 Good morning, and welcome to the 26th meeting of the Culture, Tourism, Europe and External Relations Committee in 2017. I'd like to remind members and the public to turn off mobile phones, and any members using electronic devices to access committee papers during the meeting should ensure that they're switched to silent. Apologies have been received today from Lewis MacDonald, Tavish Scott and Jackson Carlaw, and I'd like to welcome Dean Lockhart who will be substituting for Jackson to the meeting. Our first item of business today is an evidence session on the committee's immigration inquiry with the Minister for International Development and Europe, Alasdair Allan. I'd like to welcome the minister and his officials for coming to give evidence today. We have Rachel Sunderland to the team leader of EU strategy and migration and Angela Hallam, the principal research officer with the Scottish Government. Minister, would you like to make an opening statement? Thank you, convener. I'll be brief, but I'm delighted to have the opportunity to contribute today to your inquiry on immigration. As I think the committee will agree, Scotland is a progressive and outward looking country, and we recognise that migration strengthens our society and our nation benefits from the skills and the experience and the expertise of those individuals who have chosen to work or to study in Scotland. It's been clear for some time that the one-size-fits-all approach to immigration policy in the United Kingdom isn't sustainable in the future in the face of very different economic, demographic and social needs across the UK, and I hope that we can continue to find some degree of common ground across the parties on that issue in Scotland. The Scottish Government welcomes inquiries that recognise the potential need for regional variations in the migration system to ensure that the system serves Scotland's needs. The committee will have seen our response to the UK's Migration Advisory Committee published yesterday, which sets out the evidence base for why Scotland's needs are different from the rest of the UK, and I hope that that will also be helpful to yourselves. As I highlighted in my response to the committee as part of the commitment outlined in the Scottish Government's programme for government, we will be publishing a discussion paper setting out why it is vital to our economy to be able to attract talent from across Europe and the world, why current UK Government policy does not meet Scotland's interests on this issue, and how a more flexible approach with more power for Scotland on this issue could operate. I hope that that is a helpful introduction, and I am needless to say that I am very happy to answer your questions. As you know, the committee has published its own report on immigration and citizens rights after taking considerable amount of evidence earlier in the year. Some of the evidence that we took certainly reflects what you are talking about in terms of the skills gap and the contribution that immigrants make to our society. Another rather overarching factor, a challenge facing Scotland that our report highlighted, was the difference in working-age population and older people if we do not have immigration. I was noticing in your own submission to the mark on page 26 that it says that Scotland is projected to have the second-largest decrease of 1.5 per cent in working-age population, again in overall regions between 2014 and 2024, but at the same time, the population aged over 65 is expected to grow by 20 per cent. What kind of challenge does that pose to our public services in that we have so many more people over working-age, and I predict a decrease in the number of people who are paying taxes? I should preface what I said by welcoming the fact that we are, hopefully, likely to live longer in Scotland. There is an increase in our age, our life expectancy, but you make a very fair point. If you look at the figures over the next 25 years, there are even more pronounced figures. The expectation is that, over the next 25 years, the population aged over 75 will increase by some 79 per cent. That, as I say, is to be welcomed, but the only reason that we are able to sustain this situation in Scotland is by increasing the number of people of working-age who are in our society. If you look at the projections for what would happen in a scenario where we did not have people coming from other countries to live in this country, then the number of people in the working-age population would go down by 3 per cent and, indeed, our population overall would flatten out. We have an ageing demographic, but I think that what is distinctive about Scotland's situation is that it is much, much more pronounced than the situation for the rest of the UK. Over the next 10 years and over the next 25 years, 100 per cent of the reason why our population will go up is because of the fact that we have people coming from other countries. That is 50 per cent in the UK overall, but 100 per cent of the reason why our population will go up is because of people coming here from other countries. That is exactly what our report showed as well, the crisis facing the country if we don't have a supply of migrants. Are there any alternatives to new people coming? It should be said that we obviously want to try to address the skills gaps that there are in the Scottish economy by skilling people up and we seek to do that. We put a lot of effort as a society into making sure that educational and training opportunities are there and that jobs are being filled, but we have relatively high employment in Scotland, relatively low unemployment. There is not a huge pool of people who can step in to take the places of jobs that are currently filled by migrants. For instance, you will be more than familiar with the sectors because I think that you named them in your report and study, but there are many sectors that simply could not fill the places that are currently filled by migrants from some other mysterious source. Your document is quite a substantial contribution to the UK Government's evidence gathering through the Migration Advisory Committee, but I know that the Migration Advisory Committee's report that the UK Government has asked it to produce is not going to be coming out until