Seòmar agus comataidhean

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.

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 thank everyone for their consideration.

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.

Is it worth making the lead committee aware of the petition, in the sense that it might be worth an inquiry into the basis on which public appointments are made to the boards of CalMac and CMAL? I am approaching it less from a rural perspective and more from a shipbuilding perspective, but my understanding is that the boards are problematic, to say the least, in how they govern those agencies. There is very little public oversight of the characters who have been appointed to the boards. There is a potential for conflicts of interest and there is ignorance of many other aspects of how the organisations should be operating.

Further to that, given that the new national planning framework is currently being developed, it might be an opportune moment to try to be clear about feeding those issues into the process. I cannot remember off the top of my head which minister is leading that effort, but it would perhaps be worthwhile engaging with them in light of the evidence being raised.

I was similarly taken aback by the issues raised. It is an issue I had not considered properly before. The petition is very appropriate. I am particularly interested in the Scottish Law Commission’s idea that it could look at developing a project around this if the suggestion was submitted to it. It might be worth the petitioners exploring that idea in addition to petitioning the committee.

It is the sort of thing that might be appropriate as a members’ bill. Maybe there is a mechanism for our committee to flag up the petition to colleagues in Parliament who might be considering a members’ bill but do not necessarily have a project in mind. It might be a candidate worth taking up. Perhaps we should be making fuller use of the members’ bill process, and the petition could be a candidate.

The point about the capacity to deliver the course is interesting, and I think that the SQA’s response is fair. I am not aware of the number of people in Scotland who are qualified in BSL, but it might be worth trying to establish a route to a solution with Scottish Government colleagues.

It might also be worth trying to engage with the further education sector, perhaps including certain colleges that might be able to offer BSL as a qualification. On that basis, if we are able to establish some understanding about the logistics of delivery, it might enable the SQA to work towards developing a qualification that could be offered.

We might not have a BSL teacher in every school in Scotland, but the course might be offered at a school or a college within a local authority area and that would allow interested students to apply to do the course. I am sure that there is a way of working through the issue that has been identified, and it might be worth looking at how we can bring stakeholders together to see whether we can hammer that out.