Seòmar agus comataidhean

I have a general point about SSI 2022/26, which makes speed limit adjustments on the central Scotland motorway network. Although this particular instrument relates to slip roads, there is a wider practice whereby speed limit changes to the trunk road network are not generally consulted on publicly. Such changes would benefit from wider public consultation, particularly given recent reports of the significant effects of noise pollution in the centre of Glasgow because of the motorway network. For example, it has been reported that the noise pollution at Charing Cross is equivalent to the noise pollution experienced when standing on the runway at Glasgow airport.

There are significant environmental effects on the general public. The practice should be to have a public consultation on any adjustments to speed limits, rather than there simply being a closed shop involving councils and the emergency services. Perhaps the lead committee could take that into consideration.

Thank you very much for inviting me to address the committee, convener.

The proposed cross-party group on migration would be quite a wide-ranging forum in which stakeholders, policy makers and those with lived experience would discuss any matters arising in relation to migrants, refugees or people seeking asylum in Scotland. Although immigration policy is a reserved matter for the House of Commons, the cross-party group would engage on, consider and raise awareness of ways in which we can make an impact on issues to do with immigration and migration, asylum and refugees in Scotland, because there are a number of important interfaces with the Scottish Parliament’s competencies as well as with local government colleagues. Having an integrated approach is vital to improving the quality of life for people who are affected by current policy.

The area is definitely well established as a public interest area. Currently, there is no CPG that focuses on it at Holyrood, despite thousands of people in Scotland being impacted by the issues.

The creation of the cross-party group would be particularly beneficial given recent significant and relevant events such as the passage of the Nationality and Borders Bill in the UK Parliament and the on-going humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

I thank everyone for their consideration.

The key measure of success is effectively expediting policy ideas that key stakeholder groups, particularly in Glasgow, have been advocating. Almost all asylum seekers in Scotland are resident in the Glasgow City Council area, because it is the only council area in Scotland that participates in the dispersal programme. However, there are refugee communities around Scotland and resettlement programmes in the refugee programme that disperse people around Scotland. A number of concerns have been raised by key stakeholder groups, particularly Maryhill Integration Network, which has been especially instrumental in helping to establish the cross-party group. There are issues to do with exclusion from housing, transport and social exclusion. Obviously, there was the tragedy with the Park Inn disaster in Glasgow in the summer of 2020.

Bearing in mind all those issues, it is important to bring together the forum to allow us to channel frustrations and issues so that the Scottish Government can potentially ameliorate some of the concerns that people are experiencing. That would be largely in a humanitarian sense; it would not necessarily interfere with immigration policy or even with the no recourse to public funds condition, which is a potential condition on social security support.

One suggestion has been the extension of concessionary travel to asylum seekers. That would be within the gift of the Scottish Government. The cross-party group could promote such ideas.

That has not been explicitly discussed thus far, but that is a helpful suggestion. I can envisage that potentially being a measure. There would be efforts to engage with stakeholders and perhaps directly with ministers, non-governmental organisations and various other organisations, to pool understanding and share common practice.

Quite a wide range of organisations, which I have listed, support the CPG. They are the Maryhill Integration Network, the voices network, Safe in Scotland, the British Red Cross, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Scottish Detainee Visitors—particularly in relation to Dungavel—JustRight Scotland, Positive Action in Housing, Migration Policy Scotland, Refugees for Justice and the Govan Community Project. There is quite a rich ecosystem out there, but people often operate in silos and are disjointed. Part of the function of the CPG will be to act as a sounding board so that people can share experiences, rally round common themes such as housing, transport, income, deprivation and poverty, and, I hope, pull together actions that they can share objectives on, pushing them to the Government and asking whether they can get improvements or measures to address them.

That is an important point. We deliberately used a broad definition because a lot of the issues have important interfaces. For example, there is the matter of access to student opportunities, and there is a wider issue about European Union migration and the future status of EU citizens in Scotland and the UK. Scotland faces broader demographic challenges, caused by an ageing population and a narrowing tax base. It is important for a sustainable economy to have a larger working-age population; therefore, we need a greater influx of working-age people. That will all be part of the discussion.

We are trying to frame the issue of migration in a less confrontational, more sensible and rational way. That is the broader idea. Having Maryhill Integration Network, which is highly engaged with asylum seekers, as the secretariat colours the initial objectives of the CPG, but it can evolve. That is why we have left the definition loose.

The income allowances that are provided to people in the asylum process are very meagre. People who are in bed and breakfast accommodation basically get only £1 a day, and people who are in flats get slightly more than that—about £7 a day. That is well below the baseline social security to which a citizen would be entitled, so there are acute poverty and deprivation issues.

In relation to B and B accommodation, there is a housing contract between the Home Office and a private sector operator—Mears Group—which is obliged to provide accommodation for those in the asylum system. However, given the pressures on the system, it is not able to acquire enough housing units from registered social landlords and private providers to put everyone in flats, so people are being put in hotels to backfill the demand.

The problem is that that leads to significant welfare problems. I mentioned the Park Inn disaster, which emanated from people who were suffering from acute mental health problems and trauma being corralled into a hotel. The catering, for example, was not culturally appropriate, so food was being served that people could not digest. People from sub-Saharan Africa cannot really eat a cooked breakfast.

There will be an opportunity to provide the housing provider with feedback from stakeholders on the ground, who could say, “This is a really big problem. We need to get a grip on this.” That could improve the situation at the margins. It is those little things that could solve a lot of the bigger problems that could cause a risk to life, given the high pressure that people who have fled from severe, disastrous situations can often experience.

For all those reasons, it is important that the CPG would offer a sounding board in the Parliament. The group would have more rapid access to ministers, as well as members being able to raise issues in the chamber. The group would be worth while in that sense.

I support what Jackie Baillie said about the submission from Roseanna Clarkin. It was quite shocking to learn that the vendor, Covidien UK, was supplying Parietex mesh, which has been subject to Food and Drug Administration restrictions in the United States because it has been directly linked to postoperative complications and adverse effects in patients. Perversely, we are in a position in Scotland where we have fewer medical clinical protections for patients than in the United States. I am sure that if you asked the average person in the street which jurisdiction they think offers more protections to patients, they would say Scotland, when as a result of the Government’s decision, that is not the case.

It is critical that we pursue the issue. The submission from the Shouldice hospital offers an insight into an alternative model that is quite compelling. In light of that remarkable evidence, it would be worth asking the health secretary to engage with it directly and perhaps look at the opportunity to set up a pilot project in Scotland with a particular hospital or surgical centre, to see whether we can adopt those methods. We could use the pilot as a control against standard procedures and see whether it produces demonstrable effects that could improve patient care.

I would be interested to hear from airspace operators—the main scheduled carrier, which is Loganair, and others who use the airspace, such as the training school at Dundee airport—to understand what their concerns might be. I do not think that we have heard anything from them.

The petition is incredibly important. During COP26, the RSPB did a fantastic showcase on Scotland’s rainforests, which was an eye-opening educational experience. Not many people realise that rainforests exist in Scotland in the temperate climate. There is probably a need to mobilise a broader debate on the issue. We ought to consider taking evidence from a wider group of stakeholders to broaden the base of the evidence that we obtain. I am thinking of Forestry and Land Scotland and the RSPB as two suggestions.

It is an urgent concern, particularly with the invasive growth in ancient woodland and the displacement that is caused by conifer plantations, which I think were originally planted for the first world war. That was the origin of the Forestry Commission; it was about the need to rapidly grow timber for the war, but it has had severe long-term effects over the past century.