next September, whereas we are going to have an immigration bill published long before that. How realistically are you going to be able to influence UK Government policy if the report you are contributing to does not come out until next September? It is a very interesting question. One that would have to be posed in a way, as I think that the Scottish Government has certainly posed to the UK Government, why it is proposing a process that will extend, in terms of the MAC itself, a process that will extend, almost certainly, as you say, long beyond the date at which legislation will be brought in by the UK Government on the issue of immigration. It is difficult to see how the MAC findings will influence the legislation at the UK Government level in question, but we do seek, as a Scottish Government, to influence not just through the MAC, but through other routes as well, through the joint ministerial committees that exist between the devolved Administrations and the UK when they meet. We do seek to influence the UK Government privately and publicly about what we have as real concerns. There are not merely political points that are real workforce planning concerns about how we plan for the future in Scotland, unless we make it very clear to people that they really are welcome and that they really are needed. Obviously, there was quite a lot of cross-party consensus on the issue in the past. I believe that it was the previous Labour Government that brought in the post-study work visa for Scotland, which then became a UK-wide thing and then was abolished. It was quite noteworthy that, when the present Government did a pilot for bringing it back, Scotland was not included, despite the cross-party consensus asking for a return of the post-study work visa as one of the most, probably the only, significant example of Scotland having differentiation in those areas. Given that behaviour in the past, how likely is it that you can bring pressure to bear for a differentiated system in Scotland? The example that you point to there with the post-study work visa, I do not think that I have ever seen anything that has attracted quite so much consensus in Scotland. Things do not generally attract consensus in Scotland, but you had the whole university sector, the whole business sector, private and public, the political world across the political spectrum all saying the same thing. I am sorry to say, but despite many efforts all being rebuffed on this question, there is no doubt about the fact that the benefits that the post-study work visa system provided for the university sector, for the wider economy in Scotland, were really undeniable. We continue to make that argument and we have certainly very publicly expressed our disappointment that the four universities in the UK that were chosen to take part in a pilot, none of them, were in Scotland. Therefore, it is disappointing that that argument has so far not been heeded within the UK Government. I do nonetheless, despite that list of criticisms of the UK Government, want to try and find common ground within this Parliament to continue to make the argument in a positive way for these things to happen. The role of the committee in doing that is very helpful. Our committee took evidence from the Quebec Government on how a differentiated immigration system can work perfectly well from regional and sub-national Governments, and there are examples of that elsewhere, such as in Switzerland that we have examined. Is that something that you think is possible to achieve? I think that it is eminently possible to achieve it. I would go further than that and say that it is necessary to achieve it. For the reasons that I have given to do with our demography and our economy, it is necessary that we find a solution that is tailored to Scotland's needs. The examples that you quote are rightly examples where, at a sub-state level, there is a degree of flexibility on immigration policy. They are all very different immigration policies, as it should be said. Australia has a very different kind of migration policy to that in Canada or Switzerland, but they all share the principle that there is a political will to allow those things to happen at a sub-state level. Although that might sound like I am going off a tangent, the fact that the UK Government is now ceding certain arguments about how the post-Brexit world might work in Northern Ireland, the fact that we are even talking about Northern Ireland in a new way in this context shows that, where there is a will, it can be done and it can be done quite successfully. I really do not understand the argument that it could not be done successfully in the United Kingdom with regard to Scotland. Richard Lochhead Thank you. Good morning, minister. I will just pick up in the convener's closing remark. What do you think is the real reason why the UK Government is opposing the evolution of immigration powers of Scotland, given the disproportionate challenge that we face demographically? Richard Lochhead Well, I will unavoidably have to give some political answers to that question. At the moment, they seem to simply be of the view that immigration policy is indivisible for political or doctrinal reasons. I would like to think that at some point they will listen to reason on this, certainly that they will listen to the broader view, the consensus view in the Scottish Parliament that we need to do something else. You would have to ask them, but they have not been willing to move. Richard Lochhead Clearly, there is a lot of unity in Scotland. I noticed that even Aster Darling, the head of the NO campaign in 2014 referendum, indicates that he now supports some kind of differentiated policy in Scotland for immigration, so hopefully that unity will continue and have an impact on the UK Government. I have got a couple of cases in my constituency that I just want to raise because I want to know if there is a role for the Scottish Government to help lobby the UK Government even more than we are just now and try to influence decisions at the Home Office because, as you may know, the shortage of teachers and muries is well documented and publicised. There is also a well-publicised case in my constituency in the last few weeks where a heather catonic, a woman from Canada, was working