 The next item of business is a debate on motion 382 in the name of Richard Lochhead on mitigating, tackling and responding to the skills impact of Brexit. I invite members who wish to participate in this debate to press the request to speak buttons now or on the chat function if they are joining us remotely. I call on Richard Lochhead to speak to and move the motion around 13 minutes. I welcome you to your new role in Parliament and I hope all my years have been very nice to you. You have put me in good stead for this debate and beyond. Today I am delighted to be opening today's debate in my new role as Scotland's Minister for Justice, Transition, Employment and Fair Work. Of course I will take the liberty of using this opportunity to thank the people of Murray for placing their trust in me once again to serve them for the next five years. Today I am asking Parliament to recognise and respond to many of the skills issues being experienced by key sectors of our economy, given the complex and unpredictable dynamics in our economy that have arisen due to the pandemic but that have been unfortunately compounded by a hard Brexit and the cessation of free movement. As we emerge from Covid-19, workers and businesses across Scotland face new and growing uncertainties and for many employers something approaching a perfect storm is here. They face increased demand but a tightening labour market and a very real prospect of staff shortages. For others, Brexit has introduced all kinds of onerous barriers to trade that are weakening their ability to be fully productive as we emerge from the pandemic or even export their products. UK Government was warned by the Scottish Government and many others to avoid going through with a hard Brexit in the middle of a pandemic but those voices were ignored and were now paying the price. Of course businesses in our economy have been severely impacted by a pandemic that no one wanted or expected and as a result of necessary measures to save people's lives. A hard Brexit, on the other hand, was also not wanted but was voiced in Scotland through choice and where the damaging consequences were expected and predicted. I am sure that members across the chamber will have read recent reports concerning the many employers who are currently struggling to recruit workers. Both Covid and Brexit are impacting on the labour market and the economy. For businesses such as the Cree Hydro, the end of free movement has, as the owner Stephen Lecky put it, now come home to roost with the imminent summer holiday period being a crucial time of the year for the hospitality sector. Yet businesses like his have confirmed that they still have a large number of vital roles to be filled and their difficulties are not unique but characteristic of trends across the hospitality and tourism sectors amongst others. In recognition of the challenges facing the tourism and hospitality sector, I am pleased to confirm that we will be giving additional support this financial year to support upskilling and retraining in the sector via the national transition training fund. Furthermore, the Scottish Government is working with partners, including the UK hospitality, Scotland and Skills Development Scotland, to promote the range of careers in these sectors. We will be shortly launching a marketing campaign to help to reduce the number of vacancies in the tourism and hospitality sector and to promote tourism as a career of choice among our target audience of 18-30-year-olds in Scotland. I am very grateful to the minister for giving way. I wonder if that also presents an opportunity for us to reflect on why those industries were so reliant on migrant labour in the first place. Do you consider that there needs to be a real look at wages and productivity and look at those issues in the round? There are many industries in Scotland that rely on overseas workers and have done for many, many decades. The points that Daniel Johnson makes are valid points in some cases and I will return to that later in my speech. I can just say to members that hospitality and tourism can create sectors to work in and we should always remind people of that and we should all be urging our constituents to seek out good opportunities. Employers in food and drink manufacturing are also reporting an unprecedented drop in the availability of workers over the past six months in Scotland, which they attribute to Brexit's immediate effect on labour mobility alongside pandemic-related disruption. Just this week, I received a letter from the director of Bright Work Recruitment, who at peak time provides almost 1,500 workers to the sector, working with clients such as Diageal, Willem Grantson and Pernod Rechard, close to my heart and my constituency. The letter highlights the concerns of many within the food and drink industry that, as they approach quarter four of the year, the increasing skill shortages will be too great for many businesses who manage our great Scottish products. We have been working closely with the sector to launch a food and drink recovery plan that contains a range of activities that support the skills and needs of businesses in food and drink to help mitigate and reverse the damage caused by Covid-19 and Brexit. We are also delivering a new youth employment programme across the industry to encourage more young people into it as well. I think that the minister's speech so far is more about Brexit grievance and it is about the real crisis in Scotland, which is about skills, availability and skills levels. Can the minister please explain about this particular area of policy that is very much in his remit, which is modern apprenticeships, which have collapsed across Scotland year-on-year between 2019 and 2020 and 2020? There were 13,719 in quarter two 2019-20 compared with 3,633 in the same quarter 2020-21. I am not going to take any lectures from a Conservative member given that their amendment to this motion is a rant against Scottish independence and given that our industries at the moment are speaking about the impact of Brexit. The SNP Government has delivered record numbers of apprenticeships, but last year, 18 months, we have experienced a pandemic in which it has been difficult to deliver many of the apprenticeships. I think that everyone in Scotland understands that apart from the member over there. Willie Rennie, you will get the time back. I thank the minister for giving way. The national transition training fund has been underutilised by quite a significant degree. Can the minister explain why that has happened? This is an important factor in trying to get people into work. Willie Rennie, as the Labour amendment raises an important point, and I am about to address that shortly, but modern apprenticeships are also seen as one of the key drivers to build resilience in businesses and productivity, as well as long-term sustainability in the food and drink sector. We will continue to work with Skills Development Scotland if the member will listen to maximise apprenticeships uptake and to support existing apprenticeships to complete their training. Meanwhile, Logistics UK has reported a shortage of around 76,000 HGV drivers across the UK, and the Road Hogs Association has reported that one in 10 companies are now experiencing severe barriers in recruiting drivers. I have taken a lot of interventions so far. I am aware of the Road Hogs Association's 12-point plan to increase the number of HGV drivers. They are seeking a seasonal visa scheme and to be included on the UK's skilled worker shortage occupation list, as well as other measures as well. While some of their asks are, of course, for the UK Government and we hope that the UK Government is listening, we also stand ready to work with the industry to develop solutions that will ensure the flow of goods in and out and across Scotland. One issue is the backlog to testing in the RHA estimate that about 30,000 HGV tests have been delayed, which is preventing new drivers to take up their posts. I am encouraged by the DVLA who are prioritising driving tests for HGV drivers. For Scotland's small and medium-sized enterprises, the impact of Brexit cannot be underestimated. A Federation of Small Business report found that 40 per cent of small firms in Scotland pre-Brexit employed a worker from the European Economic Area compared to the UK average of 26 per cent, second only to London in terms of reliance on EEA workers. Of course, in tourism and hospitality, the figure jumped to 45 per cent. The FSB also reports that SMEs with workforces led by international workers generate around £13 billion for the Scottish economy. With the end of fee movement, the impact will be significant for this sector. Emanuel Mawr, chair of the Inverness Hotellers Association, said that, two years ago, 60 per cent of my staff were from the EU. Where do I go now to replace them? The true scale of the challenge remains unclear, but it is known and widely evidenced that a skilled and dynamic labour force is crucial for this country's economic prosperity. That is why the Scottish Government is investing £2 billion in the skilled system every year and is committed to investing an additional £0.5 billion to support new jobs and reskill people for jobs for the future over the course of this five-year Parliament. I realise that the member has taken many interventions and I am very grateful for him to the gaming element. In looking forward to the skills of the future and the green economy, we know that much of, for example, wind farm construction is done abroad and imported, and those that service that are also