It then dawned on me—this is something I thought I would never say—that my length of service in this House is almost twice the combined service of all the Tory Back Benchers here, including the Parliamentary Private Secretary. We will have to have another debate about immigration when the grown-up, experienced MPs from the Tory party can be bothered to do their jobs.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): No, I will not on that point I am delighted to be called in this debate. I am pleased that it does not simply focus on the Prime Minister’s toxic legacy on immigration and the hostile environment that she and her hapless Government created, but recognises the positive contribution that immigrants and immigration bring to the country. In this debate, in this Chamber and in the country, I am sure that there will be positive discussion about how we improve the system to make it far more humane and—this is where I agree with the hon. Member for Stirling—far less arbitrary than it is at present. I am also pleased that the motion specifically references Scottish needs on immigration, both for demographic and different economic sectoral reasons. This is important, particularly for Scotland’s growth sectors, which I will say more about in a moment, along with making a small number of other specific points I note the value and benefit that migrants, and EU migrants in particular, bring to the economy and I will cite four of Scotland’s growth sectors to demonstrate that. In Scotland alone, in the food, drink and agricultural sector, 10,000 EU migrants are employed. That is 12% of total employment in the sector. One in eight people working in that entire sector is an EU or EEA worker. In tourism in Scotland, there are 17,000 EU workers, which is 9.5% of the total employment in that sector. In the creative sector, there are 10,000. Even in finance and business services, 9,000 workers—or 4% of the total employment in that growth sector—are from the European Union. That is before there is any mention of the contribution that migrants and migrant workers make to health and other vital public services. It is clear from those few examples that any attempt to constrain or restrict the flow of EU labour in any way would be profoundly damaging for businesses in Scotland. Their costs would undoubtedly rise—that is, if alternatives could be found at all—and output, particularly in agriculture, would most certainly suffer My second point is that inward migration delivers almost all the net population growth expected for Scotland. Without it, over the medium term, the population would remain static, but have a higher proportion of older people. Migration is therefore vital to ensuring that the proportion of working-age people is maintained, so that there are people to do the jobs that need to be done, and to pay the taxes to fund the public services on which we rely The Government’s argument is that there is still a mechanism in place for people to come, and the Minister spoke about the number of people coming to the EU in various capacities, but all sorts of skilled labour—not just highly paid skilled labour—is mobile; that is how it can come to Scotland, and to the UK. If we put up barriers, be they real, hard, financial, or even soft, perceived barriers, we limit the number of people who want to and can come to Scotland, because it might simply be easier for them to go elsewhere.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Philippa Whitford (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): My hon. Friend talks about soft barriers. There has been a 90% drop in nurses coming from the EU, even though they are not obstructed as yet. Is that not a sign that people go elsewhere if they feel unwelcome?
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Stewart Hosie (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Every MP must have examples of fantastic applications being rejected, even when submitted with every conceivable relevant piece of paper and certificate on the planet, and even when there is a brilliant, solvent sponsor, so my hon. Friend is right. That is the nub of what this Government’s hostile environment has delivered. It has brought about economic harm and ludicrous net migration targets, ignores the social and cultural benefits of immigration, and strips much-needed staff from Scotland’s growth sectors. The UK has in essence abandoned an evidence-based, rules-based immigration system in favour of arbitrary decision making that panders to the screeching headlines of the right-wing, Brexiteer-friendly press, but that causes, and will continue to cause, real distress to real people and their families, and ongoing economic harm.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Deidre Leanne Brock (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): There have been quite a few selective quotations, particularly in respect of the NFUS. Does the hon. Gentleman recall, from the immigration inquiry conducted by the Scottish Affairs Committee some time ago, evidence submitted by the NFUS, which said that it "would prefer an all-UK system but would support alternatives if the Westminster Government is unable to develop the systems needed in time to prevent a hiatus in worker availability" I suggest that that hiatus is upon us.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Joanna Catherine Cherry (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): I hear what the hon. Gentleman says, but perhaps he would care to remember that 72% of people in Edinburgh South West voted to remain in the single market and the customs union. That is what informs the weight of emails I get about the importance of freedom of movement. I get hardly any—one in a blue moon—that oppose freedom of movement and hundreds in favour of it.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Stuart Campbell McDonald (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman completely misrepresents the point the First Minister was making at that time. She is well known for being absolutely in favour of free movement, which would have been lost if Scotland was outside the European Union—which it would not have been, by the way. It is completely wrong to mischaracterise her as saying that people would not have been allowed to stay; she was simply stating, as a matter of fact, that free movement rights would have come to an end.
Immigration — House of Commons, 2019-06-26
Topic: Immigration
Carol Frances Monaghan (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): It is, of course, a ludicrous situation, given that the UK Government are giving money to these projects. Flights are booked, sometimes costing thousands of pounds, in the hope that the visas will appear in time, and then we get refusals so flights have to be changed. People can no longer book fixed flights; they have to be flexible flights, which are many times more expensive. It is an utter waste of money.