in a school in Forrest, and, of course, she was not able to get the visa sorted out and she had to leave that post, and there has been a lot of publicity around that case. Even though she is married to a Scott, I have got another case at the same time where a woman from America is registered with the General Teaching Council in Scotland and she is desperate to work in a Murray school, but we cannot get her a sponsored visa because, for some reason, Murray Council will only sponsor STEM subjects. We have the situation in Murray to give one example of one part of Scotland where the demographic challenge is even more challenging than the Scottish national challenge because the number of pensionable aged pupils has set an increase by 33 per cent over the next 25 years with the working age population going down. We have young people wanting to live and work in Murray and other parts of Scotland to take on posts where there is a current shortage and yet we cannot get them the visas to work in this country. It is a ridiculous situation. It is damaging our economy, our future and, indeed, our education system. Is there more of a role that the Scottish Government could play to try to address some of those cases? We certainly try to highlight some of those cases and I would absolutely agree with the concerns that you are voicing more generally about that. I think that one of the problems in all of this, if I can speak more generally to begin with—there are a number about education specifically—is that the target that the UK Government for many years has set itself around reducing net migration or net inward migration to the tens of thousands is, I think, having a completely distorting effect on every aspect of migration policy then becomes a slave to this target. Regardless of the merits of individual cases, regardless of the merits of individual sectors, everything becomes a slave to this target. It should be said that if we stick to this target, the demographics for Scotland become quite frightening. That is before we even consider the possibility of actual theoretical nil inward migration. Even if we stick to that target, the prospects for Scotland become quite frightening. For education, you are quite right to say that in some parts of Scotland in particular there is a real issue and Murray is one of those. We want to see teachers from other countries making their homes, their careers and their jobs in Scotland. We do seek to help where we can on that. We do not have any power over the individual cases when it comes to the authorities in the UK, but we do seek to raise their cases and I am very happy to raise them again. My final question is, the statistics that you have outlined in relation to demographic challenges in a country are eye-watering. I wonder what more the Scottish Government can do to convey to the people of Scotland how big this challenge is. Clearly, it is a statistical-based argument because it relates to statistics and it is quite difficult to raise awareness. I wonder whether the Government can go away and think of more ways in which we can really publicise the demographic challenge in facing this country and the implications for our future as a country? You are right to say that it is going to be about more than statistics. It has got to be about a kind of hearts and minds argument that will have to be made over this. I think that there is a broader understanding than sometimes is given credit for in the media in Scotland about what this problem is. For instance, yesterday, I was in Edinburgh royal infirmary talking about the fact that, without the contribution that is made by European citizens living in Scotland, the NHS in Scotland would face a real problem. I think that that is the kind of hearts and minds argument that we can make about the importance not just demographically but the importance to our public services that is represented by EU citizens. I am mindful not to try to raise false fears about this issue. We are doing our best to work with the UK Government to find solutions, but it must be said that every time I and other ministers engage with people whether they are in the health service or other sectors from other European countries, they have had real concerns over the last year or more. It is very difficult to make financial plans for yourself or your family. It is very difficult to make plans for a mortgage. It is very difficult to make plans for a business when there is so much uncertainty surrounding you. Yes, we have to make that argument and we will make it and we will make it with more than statistics. Would you say that Scotland's needs are not so different from the rest of the UK that would justify devolving control over immigration? If we look at the needs of soft fruit producers in Angus and cherry growers in Herefordshire, do you not believe that they have the same requirement for seasonal migrant labour? Do you agree that Scotland's needs are almost identical to the rest of the UK's needs? No, I would not agree that our needs are identical to the rest of the UK for the reasons that I have been trying to set out. Demographically, our situation is twice as extreme as the situation in the rest of the UK. No, I do not agree with that point. On the question of whether soft fruit growers have the same workforce planning issues whether they are in Angus or Herefordshire, I am not disputing that the nature of the business is similar. However, it is possible to argue that, for some regions and certainly for Scotland, those industries have a particular importance. However, the point that I am making is that the situation demographically for Scotland will be twice as bad if we do not get it sorted. On that point, why is Scotland not attracting a higher share of migrants and only 3.4 per cent of Scotland's population is from the EU compared with 4.9 per cent across the UK as a whole? I do not know where you get that figure from with respect, but the figure that I have is that it is roughly 7 per cent and that that is roughly in line with our population share. Another question that I want to ask you is about the Migration Advisory Committee. Am I right in saying that this committee provides independent advice to ministers on the skills that should be included on the UK's shortage occupation