imported as well. We also know that, in the health industry, there are many medical professions where those who apply for those positions from Scotland far outstrip the numbers of places available. Does the member consider that there is an opportunity here for our home-grown talent to get into those industries? Of course, there are opportunities for home-grown talent, but you have to look at Scotland's demographic projections, which shows that our working population is decreasing and we are increasingly reliant on people moving here, as they have done for decades, if not centuries, to Scotland to live and work. We are made most welcome because we are an outward welcoming country and a very internationalist country as well. In October last year, of course, to address some of those challenges, we introduced the National Transition Training Fund in response to the threat of rising unemployment, which some members have mentioned. A low demand for support was suppressed by successive furlough extensions, and that is the reason why we have not seen the uptake perhaps be anticipated. As the Labour Party mentioned in its amendment, much of which we agree with and we just want to cite the reason why that is the case with this fund. The fund delivered more than 6,000 interventions for the first phase, and delivery of provision through colleges and universities will continue until the end of July, and we are always keeping those initiatives under review. While we will press the UK Government to extend the furlough scheme for those who need it, we will continue to offer retraining opportunities for those who need them and to support those sectors facing the greatest challenges. We will continue to invest in retraining upscaling opportunities to ensure that Scotland's workforce is ready for the jobs of the future. We have also committed to and will deliver a Green Jobs Workforce Academy within the first 100 days of this new Parliament to equip our workforce with the skills needed to enter into our progressing jobs that are essential for our green recovery. The Government has long argued that Brexit will be a disruptive force to Scotland's society and economy. Thankfully, Scotland remains an attractive location to live and work, and as last week's EY survey demonstrated, overseas investment in Scotland bucked the UK trend by increasing during 2020, despite many of the restrictions that were continuing to be in place. However, while investment has held up, it is clear that Brexit-related disruption is beginning to manifest itself. Those of us who are constituency MSPs or regional MSPs, we must speak to our businesses every other week and get the same feedback that Brexit is having a massive impact in many parts of our economy at the current time. That is certainly the case in my own area, and I am sure that it is the case throughout the country in terms of your own experience. Of course, it is not just the lack of labour but the costs and trade barriers and the difficulty in sourcing materials that have arisen from Brexit as well. They are causing massive problems to the economy in Scotland at the current time. Returning to what we can do here in Scotland and what employers can do for themselves, which some members mentioned in interventions, at a time of skilled shortages, it is important that employers grasp the opportunities to become more competitive. The key to that is fair work. The Scottish Government believes that it is more than just jobs that are needed. Our commitment to fair work principles is vital to creating the kind of society that values wellbeing as well as prosperity. We are committed to creating jobs that are greener and fairer that benefit both our economy and society. Through promoting diverse and inclusive recruitment and working practices and adopting the principles of fair work and investing in workforce development, training and upskilling, employers will benefit from greater innovation and greater productivity. Not only is that vital to addressing those skilled shortages but employers will benefit from an enhanced reputation that will help them to attract talent. A fair work employer will really stand head and shoulders above others and the Scottish Government, guided by the independent fair work convention that will soon be looking at sectors such as hospitality, can support employers to create much fairer workplaces. Ultimately, it is for employers to make that change. I am pleased by some of the hospitality companies in particular that I have spoken to in the past few weeks to hear some good examples of how they are improving wages and working conditions, scrapping split shifts and talking about four-day weeks. That is the way forward. It is an important indication of systemic change in that particular sector and hopefully we will see that across many different sectors. The employer skills survey undertaken between October to December last year reported that 74 per cent of employers highlighted that upskilling would be needed in the year ahead. Our commitment to delivering a skilled and productive workforce that meets the needs of employers and equips the current and future workforce with the skills of the future did, of course, predate the pandemic. We will continue to carry out that investment in skills and our workforce. As I move towards a conclusion, our economy requires workers from across Europe and beyond to ensure Scotland's economy benefits from world-class hospitality and tourism, agriculture, health and social care, higher education and research and so on. We value those who come here to work and make Scotland their home. Their contribution not only supports their industries but enhances our culture and society. We need people to contribute to all levels of the economy in vital roles in tourism and some of those other sectors as well. UK Government migration policy fails to address Scotland's distinctive demographic and economic needs and disregards the workers upon whom we have come to rely and who have been so vital during this pandemic. Migrants have been closed off and put off by the UK Government's hostile immigration policy and Brexit. In conclusion, we have all got a part to play moving forward and I am asking employers to innovate to attract workers into sectors and occupations that are crucial to our economy. I call on the UK Government to listen to and act on the concerns of those Scottish industries that are facing the twin challenges at the moment of the pandemic and Brexit and to work with us to support employers and workers through the times ahead. I move the motion to my name. I now call on Oliver Mundell to speak to and move amendment 3 at 2.1. Mr Mundell, you have around nine minutes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I move the amendment in my name. Listening to the minister, it would be all too easy to forget where assembled here in the world's most powerful devolved Parliament. A Parliament with the power to change the lives of people in Scotland for the better. In a tidal wave of doom, you will be forgiven for letting the fact that we have a Government answerable to this chamber who could act not tomorrow but today wash over you. But the people of Scotland deserve better. Better than an SNP Government that has had coming on for 15 years to do something about these issues. Better than ministers who have the brass neck to come here and voice disquiet about the action of others but who have nothing to say about the fact that they have been caught out doing nothing themselves. Because whilst the events of the last year, whether that be a global health pandemic or the decision of the people of the United Kingdom to forge a new future outside the European Union, have made the skills shortage more visible. The truth is that those events did not create it. No, our skills shortage was created here in Scotland and telling us that someone else is responsible will not solve it. Instead, we need a bit of humility and honesty from the SNP. Of course, I am not expecting that to happen. I thank Oliver Mundell for giving me a minute. Don't we need a bit of humility from both the SNP and the Conservative Government? Ultimately, Brexit is costing jobs, it is impacting businesses and it does mean that we have less people to do the work. Perhaps a little humility from the Conservative benches will be in order as well. I simply don't agree with the member. I think that Brexit presents real opportunities for people right across the United Kingdom and I think that we will see in years to come that it was the right decision. I'm not expecting the SNP to let the facts get in the way of constitutional grievance. I won't say who does gloomy better but it's clear that Michael Russell has passed the baton of Brexit doom mungering on to Richard Lochhead. Indeed, this trademark tactic is a surefire sign that the SNP are in trouble and no wonder they want to create a smokescreen. The SNP's record on skills speaks for itself. They promise future action but talk is cheap, certainly. The Parliament in the past has unanimously backed devolving immigration powers to Holyrood, if I remember correctly, a few years ago. Why has that not been delivered, given that many of our sectors just now in Scotland are asking for these kind of powers to come to this Parliament so that we can help them get through this crisis? I think that the member is incorrect in that recollection. I think that we need to see our immigration system work better, yes, but many sectors of the Scottish economy value a UK-wide immigration system. We need proposals that work for people here in Scotland