Seòmar agus comataidhean

I commend Carol Mochan and Katy Clark, because I know that it is very difficult to be so principled in your contribution when your party has taken a view.

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. 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. 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. 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. 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.

Finally it angers me to see how we have been used by the Labour Party who fully supported us, signed petitions, got their pictures taken—for what, just votes?”

I could not have said it better myself.

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?

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. 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.

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.

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. 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. 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.

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. 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.

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.

Is the member prepared to concede that Brexit has impacted on our workforce? Does she agree that people’s lack of ability to move around Europe has impacted particularly on the NHS and the care sector, and that Brexit has a lot to answer for?

Following the recent publication of Dr Jim Swire’s book on Lockerbie, and its subsequent serialisation on television, and given the resistance of the United Kingdom Government—even after 30 years—to requests to release documents relating to the atrocity, and the remaining concerns of some people, including me, about the credibility of the conviction of Abdelbaset al-Megrahi, would the First Minister support a UK inquiry?

Will the member take an intervention?

Will the member take an intervention from a grumbler?

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?