list? The Migration Advisory Committee also reviews the list after consulting Scottish employers. There is a separate list of job titles and occupations for Scotland. That allows employers to recruit migrants into jobs officially in shortage without the need first to conduct a resident labour market test. Is it not true that the Scottish list had mostly matched the UK version? We certainly seek to influence the list and we have done that. However, it is not entirely easy. For instance, the MEC opened its consultation on that. It was very difficult to get information from them and numerous meetings that were offered with ministers and others were reneged on. However, we seek to, at a Government level, not at a committee level, but we nonetheless engage with them and put forward evidence. It is true to say that the lists are broadly similar, but we have put forward our own ideas on different sectors and we seek to influence them where we can. However, the problem is that this is a workforce-wide issue. Without returning and labouring the whole point about the benefits and the freedom of movement, we cannot really solve the problem in Scotland by purely looking at it on a sector by sector basis. There is a need for a much wider openness to people from other countries living here, or that our demographic problem is not going to be solved. In a supplementary question by Rachael Hamilton, I noted that COSLA, who contributed evidence to our committee research, explained that it had been engaging with the MEC for many years. Just to quote it, it said that, to date, it had little success in influencing the shortage occupation list for Scotland. There are frustrations around that. As I said, you pointed to one of the major frustrations, which is that, without any disrespect to the MEC itself, it is clearly unlikely to influence the big decisions that are going to be made by the UK about immigration policy, given the timescales that have been set for it. One of the others is the one-you-point, which is that it is far from simple for anybody in Scotland, far less the Scottish Government, to have a direct influence on that policy at all. Those are the frustrations. We have to try to find a way through it. The more we can speak with one voice on this and indicate that Scotland has different interests and that they should be listened to the better. It was just a way to follow on from the convener's direct point, because that was something that struck out to me as well, the evidence that was put forward by COSLA. It was also in terms of the UK's Tier 2 immigration framework, because if EU citizens are subject to that criteria, I believe that COSLA had said that the minimum wage thresholds for that would effectively remove all people working in social care and health, where we need those spaces filled. It was just really to get your views on that and how we can overcome those issues when we have sectors such as that, where we need people to come and work here to fill the gaps in that market. That is certainly true of that sector. It is true of other sectors as well, like the one that was mentioned around agriculture and the fruit industry and many others. If I may, I may call upon officials to answer your specific point about some of those issues. I think that the concern is that the current system for non-EU nationals coming in is skills and salary-based. The evidence that we presented in the report that we published yesterday clearly demonstrates the positive impact that EU nationals are having in a wide range of sectors, and the risk is that once you put a skill or a salary in place, then actually there are significant sectors which will be disadvantaged, including, for example, volunteers. We have an example of the camp hill, which is very dependent on volunteers, so there are big concerns there as well. Also, that is quite a bureaucratic and lengthy process, whereas what businesses and employers are saying is what they want is something that is quite fluid, easy and responsive. Also, in evidence, another point from Unison was about, similar to that of course, that there were influencing changes to the Scottish occupation list. They had raised an issue about the format of supporting evidence that is presented to the MAC, and apparently it is formatted in a way that they do not find acceptable. They said that the MAC had argued that it found it difficult to get evidence about shortages in Scotland in the format that it requires. How do we overcome that kind of issue if it is a formatting problem, when clearly evidence is there about the shortages that we have? Again, with respect to the format, I may defer to officials about that, but clearly we do not want to get ourselves into a situation where there is not that flow of information. However, I am afraid that I will have to call up on help for that one. That is fine. I think that our experience—we have certainly had feedback from the Migration Advisory Committee—is that sometimes they are taking a very economic focused approach to this, and they are looking particularly for hard evidence at a sector level. The evidence that we published yesterday provides a lot of that. Previously, the type of evidence that has been able to be provided has maybe been softer evidence, has been anecdotal evidence. Sometimes there has been a mismatch between the nature of the evidence that the Migration Advisory Committee has been looking for, but the report that we published yesterday does pull a lot of that together very clearly. Does the Scottish Government believe that there should be Scottish representation on the MAC? Yes, it would be helpful if we had more direct representation on the MAC in the future. I think that it would also be helpful as much as it is useful to look at sector by sector approaches. I think that it is important to look at nation by nation or region by region approaches as well. By conceding in a way the political debate at UK level seems to have conceded the idea of different approaches on immigration for different sectors. It begs the question why it cannot be done on a national or regional or a sub-state level as well. Thank you. Stuart McMillan. Thank you. Good morning, minister. Ilrond, in your contribution, spoke about the situation regarding the powers. In your document that