but they also have to work for the United Kingdom as a whole. That's what the people of Scotland backed when they voted to stay part of the United Kingdom back in 2014. The SNP forever promise that they're going to act. They forever promise new plans, new proposals on skills but they don't back it up with the level of commitment or investment needed. We know that a skills revolution and mass retraining is possible. We don't need to look much further than the events of the last year. I don't claim that this is a positive example, but it does show that it can be done. There are literally thousands of people across Scotland who have shown that it's possible to reskill and retrain in a heartbeat. Sadly not because they wanted to but because they had to. Throughout the pandemic, we have seen numerous examples from bar workers who started driving delivery vans to chefs who moved into the construction area to beauticians working in supermarkets to tour guides who became home carers to theatre costume designers who turned their hands to manufacturing face masks. Each and every one of them are unsung heroes of this pandemic who have gone above and beyond not just to look after their own families but others too. The truth is that this type of thing should be normal, not exceptional, seen in normal, not exceptional times. It should be driven by individual choice, not just economic need, and it should be supported by the Government because gone are the days of a job for life. It's time to get serious about supporting people to retrain and upskill, and that means moving past the point where we expect the majority of learning and training to be completed by the age of 22. It means adopting much more innovative and flexible policies such as the individual learning accounts promoted by CBI Scotland, which should see people incentivised and financially supported to enhance their skillset at key points in their life. Paul Sweeney, I thank the member for giving way. It makes an interesting point about the flexibility of the workforce but, of course, another fundamental component is ensuring the sufficient demand in the economy to employ people at a sufficient level of income that gives them a dignified and uplifting life. Does he recognise that there potentially is an issue with that regard of economic planning both at a UK and Scottish level that we're not simply providing enough jobs for those opportunities, so expanding people to chase jobs that don't exist is actually a form of abuse? Oliver Mundell, I think that the member makes an important point and, of course, those things are all part of the package. I think that there are skilled job opportunities that already exist within our economy and I think that we have to find a better way at supporting people to move into the jobs that exist and helping them train to take advantage of those opportunities. That doesn't mean just dipping our toe in the water, it means getting behind a system-wide change. It also means acknowledging that the SNP Government's plans for apprenticeships don't go far enough and that's why the Scottish Conservatives want to see unlimited apprenticeships for Scotland's young people. We want to see a demand-led model that would ensure that funded places reflect employer and economy needs, not just arbitrary and unambitious SNP targets. It means recognising that progress is all but impossible in an environment where college funding has been cut to the bone and where our further education sector is looking at how to survive in the here and now, not helping to drive future strategy or supporting learners to gain the skills and knowledge that they need to fulfil their full potential. How can a Government serious about skills explain why we have seen a trend of decreasing college student numbers under their watch? Rather than hanging their heads in shame, SNP ministers instead come to this chamber and defend the indefensible, they hide behind grudge and grievance. Why didn't Richard Lochhead turbocharge the college sector when he was responsible for it? Was Brexit to blame? Likewise, in the here and now, we see colleges and universities badly served by this Government who don't seem to understand the urgency in getting back to face-to-face small group learning. Across technical and science-based subjects, it's almost impossible to see how we can properly prepare learners without enabling some in-person tuition. Will the member recognise that our college sector has exceeded its targets for college places? There have been thousands of short-term part-time places cut. It's not the feedback that I get from my constituents. The minister says that members should be going away and listening to people. I think that he should reflect on what people in the college sector and I suspect that many of his constituents will be saying. Of course, at the height of the pandemic, we need to be cautious and we need to be cautious now, but we also need to find a pragmatic balance that recognises the consequences of holding back another year of learners in our higher and further education settings. With lead times for starting new courses being anywhere from six to eight weeks, we need an urgent plan set out now. We were able to do it for schools, so let's not pretend that it's impossible to set out a detailed route map for higher and further education. We then get to the most ridiculous and hypocritical part of today's debate. Let's remember that we are in the midst of the greatest challenge that humankind has faced in generations. The whole planet continues to grapple with the effects of Covid-19. Here in Scotland, the Scottish Fiscal Commission forecasts that our economy will not return to pre-pandemic levels until at least 2024. We continue to see businesses forced by law to close their doors who have not been able to trade in over 400 days, and many people continue to experience the consequences for their health. In that context, most Governments are rightly focused on protecting jobs, remobilising health services and making sure that young people catch up on lost learning, not to mention trying to roll out vaccines to their population, certainly. It was just to agree with the member that Governments should be focused on that, so why then did the UK Government proceed with Brexit at the very height of lockdown? The huge difference between Brexit and Scottish independence is that we had already set an exit date for leaving the EU before the pandemic started. Throughout those negotiations, just as we have seen during the vaccine debacle, and we currently see in Northern Ireland, the EU is probably the least reasonable negotiators on the planet. The idea that we could have knocked back our exit from the EU and got a better deal than the Government delivered is fanciful. Meanwhile, here in Scotland, we have a Government that is willing to put our recovery at risk by continuing to unnecessarily dangle the prospect of a further device of referendum over our country, something that the people of Scotland did not vote for, unlike the people of the UK who did vote to leave the EU. There seems to be no acceptance of reality and the huge uncertainty and instability that this would fuel. I cannot see how SNP ministers have the bare face cheek to come to this chamber and tell us that Brexit is having a negative effect on the labour market, but that somehow putting up a hard border at Gretna would be a positive. Not only would it be a huge betrayal of the many people, families, businesses and organisations across the country, treading water just to survive, but it is also a massive distraction from tackling the very issues that we are discussing today. So rather than stoking the arguments of the past, whether that be on Brexit or independence, we instead need a Government who is willing to get their finger out and get on with using the powers that they have to do something to address the skills shortage that they have overseen. I stand to move the motion in my name on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party. I refer to my register of interests as a member of the GMB and United Trade Union. The long-and-tortures process of Brexit that has bedevilled us since 2016 is often debated as a constitutional issue that stands separate from a constitutional issue. Dragging is away from the class politics that underpins a socialist analysis of our economy and society, but it is easy to forget that constitutional wrangling creates victims too, most of whom are working class people, whether it is the fight about LGBT rights, women's rights or in this case about immigration, trade and the skills that underpin it. Immigration was front and centre of the Brexit debate in the lead-up to the referendum. We saw Nigel Farage's infamous posters, which will go down as a shameful moment in our history. We heard the same myths repeated over and over again about migrants' negative impact on wages and public services when we know that all the evidence points to the contrary. We also witnessed a wave of hate crime, not just against migrants but also against British porn people of colour who were told that they do not belong in the Brexiteers' nationalist utopia. Today, almost five years after the Brexit vote, millions of EU nationals still find themselves in limbo. Those who arrived in the UK under freedom of movement are now being forced to apply to just be able to stay in their own homes with their loved ones. We hear harrowing stories of people who have spent years, even decades, living and working in Britain, now having their settled status applications rejected by the Home Office. Although they fail to recognise any of those issues in their amendment, if the Tories have their way, soon millions more will be subject to the same hostile environment that brought us the Windrush scandal. Although the Green Party's amendment was not selected today, the Labour Party wholeheartedly endorses its endeavour in this vital matter. Scotland cannot let migrant workers be an afterthought in the Brexit process. Polish nurses or Romanian cleaners are just as much a part of the working class as their colleagues with British passports. For example, the feminist organisation in gender estimates that one in five workers in the social care sector are not born in the UK. Migrant workers occupy some of the most important yet undervalued roles in our society, and the Scottish Government must use all its power to ensure that they are treated fairly. That is why Scottish Labour is calling for the extension of trade union recognition to prevent the exploitation of migrant labour in undervalued sectors. Trade unions have achieved what was previously thought impossible by building up popular recognition of key workers through the pandemic into a determined campaign that extends beyond mere good will to a fight for terms and conditions that would allow every worker to live a dignified life. The Scottish Government must take the next step as we move towards a national care service to ensure that all those who employ workers in Scotland across health and social care formally recognise trade unions and their right to collectively bargain on behalf of their members. We face an economic and challenge in Scotland, which we tried to address in previous years under a Labour Government, most notably through the Fest Challenge initiative in 2004. The scheme was successful in reversing Scotland's historic population decline. From 1801 to 1901, the Scottish population grew by 180 per cent, but from 1901 to 2001, it grew by just 10 per cent. In the next 10 years, we see the working-age population in Scotland projected to grow by just 1 per cent. This presents a huge demographic challenge for Scotland. There are many reasons underlying those trends that cannot simply be blamed on Brexit, though erecting borders and all the frictions that they bring certainly does not help matters. The fundamental structure of the Scottish economy is critical in an urgent need of reform. We need to build on previous initiatives, like fresh talent, and ensure that the national transition training fund realises its full capacity in order to drive towards a high-skill, high-wage economy, with community wealth building. The idea that migration is simply a tool to fill low-skill, low-wage, casualised and seasonal work in fragile communities, where young people, such as those in my generation, are deprived of economic security, has to be robustly challenged. I welcome Paul Sweeney to his role in Parliament. Irrespective of whether the Conservatives voted for immigration powers in this Parliament before, the Parliament has many times voted for immigration powers to be devolved. Does the member agree that, given that many businesses and sectors would welcome this Parliament having more powers over immigration powers for visas? Would he support that? I thank the minister for that particular point. It is an exciting and interesting one, and I hope to reach the detail of our proposal in the course of my speech. I think that I will maybe save it up until then, and I will get to it in due course. It is certainly not a question of immigration undermining wages and conditions in this country. You have to look at the positive aspects of immigration. It is the fact that organised labour has been under a systematic assault for many years. That has been what has driven down wages and why wages have stagnated. The power of organised labour to bargain collectively in this country has been systematically undermined for years. That is the root cause in the heart of the problem, compounded by a reactionary approach to industrial development in Scotland, which sees investment in high-skilled jobs and technologies diverted out of the country as more and more of our industries fall under foreign ownership. We sought at the Calais railwayworks in Springburn and we are now seeing it play out once again at McVitties in Toulcross. Our amendment calls for an effective industrial strategy to prevent this tragic loss of jobs, secure Scottish-owned industrial development and to promote upskilling in the workplace. International movement of labour is a class issue. The kind of skills-based system that the Tories are planning for will inevitably favour wealthier migrants over poorer ones. The proposed minimum income requirements would not only deprive Scotland of talent that keeps our economy afloat. It would also mean that living and working legally would become a privilege awarded to the lucky few and not the many. Does the member agree that tackling the attainment gap is crucial to upgrading skills in Scotland? She talked about upskilling there. I see that the SNP has failed to tackle that. Is that something that you think should be at the forefront? The only member here is Mr Swinney. I thank the member for her intervention. It is a very timely one. I completely agree with her that the attainment gap remains a mark of national shame in Scotland. Every party has to put their full weight behind addressing. We sought to play out incredibly in the SQ exam scandal last year. I was astounded at the incredible level of structural inequality that that represented and revealed. It is something that we should urgently address as we go forward. Labour is calling for the Scottish and UK Governments to collaborate on the development of a flexible visa scheme that would empower workers to resist exploitative employers while underpinning efforts to unionise workers fearful for their immigration status. Canada's immigration system, co-managed by federal and provincial governments, could provide a useful benchmark for us to consider in Scotland and the UK as a whole. The Scottish Government will certainly have an ally in the Labour Party should it seek to pursue the idea and reform of our constitutional arrangements in a positive and constructive fashion. Having worked with Scottish Enterprise, promoting initiatives such as the ScotGrad scheme, which has brought in international graduates and foreign language students to help to promote Scottish exports abroad, I can say that the Tory xenophobic migration policy is a real threat to the future economic prosperity of this country, but the Scottish Government could do so much more too. Wether on a Scottish, British or European level, Labour will always promote and support policies that are rooted in advancing economic opportunity, human dignity and the ability to grow our collective potential as a country. That is why I invite colleagues across the chamber to support our amendment this afternoon. In June 2016, on the eve of the Brexit vote, Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Priti Patel made the following statement. They said that there will be no change for EU citizens who are already a lawfully resident in the UK. Those EU citizens will automatically be granted indefinite leave to remain in the UK and will be treated no less favourably than they are at present. Five years later, despite those three individuals now occupying the highest offices in the UK and having the absolute authority to make good on that promise, we now know it to be yet another leave campaign lie. The UK Government's settled status scheme is the opposite of an automatic right to indefinite remain its conditional, as has already been mentioned. Until they were shamed into dropping the policy, there was a £65 application fee for the privilege of even making the attempt, hardly living up to that commitment to treat EU citizens no less favourably than they were previously. With just two weeks left before the deadline for applications to the settlement scheme, hundreds of thousands of applications are stuck in a backlog. The UK, in a changing Europe research body that this Parliament has heard from a number of times, has warned that this leaves a large number of people facing legal uncertainty even if their application was lodged on time. There is far greater concern for the unknown number of people who have not yet applied to the scheme and who will not do so before the deadline. The UK Government has confirmed that it will make allowances for those with reasonable grounds for missing the application deadline, but it has not said what those reasonable grounds are. The member will be aware that the UK Government has said that the legal status of EU nationals will be unaffected with the passage of the deadline and that their cases will be because they are in due time. There is no threat to their rights. The spectre that he is creating does not exist. It is another example of the kind of skirmongering that this Parliament could do with less of. I am sure that Mr Kerr genuinely and sincerely believes that, because I am sure that he sincerely wishes to believe that the radical right-wing agenda through Brexit that he has supported is not causing significant damage to his constituents, but it is, because it is in all of our inboxes. We have already seen our constituents who are being discriminated against because, for example, landlords are taking advantage of the application of the scheme, the backlog in the scheme to raise questions about the eligibility of their tenants to actually stay in this country. The UK and a changing Europe think tank