was received yesterday, on page 48, the issue regarding international students and that they should not be included in the net migration target. As somebody who studied in Europe through an Erasmus scheme, it is something that I hosted an event here a couple of weeks ago regarding the 30 years of the Erasmus Plus scheme. I genuinely understand how important the issue of EU students coming here and going to the EU is in terms of that cultural exchange. In terms of what the Government has suggested regarding the policy area and to the MAC, how important does the EU and the Scottish Government place the issue of international students coming to Scotland but also having that opportunity to contribute to the Scottish economy afterwards if they have the chance to stay? I think that it is right to point both to the economic and cultural benefit. The economic benefit is clear not just to our university and college sector but also to the fact that many of these people bring their skills and are willing to live in Scotland afterwards or to work in Scotland after they graduate. The point that you are making about the inclusion of students within the 100,000 figure or the 100,000 net migration figure is a very important one, too. I think that there is, unlike in the UK political scene, as I understand it, a political consensus across all the parties that students should not be included in this figure. I have mentioned why I do not think that the figure is tremendously helpful for migration policy as it affects Scotland more generally, but I would like to think that whatever our differences, my understanding from statements from all the parties is that we do agree that students should not be included in that figure because it totally distorts our understanding of migration policy and distorts our understanding of the benefits that students from other countries bring to us. The Scottish Government explains that it is preparing this evidence-based paper on immigration, but how will you take into account any evidence that you hear from this committee and consider putting your paper together? The Scottish Government will be more than happy to take on board evidence that this committee has produced. The committee has produced substantial papers around the issue of migration policy as it affects Scotland. The task that we are now faced with is to imagine what a distinctive, tailored, a differentiated—how whichever word you want to use—solution for Scotland would actually look like in policy terms. We have made clear our preferred solution, which is the freedom of movement of people throughout Europe, including Scotland. However, we now also have to think about what would a differentiated solution for Scotland look like, what would be the policy options and the policy levers that we might use if we had constitutionally the power to use them. We are not in a position—or I am not in a position—to set that out for you today. In the coming months, however, I will be more than willing to come back to this committee to talk about our proposals as they develop. I would be very happy indeed to take on board any views, any recommendations that this committee has on that area. Already this morning, Minister, you have touched upon the issue of Brexit. Certainly, this Parliament has had various UK ministers come to various committees to answer questions regarding the issue of Brexit and how it is going to affect this Parliament. Certainly yesterday, the Delegated Powers and Law Reform Committee had Robin Walker MP and Chris Skidmore MP come to give evidence that both are ministers in the UK Government. This is all on the record, and they were repetitive—it was probably too strong on the word—but they consistently made the point that they are in listening mode. They want to come to Scotland to talk to and also to listen so that they can take back issues and then hopefully make some changes. Now, with that, you have already touched upon this morning that you find it difficult to of the UK Government to actually listen to recommendations from the Scottish Government. Now, how much of a challenge is the Scottish Government actually finding that with the UK Government for them to consider, whether it is a differentiated approach for Scotland or some other type of approach in terms of immigration for Scotland? Well, since the Brexit vote, we have tried to put forward a whole series of compromise proposals. There is no point in rehearsing the different political perspectives that we will all have on all those solutions. The point is that it has been no simple task. The joint ministerial committee, there are two, one on European negotiations and one on which I sit on Europe. One did not sit for, I think, eight months. They are convened by the UK Government, I should say. We are working to try and make these bodies work so that we do try to exchange ideas that we do try to work with each other. I have an outstanding meeting request with the UK immigration minister. I do seek to make sure that those meetings happen, but I would not like to give you the picture that the UK Government has in the past seen its role as more than informing us of what it is doing. There has been a suggestion of a potential GMC on immigration. Is that something that you would welcome? I would welcome any kind of engagement. I would not say that the joint ministerial committee model has been the most successful attempt ever devised to include the devolved administrations in the workings of UK policy. I certainly would not be against anything that tried to promote that conversation, so I certainly would not oppose it if it was meaningful, if it had a proper sector area, if it had proper regular meetings, I certainly would not be opposed to that. The sectoral issues that we have in terms of attracting inward migration and failing skills shortages have been covered, but the demographic issues that we have with ageing populations are quite geographically acute as well. What tools do the Scottish Government currently have? What tools do you currently employ to ensure an effective geographic dispersal distribution of those coming in? I do not mean to use language that makes people sound simply like units of labour, but there is obviously a need particularly in rural areas. Dumfries and Galloway