are non-partisan. They are seen as credible by members of this UK Parliament and even by the UK Government, and they are raising the spectre of people who are essentially being legally undocumented after the passage of the deadline. The UK Government was warned of the backlog. I will happily give way to Mr Kerr if he could perhaps explain what the grounds that the UK Government has laid out are for those whose applications have not yet been processed, because they have said that everything will be fine and they have not explained any mechanism for resolving that. The future Borders and Immigration Minister Kevin Foster said that he has already confirmed that someone who has applied to the EU settlement scheme by the 30th of June deadline but has not had a decision by then will have their rights protected until their application is decided. It could not be clearer. It is black and white. It is a fact. As I explained to Mr Kerr a moment ago, the delay is being used by unscrupulous landlords or employers are another one. The delay is being used and the UK Government is simply not enforcing it. The UK Government has not set out enough support for those individuals. Of course we would welcome the clarity that they have given that those applications will be processed, but the fact is that the UK Government is not supporting the very people that they put into this position in the first place. Those are individuals that the UK Government has used as pawns first in a negotiation and now through multiple election campaigns. They have used them as pawns and now they have left them in limbo and uncertain of their legal status. Mr Kerr needs to recognise the incredible level of uncertainty felt by many of our constituents. To move beyond that, the impact that this is having on individuals and families is severe and that should be a primary concern, but the wider economic, social and cultural hit cannot be ignored here. Scotland is disproportionately reliant on inward migration to meet our labour needs largely because of our reliance on the tourism, agricultural and university sectors. That just isn't a priority for the UK Government. When it became clear that the post-Brexit immigration system would be deeply damaging to Scotland, this Parliament's European External Affairs Committee put questions to the chair of the UK Government's Migration Advisory Committee. It was pointed out to him that the rules that they proposed would be seriously detrimental to tourism and agriculture in particular and that those sectors make up a far larger share of our economy than the UK as a whole. His response was to say that those sectors might simply need to contract. I would welcome if Mr Kerr, given that he is so keen to concrete to this debate, could explain to the chamber whether or not he agrees. Given the area that he represents, does he agree with the chair of the UK Government's Migration Advisory Committee that the Scottish tourism and agriculture sectors maybe just need to contract because their needs don't match the agenda of the UK Government? I'm more than happy to confirm that he— Mr Kerr, could you wait till your call before intervening? Thank you very much, Mr Kerr. Thank you, Deputy. To answer the question that the member is raising, to be absolutely clear, he answered that in what he said, this is an advisory body, this is not a Government spokesman, this is not someone annunciating Government policy. This is an advisory body that give advice. Advisors advise Government ministers to say that this is not the Government's policy. The Government accepted his recommendations in full, and those sectors are now explaining the impact that those policies have had. Mr Kerr is absolutely right to say that the advisers are advised, and then the Government accepted the advice, they are now implementing the advice, and we are now seeing the impact of that advice on the Scottish Communist Party. Mr Kerr mentioned Kevin Foster, UK immigration minister, a moment ago. He came to this Parliament to defend those policies, and he was defending it on the premise that we could somehow create a higher way. He could not quite explain the connection between the UK Government's immigration policies and the desire for a higher wage economy. In fact, he was not willing to take the one step that is immediately available to the UK Government to create a higher wage economy, and that is to raise the minimum wage in this country to a level that people can afford to live on. If the UK Government were committed to seeing wage increases, it should take the easiest tool at its disposal, the national minimum wage, and raise it to a level above the poverty line. The question of wages takes me to another very important point, which is the one that I will close on. The UK Government's policy choices are a combination of malign and simply ridiculous. The Labour shortages noted in the motion are not all down to their immigration and wage policies. They are down to employers who are not willing to treat their staff with dignity. They are down to far too many employers in the tourism, hospitality and agriculture sectors who will not pay their staff a living wage, who will not offer them a secure contract. I have no sympathy for a business who advertises for staff on poverty wages and zero-hours contracts and is then unable to fill those posts. That is one area where the Scottish Government has some control. The Scottish Government cannot set wages, but it issues hundreds of millions of pounds in business support grants to which there is no condition of paying staff a living wage. If the Scottish Government is committed to a high-wage, high-skill economy, one of the easiest tools at its disposal would be setting that basic condition on the public grants given to businesses to pay their staff a wage that they can afford to live on. I hope that, in his closing remarks, the minister could perhaps respond to that point. I recognise that at this point that I have certainly run over my allocated time. You have indeed, particularly given that you invited a couple of those interventions. I call Willie Rennie to speak for six minutes, Mr Winnie. Oliver Mundell is a mild-mannered, gentle member of this Parliament. I cannot believe that he drafted this amendment today. It is not possible that such an intelligent member could draft such an ignorant amendment, because there is no doubt that we should be recruiting locally when we possibly can. We should be seeking to upskill the workers of this country, to reskill, to educate, to make sure that they have lifelong learning. That simply cannot be done overnight in the way that he has sought to impose on this Government. He completely ignores the problems that have been created by the points-based immigration system. He completely ignores it. He does not mention it in his amendment. He did not even seek to raise it in his contribution. He completely ignored the seasonal agricultural workers scheme pilot that is bedivilled by problems that are caused by the UK Government. He did not mention the EU-settled status scheme, and despite the protestations, there are considerable problems with that registration process. It is impossible to have a rounded debate about the problems that we are facing with recruitment, employment and training in this country, without recognising the biggest elephants in the room and those are caused by the UK Government. I thank the member for giving way, but I think that he mischaracterises my speech. The point is exactly that. We have had almost 15 years under the SNP Government, where some of those things should have started a long time ago. It is not good enough just to keep bringing in migrant labour to plug the gaps. That is not good enough. We need to start doing something here in Scotland to train our young people for the future. Does he agree with that? I think that Oliver Mundell tries to paint it as a black-and-white picture, that it is either one or the other. That is not true. Of course, the Government should have performed better over the last 14-15 years. To simply cut off the supply of workers, we need to regenerate our economy constantly, because we do not have the growth rate in our population that we need to have. Of course, you could say that that is the Scottish Government's responsibility, but you cannot simply switch it off overnight. That is the problem. The construction industry is very clear about that. They say that, of course, we could recruit more locally. Of course, that would be ideal. Of course, we could train better to make sure that we have more drivers and more workers here. Of course, we could do that, but to do that overnight is incredibly difficult. That is what the UK Government has forced on the country. My criticism of the Scottish Government is pretty straightforward. I know that it has failed over the past 14 years in many areas of life. To have a proper, rounded debate, you need to recognise that the UK Government has put a wrecking ball through the economy of many sectors in this country. That is intolerable. I thought that Oliver Mundell, being a much more intelligent member, would have recognised that and contributed to his debate in a much more rounded way. Mr Rennie, you are going to have to take your seat point of order, Mr Mundell. I would like to clarify for that twice that my intelligence has been questioned. I am very used to taking part in robust debates. I am very pleased to have members intervene to disagree on the substance, but I do not think that it is fair to have my intelligence questioned twice in that way. I thank Mr Mundell for his point of order. I suggest that the exchanges have been robust to date. I am not sure that the references made by Mr Rennie are out of order, but I encourage everybody in a generally robust debate to have respect for colleagues across the chamber. I invite Mr Rennie to continue. Maybe I did not make myself clear that I was praising Oliver Mundell for being a very intelligent member in this Parliament, which is why I was surprised by the contribution and the amendment that has been put forward today. Of course, I am in full praise of Oliver Mundell and the contributions that he makes in this Parliament, and I will not retract from that. It is important to recognise that the pandemic has also contributed to the difficulties that we have had in this country. It is not straightforward. It is not all Brexit's responsibility as much as I am a big critic of Brexit. We have seen in the social care sector in particular that the foundation of the problems in that sector is related to the amount of money that we pay the workers. We need to recognise that, through the pandemic, the recruitment issues were eased, but they are back up in exactly the same place as they were previously. Brexit has compounded that by restricting the access to good workers to be employed in that sector. That is why the Scottish Government needs to make sure, in the reforms that are coming ahead, that it pays the workers appropriately. The seasonal agricultural workers scheme is another area that has been through great difficulties. It was supposed to have 30,000 workers coming to the UK, because we recognise that there are not sufficient workers. Many last year, those who were on furlough were working in the sector, but that is not available to the sector just in a second. I am actually running out of time. 30,000 were supposed to be coming, but because of the late deployment of two operators for the seasonal agricultural workers scheme pilot, the result of that is that we have rotting fruit in our fields, we have flowers left unpicked, we have the vegetables, potential and the threat as well, all because the UK Government did not do as it was promised to do, which was to make sure that scheme was in place. I could go through lots of different sectors, but we need to make sure that we have a rounded debate, a rounded policy that we can achieve the high-skilled, high-wage economy that we are seeking for this country. We need to be open to good immigration, to refresh our society, people who work hard and play their part in this society. They deserve a good job so that they can look after their family. So often, on both fronts, from the UK Government and the Scottish Government, they are let down and we can do so much better. Mr Rennie, we now move to the open debate. We are now a bit tight for time as a result of interventions and points of order, so I will probably have to encourage members to include the interventions in the time allocation. The first contributor will be Jim Fairlie. He has six minutes. He will be followed by Pat Anglothal. Skills shortages are not just about Brexit, nor are the economic difficulties simply about the impact of the pandemic. There were shortages before either of those issues raised their head, there is no doubt about that. Brexit presents some very real hurdles and we need to get over them somehow or other. As I have already referred to in the chamber earlier this afternoon, the ending of freedom of movement is going to have enormous consequences for farmers with potentially huge shortages of seasonal agricultural workers during this picking season. That was the intervention that I was trying to take on Mr Rennie earlier on, because the UK Government has deliberately delayed the allocation of those two licences, which has meant that those licenced companies are going to have real difficulty in actually recruiting the staff to get them over here in time to be in the picking season. We are going to literally be left with crops unpicked and stuff rotten in the fields. It is not as though that has not happened before. I can see the same issues putting real pressure on other areas of our economy on food processing factories, abattoirs and the red meat sector. How are we going to build back better at all, let alone better, if the construction industry cannot get the workers that needs it beyond me? The Tory amendment in Oliver Mundell's name is frustrating, in that yet again he focuses on something other than the very real challenges that we should be working together on to try to find solutions for. Just like their leaflets during the election campaign, all they want to talk about is stopping an independence referendum. The irony is that you are the ones that keep talking about the independence referendum, not us. You have a constitutional obsession based on the principle of denying the democracy and preventing the people of Scotland from deciding their own futures. As for noting, the need to work constructively with the UK Government to maximise the opportunities for Scotland outside of the EU. I would remind Mr Mundell that it was his own leader during the election campaign who told the country that under no circumstances would he work with Nicola Sturgeon on anything, let alone the major issues like climate change, because we in the seats on this side believe in independence, so he decided he wouldn't work with us on anything. He did that live in a debate, so if you want to end Irvine on that, you want to square that circle, please do. Mr Mundell, I thank the member for the intervention, but I am interested given he is doing a usual SNP trick of cherry-picking parts of the motion, whether he will agree with me that his Government has failed when it comes to supporting our colleges and whether or not he thinks that that is acceptable or good for young people in this country. No, I do not accept it and I shall give you just one of the things that the Scottish Government is doing right now. The Scottish Government and the Scottish Food and Drink Industry are working together as part of their industry recovery plan. The Scottish Government is funding a careers programme and in the first three months there are over 300 teachers have signed up to the new good food champions initiative to promote career opportunities in the sector. The Scottish Government is working across a whole range of different sectors trying to help people into work, but no, I am not going to take this intervention. What we are going to talk about is that this is the same UK Government who completely ignored not just the Scottish Government but a whole raft of organisations in the agricultural sector when they brought forward propositions about the Australia deal. He did not listen then, so why would we think for any time that you are going to listen to this? The Scottish Government needs to work with the UK Government, but how can you possibly work constructively when they have been given no role in any of the negotiations and one of the biggest deals in the country which will decimate the industry which a large part of my constituency is going to be affected by? When the time is right, it is absolutely right that the Scottish people will have a referendum, will unite this country and we will have an independence referendum so that we can remove ourselves from a body which deliberately makes sure that we are cut out of the negotiating systems which directly affect the people of Scotland. Can he make his mind up? Can he decide whether the border is imposed or a good thing or a bad thing? Right now, I am very confused as to where he sits on that particular issue. I am not confused at all, Scotland should be an independent country, simple. What we know for certain is that the Tory party in this chamber and in Westminster are deliberately making decisions that will definitely harm the people of Scotland, the industries of Scotland, particularly in areas that I represent. However, in the name of conciliatory language, I am acutely aware that we all need to be less partisan, which is why I am so disappointed that you even mentioned the independence referendum in your motion in the first place. We certainly need to be looking for the short-term support for the fresh meat hospitality and soft fruit sectors that are particularly important to my constituency. If that means allowing a Scotland-wide unique immigration programme, as they do in Canada, which was mentioned previously, that would be a very good thing to look at. I have spoken to numerous hotels, businesses, restaurants and bakers, builders in my constituency. The haulage companies are all crying out for work. Right now, what we need is a solution to the problem that we have right now. That would allow the Scottish Government to have its own system to allow us to bring the staff in that we need to take. We have got a crisis across so many industries. You are sitting there laughing. What is funny? Mr Fairlie, not only is your time up, but you have referred to you three occasions in this speech. The chair is the only you. That is your allocation of work. I will now call Pam Gosol to be followed by Karen Adam, who will be joining us remotely. We live in one of the most industrious and creative countries in the world. However, we are not giving people the right opportunities to fulfill their potential. As I mentioned during my maiden speech, I left school with no qualifications and further education was that springboard that I needed to get back on track. Since the SNP has come into power, there are now 140,000 less places in colleges available for people to train or learn and