in particular has very acute needs. What tools does the Government employ to ensure that people are attracted to those areas? I think that you are right to say that it is about attracting people rather than moving people around. I think that we have one view on that. I represent the Western Isles in Parliament, and I am very conscious of both the fact that our population as a region is set to come down by 14 per cent over the next 25 years. I am also conscious of the fact that many communities in my area, as in Dumfries and Galloway, I am sure, have benefited enormously from people from other European countries making it their home. I can think of communities in rural Scotland where the school is probably open largely because the fact that that community has got people working in it from other European countries. There are particular sectors in rural Scotland, whether it is fish processing, whether it is to some degree the fishing industry. Certain types of agriculture, as we have talked about, are very important. We should make sure that we make rural Scotland attractive to people who are coming from other countries. Perhaps the most important thing that we can do overall, however, is to make it clear again and again and again to people that they are welcome. People feel welcome in their communities, particularly in rural Scotland, but they also need us as politicians to repeat that message over and over again. What role do you see for local government in this? Will you discuss the need for differentiated solutions within the UK? There is obviously a need for a level of differentiation within Scotland. What role would you see for local government within that? We are going to come forward with proposals as to how we can see a differentiated solution working. I am very open to looking at solutions that take account of the issues that you mentioned about the fact that different parts of Scotland have very different needs. That is something that we will want to be looking at and including in that exercise and when we look at what a differentiated immigration policy could look like. We need to take account of some of those issues when we do that. On local government, local government has, on a completely different subject, should be said, but local government has, I think, in Scotland showing themselves to be very helpful and very positive in their contribution towards volunteering to provide services to refugees, which is a completely different issue. I know, but I am sure that local government will similarly be involved in the process when it comes to thinking about how we make sure that we have a policy for European citizens that fits the needs of local economies. COSLA has obviously been very engaged on this issue for some time. Were they involved at all in contributing towards your response to the Migration Advisory Council? We will work closely with COSLA's migration team. We are in touch with them on a very regular basis. We would certainly want to have their views, as I mentioned, when it comes to as we develop a policy in the future. We work with them on a regular basis. I wanted to follow up on a couple of points on the tier 2 shortage occupation list. At the moment, there are two additional occupations that I understand for Scotland, medical practitioners in some areas and physical scientists. Can you talk us through any plans that the Scottish Government has to propose additional shortage occupations specifically for Scotland? Can you also talk us through the process, the evidence and the analysis that you do to identify what those specific areas are for Scotland? We have done some studies on that. However, when I was visiting the Edward Royall infirmary yesterday, the message that came across loud and clear there was that, yes, there is a certain amount that can be done to identify new sectors or additional areas of work, but the need is across the board. For instance, I was in the medical physics department at the hospital yesterday and they were saying that the variety of specialisms is so wide, and the specialisms are so specialist that almost drawing up a list would be beside the point. That is not to take away from the fact that the list is important, but our needs are so wide and so general that we need to have, as Rachael Ceeley says, a system that is responsive to everyone and is fluid. Will you expect to put forward other additional specific occupations for Scotland? If we have evidence that there are specific shortages then, as a Government, we are more than happy to put forward additional areas if we have the evidence for that. Thank you. Just a couple of other questions, if I can. Can you talk us through any plans for the Scottish Government to prepare an annual population strategy for Scotland? We have a wider population strategy as things stand. I am going to look to Rachael to see what the most recent date was of providing that to the Parliament. We certainly have an on-going population policy. I am talking about it just now. We have provided evidence to the committee and we have also the population strategy for Scotland in the national performance framework, which includes a target to match our population growth for the EU-15 average. Our population policy is essentially built around the EU-15 average and we regularly make statements and comment about how a country is meeting that. As part of that, or maybe in addition to that, what plans do you have in place to promote Scotland as a destination for migrants across the world, obviously beyond the European Union? Are there particular countries that the Scottish Government would be looking to promote Scotland as a destination within those countries? There are obviously particular countries outside the EU with whom we have a strong association, whether it is historically or anything else. For instance, it was noticeable with the post-study work visa and the changes to that or the abolition of that, that I think Nigeria, surprisingly, featured as a country where the changes that were made to the post-study work visa resulted in the halfing of the number of people from that country coming to study and perhaps work in Scotland. There are obviously countries with which we have a particular connection, perhaps more obvious ones that leap to mind are countries