get on with their life. Training should not be exclusive for just people leaving school, especially as we emerge from the Covid-19 pandemic. We are seeing a shift in many sectors and there will be many people old and young across Scotland contemplating where they head next and where the career will be. My region has been hit particularly hard in recent times. Two major employers in Bishow Briggs have announced plans to relocate 1,700 jobs being taken away from the local area. That is 1,700 people who will have to find a job in a tough market. HarperCollins was believing after 50 years' presence in the local area and Aviva moving to their new offices in the other side of Glasgow. As well as larger businesses, we have seen numerous small and medium-sized businesses close their doors due to the pandemic as they waited for the SNP Scottish Government to help that they never got. And when the help they got was late arriving, so basically saving jobs and businesses, those were things that they couldn't save. The west of Scotland has a huge tourism sector that has been placed into status for over a year. Many places have been reopened but are not yet at working at full capacity. As a rill of this, many are still on furlough or have been made redundant. Whether it is training or support in new employment, we need to do everything we can to upskill our workforce. These are lives and livelihoods that are at stake. There are families on the bread line who really need real solutions. Those people, just like us, have mortgages, bills and dependents to pay and provide for. The people who have sadly lost their jobs need help, encouragement and action. Confidence that their Government will give them every opportunity that is possible so that they instead of throwing them onto the scrap heap and pointing the finger at the UK Government or breaks it as an excuse for them to wash their hands off the situation. Questions must be asked of the Scottish Government and its approach on education and skills in general. It is absolute failure and closing the attainment gap is having compounding effects on young people later on in life. Daniel Johnson is absolutely right to ask questions of the Scottish Government. Will she accept that there are very real costs to Brexit that are being faced by businesses up and down Scotland? That is an interesting question. I think that when you talk about the cost for businesses, I have been speaking to a lot of businesses. My family owns a lot of hospitality businesses as well. We need to see Brexit as an opportunity. If we keep going back in time, I will be honest, I have stood here today and I have heard borders, Brexit and immigration, but this is just all a smokescreen for the SNP to talk about an independent referendum to actually break away. To me, I believe that businesses, yes, there are problems out there and we do have to address them. There is attainment gaps, there is basically a lot going on, but that is up to the SNP that they have made failures in the last 15 years. The next five years that we will be seeing, hopefully a lot from them, because all I heard from the member today was about we will, we will, so let's see. In West Dunbartonshire, for example, we saw a number of people leaving school for positive destinations dropped by nearly 4 per cent in the last academic year. The SNP's track record on skills gap is just distasteful, as the record is pretty much everything else. The SNP spend a measly £3.8 million on individual training for people. That is just £200 per person. The Scottish Conservatives promised more than double that. The SNP have cut spending on innovation and industries by a whopping £66 million. To top that all off, the SNP flagship digital growth fund to boost skills in digital industries has not even paid out 20 per cent of its funding that SNP have failed. The SNP may scoff in snare at the UK Government Turing scheme, but one can't help wonder if it had a European flag instead of a union flag, would their attitudes be different? The new Turing scheme will be targeted at one, ensuring that that is much fairer and balanced, one that would be compared to the Erasmus programme. Leaving Erasmus will ensure that no matter where you are from or what background you come from, you will be given the same opportunities of chance as everyone else. In our manifesto, we promised, we proposed retraining solutions that would see training and upskilling revolution take place in Scotland. Our proposal included unlimited apprenticeships for young people. Those apprenticeships would benefit Clydebank College and would help to restrict the ability to offer places to learn practical skills in recent years. Our proposal would give people that safety net that they need to rely upon when times are hard. Karen Adam, to be followed by Alex Rowley. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am grateful for the opportunity to be sitting as I give my speech today. I would like to begin by welcoming my colleague Richard Lochhead to his role and I really look forward to working with him over this term of government. During my campaign, I had the opportunity to meet with several businesses and organisations who have suffered the double whammy of Brexit and Covid. This has been compounded, particularly by the reliance in the area and the fishing, farming and tourism industries. Fishing sector leaders tell me how they have witnessed the selling out, yet again, of their industry and, more recently, farmers too, who are deeply alarmed at the selling out of the Scottish agricultural sector. For example, it is claimed that Brexit has caused a massive hole in the numbers of people coming to the UK to pick fruit in the summer, putting growers on the brink. Stephen Taylor, managing director of winterwood farms, said that the labour market has become tighter and tighter and the impact of Brexit on the flow of workers to UK farms is only getting worse. He said that we are not only talking of a few tens of thousands, we are talking hundreds of thousands of people, less, which is sorry to work in the UK. Think tanks, independent research, business sector representatives, accountancy firms are all telling us what we now know that the north-east of Scotland will be the hardest hit by Brexit. We are bracing ourselves for the realities of this hard Brexit, which is only just beginning in its cause of bringing in even more pain and suffering to the people that I represent. Bamshire and Buckingham coast sits within the captivating beauty of Aberdeenshire and Murray, a region that can easily be described as a shire with two tails to tell. Frequently described as wealthy or affluent, but this would be a description far removed from the experiences of many within my constituency. The 2020 Scottish index of multiple deprivation identifies Fraserborough and Peterhead as areas that are in the top 10 and 20 per cent of most deprived in Scotland. This compounded with the most difficult of times, faced by many coastal communities due to the pandemic and with the economic consequences of Brexit. Our stark inequalities between those who have a lot and those who have little or nothing are as shameful to us as they are to the visitors who can see poverty and decline from the devastating Tory-inflicted policies. When they arrive to take in the beauty of our landscape and many visitors will not be aware of what lies under the surface, that is the hidden deprivation. That is why I am grateful for the Scottish Government's commitment to invest an additional £500 million to support new jobs and reskill people for the future and for the much-needed extension to the National Transition Training Fund. Those places that we are most economically at risk will struggle to bounce back and this SNP Government will, I know, ensure that the opportunities for recovery will prioritise them in all that we do to try and recover. The underlying resilience of an economy relies on fair work and quality jobs for all who create a society that is more equal. However, it does go beyond that. I used the word recovery a lot during my campaign and I meant it, but I meant recover to better than before. In tackling inequalities, including gender economic inequality, I am providing fair work that unlocks people's creativity, confidence and wellbeing. This is our case for an economic recovery that will benefit all. The business case is strong for an inclusive economy. It helps our businesses to innovate and grow. It helps them to compete more effectively on the world stage. It helps develop, attract and make the most of our talent in Scotland. There is an opportunity to build a strong national consensus around a national purpose, to learn from other small nations and adopt lessons to Scotland's specific circumstances that will enable a shift change towards our wellbeing economy. We face an opportunity to be ambitious to rethink how we invest in places and, importantly, who benefits from that investment. Coronavirus and Brexit have exacerbated inequalities between and within our communities. This is something that I know may not be customary, but I want to innovate, bringing together the industry's experts, the people working in their sectors every day, the plan for economic prosperity in the north-east. During the recent campaign, I pledged the formation of a new tourism forum that I will chair composed of businesses and other stakeholder organisations so that we can come together in a unified voice to support more jobs and investment along my coastal community. We cannot discuss the implications of Brexit and skills without acknowledging