with which we have familial connections in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and so forth, but by far the biggest immediate source of, apart from within the UK itself, by far the biggest source of new people coming to Scotland that is from the European Union. Thank you. Just one final question. You mentioned other steps that might be taken by the Government to address shortages within Scotland and looking at the Scottish workforce and availability within Scotland. There are, I think, 730,000 economically inactive people in Scotland of working age. Do you see, and what plans do you have, to possibly look at bringing those people into the workplace to address workplace shortages? I might be wrong. I think that the figure that you are quoting will include students, for instance. It will also include people who are ill, so I am not sure that I would recognise that figure completely, although I am happy to go away and come back to you on that. What I would say is that, yes, we do obviously need to make sure that people are work ready, we do need to make sure that people have opportunities to be trained and to be educated, but the point that I have been emphasising from the beginning of my evidence here today is that, if we found ourselves in a situation where we did not have a system in place for European Union citizens to feel welcome and feel they had a future here, we would not be able to make up the shortfall in many, many of the sectors that we need them in from the group of people that you are talking about. It is simply not practical to do that in the time available. That does not take away from the important point of making people work ready, though. I turn again to the UK forthcoming immigration bill. I said at the start that we discussed how the year submission to the MAC is not going to be published until next September, but the immigration bill is obviously coming out before then. Have you received any information or intelligence at all as to how new arrivals of EU citizens after Brexit should go ahead, how they will be treated in a new immigration system? I know that the Prime Minister has suggested that they will be treated the same way as EU citizens are at the moment. What is your understanding of the direction of travel on that? I am only a Scottish Government minister, so I really only have leaks from the UK Government to go on, I am afraid on that. The signs so far are obviously not entirely positive, but at the moment we are living from month to month trying to get information about what is being proposed for existing EU citizens and also for incoming ones, but we really have nothing more to go on than the Prime Minister has indicated and none of it has been negotiated with the EU 27 to any satisfactory conclusion. One of the things that particularly concerns many people who have engaged with the committee is the minimum income requirement for non-EA family members in the UK at the moment. There was a report out by the Migration Observatory last year that examined this issue. It notes that 40 per cent of British citizens employed in 2015 did not meet the income criteria for sponsoring a family member, but one of the very interesting things that it threw up is the gender disparity in the discrimination against women in this area. For example, when you look at the number of people who are not eligible to sponsor a spouse because of their income, 27 per cent of men fall into that category, but females are 55 per cent. When it comes, when you have two children, women are even more likely to be discriminated against. A woman with two children, 69 per cent of women with two children, would not meet the eligibility criteria to have their spouse stay in the UK. That is very worrying if that applies to EU citizens. Is that gender discrimination something that concerns you? It is, from a human point of view. It seems like a very crude way to try to determine the future of European citizens of other European nations seeking to come to our country in the future. It appears to discriminate against women, and it also discriminates against some of the very sectors in which people are working and doing a valuable job. In Scotland, there are some sectors that we have mentioned, such as agriculture and fish processing, where I am quite sure that if the non-European rules were applied to EU citizens and EU citizens knew EU citizens or new applicants for entry into the UK, we would find themselves falling foul of that. At the human level, it does not seem to be very sensible to apply those rules to EU citizens, and it does not seem to be very sensible to an economic one either. Finally, Ms Sunderland mentioned the camp hill community, which is, if you do not mind, I want to raise that as a constituency issue, because I have a camp hill community in the south of Scotland, based at Loch Arthur, whom I visited on Friday, and they wanted me to raise the issue that they are concerned about, which is their volunteers. Basically, their volunteers come from Europe because they follow the Rudolf Steiner approach to working with people with learning disabilities, and it was an absolutely humbling experience that many people had lived there as volunteers for 20 years contributing and supporting people in a very familial situation, but not drawing a wage. Because they do not draw a wage, they would not fit into the income criteria going forward. Is there anything that we can do to influence the UK Government to ensure that the wonderful communities that do so much to help vulnerable people are sustainable in future? I think that there are lots of things in that. Certainly we do and we will continue to raise the issue of voluntary work, partly because it should not be overlooked that so many people from other European countries contribute to their own communities and are so keen to contribute to their own communities through voluntary work, but also because of the uncertainty that surrounds so much of what is being proposed, for instance, around the five-year rule for people having to prove that they have been resident here for future status and settled status and so on. Somebody recently said to me, someone from Spain said to me, well, I can prove that the time I was doing paid work, how on earth do I prove the time I was doing voluntary work? Does this count? Will this count towards my settled status or not? The voluntary sector raises all sorts of questions and it is good to see that the organisations representing the voluntary sector in Scotland have been raising those very publicly. The Scottish Government is happy to do so, too. I have a question on that point, too. Have you had any sort of sounding out from the UK Government really about people that are in that exact position and people who are... I mean, I know that there are lots of examples of people who have been in cash and hand employment as well, which I think offers the same issues. Do you have any sense of where the thinking is on that? No. I recently took up an individual case as minister and I have also taken up, as I am sure others have, as a constituency MSP to try to get an answer to that question. So far, I do not have an answer. There may be one in the post, but there is a huge wealth of detail at the moment that is missing in terms of the question of how people prove their residence and prove their status for five years in order to qualify for different types of settled status in the future, however, those are ultimately defined. However, the problem is that the longer that goes on, as I probably do not need to tell you, the more uncomfortable the situation becomes and we should not be putting people in that situation much longer. I noticed in having a look at the report that the Government highlights an issue with the data coming from rural areas, where it seems to be largely qualitative. I was wondering if you could just talk us through what the issues are there. I will, as you can probably guess, call upon help for that one, but I think that we have qualitative information about the situation in rural Scotland, which is different in a number of ways. For instance, employment levels are deceptively high in rural areas, as you will be aware, because young people who do not have jobs simply move out of the areas. It does not take away from the fact that there is often an economic problem, and there is often a major skills shortage. We have qualitative information about some of that and how that impacts on the need for people from other European countries living in those areas. If I can perhaps call on one or the other to come in on the back of that. I am happy to come in. Obviously, the best source of information that we have on population is the census, but that is only every 10 years. The census is carried out in March. We are not picking up seasonal workers at all. Rural areas are particularly dependent on seasonal workers, particularly for agriculture. Rural policy colleagues have done some work looking at the agricultural census to try to make an estimate of seasonal workers, number of seasonal workers. We are thinking at something like between 15,000 and 22,000, but it is obviously very difficult because seasonal workers are very mobile as well, so they are following the work. However, we have commissioned research, which is looking in greater detail specifically at seasonal agricultural workers, and we are expecting an interim report from that next month. Just to finish off, we talked earlier about a differentiated system for Scotland. Now we know that the system for non-EA migrants at the moment is our experience as a very complex, our experience as MSPs. How could you ensure that any differentiated system for Scotland works better for businesses in the sense that it is cheaper and less complex? Clearly, there are many people who have given evidence. The written evidence to our committee said that they are quite open. They understand that Scotland has particular needs and they are quite open, but they want to know how it is going to work. Understandably, they want reassurances that it is not going to cost them more money if they are businesses. What kind of reassurances can you give them in that respect? I think that those are very fair and understandable questions that businesses raise and ones that we want to take into account over the next months as we put together our proposals on this. One thing that is becoming clear is that there is a movement perhaps towards even aside from any new policy, there is a movement within the UK towards businesses in a sense becoming having more of a role as gatekeepers in a way around the immigration system than they used to have. We need to take account of the fact that businesses may have concerns about the workload around that, but it perhaps also provides us with opportunities. Overcomes some of the arguments that have been thrown in the past at the idea of regional immigration policies. It makes clear that that is not particularly about monitoring people on sub-state borders. That is about ensuring that businesses can have the workforce that they need and that we can devise a policy that ensures that they have that. Inevitably, any system could be more complicated—perhaps not inevitably—and it could end up more complicated. We want to devise a policy that ensures that we avoid that situation and that we have a policy that is informed not just by the needs of individual workers but by businesses themselves. I know that some industries have expressed concerns about the financial implications. I wondered whether you were planning to do some financial modelling around devolving immigration, particularly for small businesses. I know that the Federation of Small Business had expressed concern, particularly those small businesses without an HR department and the implications that it would have on local authorities. We would certainly want to take into account any concerns that were brought to us about that. It should be said that businesses, including small businesses and the housing sector, already have a role in monitoring or dealing with some of those questions. We would want to take into account any concerns that people have, but the biggest concern that is being brought to us by the business world in this area is not about that. It is about the fact that they have skill shortages that they do not know how to meet if we do not have a tailored solution to that problem. We will now go into private session. I thank the minister and his officials for coming to give evidence to us today. We will now go into private session.