the huge contribution that EU nationals make to our country. The fishing, farming, hospitality and health and social care sectors are reliant on them. The UK Government's immigration system is not fit for any purpose in Scotland because, in contrast, we value and cherish our EU nationals and their decision to work here and make Scotland their home as it contributes culturally, socially and economically to our country's prosperity. Perhaps it is an uptime to highlight the possibilities that could come with having power over all of our own decisions in an independent country, the opportunity to take charge of our own future. To those who say that we cannot concentrate on more than one thing at a time, perhaps if you drop the unionist agenda and leave the multitasking to us, because full economic prosperity and health and wellbeing comes hundreds of hands. Alex Rowley, to be followed by Paul MacLennan. I am pleased to speak in this debate today on the mitigating, tackling and responding to the skills impact of Brexit. I think that we can all agree that a skilled and productive workforce is vital for addressing labour market inequalities, creating fairer workplaces and delivering an inclusive green recovery. Obviously, as a result of Brexit and the pandemic, there has been major disruption to the labour market. However, skills shortages and the availability of a skilled and sustainable workforce is deeper rooted than the recent turn of world events and their impact on Scotland. So, whilst the events of the last 18 months has and is having a detrimental impact on jobs and, yes, a negative impact of Brexit, which I note the Tory amendment fails to even acknowledge, the failures of the Scottish Government over 14 years, failures on education, failures on skills and the failure to put in place a joined up strategy for jobs across all parts of government is that the root of the skills shortages and the failures of national workforce planning. I have made the argument before, but if we want to see high-skilled, high-waged economies, then we must do more to invest in education, in skills and in training. For example, it is widely accepted that the UK is suffering from a chronic shortage of engineering skills with around 400,000 engineer roles unfilled according to the Scottish National Investment Bank. Reports also state that the three quarters of Scotland's ICT employers report difficulty in finding workers with the right skillset. The Scottish Government recognises that problem themselves and has put in and are welcome to put in the future skills action plan, noting that a shortage of technical skills can delay the development of new products, services and technologies. I want to emphasise again the failure of the Scottish Government to recognise that Scottish education is not only failing to adapt to the changing needs of our economy, it continues to fail thousands of young people and preparing them for 21st century Scotland. We have to halt the decline in education standards. Teachers are facing burnout, class sizes are far too high and pupils are not getting access to the levels and standards of education that are required to equip them for the modern world of work. Oliver Mundell, I thank the member for giving way. I wonder if he would agree with me that we have moved too far away from knowledge within our education system and that helping young people from the most deprived and challenging backgrounds to access skills requires sharing knowledge with them and making sure that they are learning something in school. I saw that there was a report due tomorrow, sometimes soon, on curriculum for excellence. There is clearly an issue around curriculum for excellence and we need to review what has happened there. I do believe that schools are failing masses of children and we need to look at the curriculum. However, that is not to move away from the fact that Brexit itself is causing major problems. I simply say that it is right to raise Brexit, but if we are serious about long-term and the long-term future of the economy, we have to address the major failings. I say major failings within our education system. Richard Lochhead, the member used the phrase that our schools are failing our young people. Does he not regret making that comment, given that it is a very complex situation in society at the moment, given that the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and other sources of information and research and data will explain how what happens outside of the classroom impacts what happens inside the classroom in terms of child poverty and other social economic factors? I think the fact that we have a major skills gap. What I have seen all my life is that if people have opportunity, if people get the education, the skills and the opportunity and they then have a trade, they then have certainty around their future, then most of those people will do well. The people that do worse than life is the people that come through an education system that fails them. That is happening for far, far too many pupils in Scotland. After 14 years of being in government, we need to address that. We can start to address that by being honest about the amount of children in Scotland that are being let down. Teachers are warning that they are overwhelmed under pressure. Unless we tackle that, we can talk about all the other skills that are there. However, if children do not have the basics, they will not succeed in life. That is the level of failure that we need to address. I would have to say, Prime Minister, that you cannot simply believe that you can bring skilled workers from abroad to plug the skills gap in Scotland because that is not sustainable. However, on the subject of economic migration, there is again a failure in joining that planning from the Scottish Government, and in particular the failure to put in place the basic public services that workers require, such as housing. There has also been a failure to explain the case for economic migration to the wider public. We need to start to address those issues if we are going to address the failings of the Scottish economy. I thank Richard Lochhead for bringing in that motion today and welcome to his position. I want to focus on issues in my constituency around skills shortages caused by Brexit. I also want to focus on the actions of the Scottish Government in mitigating these in the next 100 days and, of course, beyond that time also. The motion is quite right to focus on the impact that Brexit has had on our local and national economy, on our skills base and its severe impact on certain sectors. East Lothian has had traditionally lower levels of unemployment and higher levels of employment, with its proximity to Edinburgh up to 50 per cent of our working population travelling into the city to work. However, East Lothian's job density rate is lower than that of the rest of Scotland, which is about three quarters of the Scottish average. I want to attract businesses to locate East Lothian in the fintech, life sciences and financial services sectors among others. East Lothian needs a strong skills base to help to create more wealth and tackle poverty. We need to encourage not only talent from Scotland, the UK but from Europe. It has been mentioned before, but Scotland needs an immigration policy that complements our economy, not one that hinders it. East Lothian has a few key sectors, and the cabinet secretary, the minister, touched on that earlier on. I want to address the impact that Brexit is having on them. The first one is on tourism. I have mentioned before in the chamber about the importance of tourism and hospitality to East Lothian. Employees, 5,000 people, generates £260 million for a local economy every year. I met with VisitScotland last week, and they are already a team of shortages of staff in the sector. Many of those from Europe who were employed have left because of the impact and uncertainty of Brexit and of the EU settlement scheme. That has been mentioned in the debate so far today. One key thing that we all need to do more is raise the profile of the sector and create clear career pathways. I am encouraged that Edinburgh College and Queen Margaret University are keen to engage in this regard with me in East Lothian. On food and drink, I spoke last week on the importance of farming for our local economy in East Lothian. We have more than 180 farms with thousands of people employed in the industry. Many farmers supply the food and drink sector in East Lothian, and many of them export all over the world. It is the fastest growing sector of our economy. In the debate last week around the Australian Free Trade Agreement, we were assured by Finlay Carson that that was not a done deal and that Scottish farmers would be looked after. Yesterday, we heard news of a deal agreed in principle. So, where are farmers in food and drink sectors looked after? A quote that NUF Scotland's Secretary of State, Martin Kennedy, stated. As detailed on the proposed terms of agreement around an Australian trade deal emerge, deep concerns remain about its impact on Scotland's farmers, crofters and our wider food and drink industry. The cumulative effect on all such trade deals in extremely vulnerable sectors, such as farming, food and drink, could be hugely destructive. My biggest and fastest growing sector in East Lothian is the damn indictment of the self-proclaimed party of business. All that for a trade deal is estimated to improve GDP by 0.2 per cent over the next five years. I will ask the Scottish to raise. Is this a price worth paying? I think not. The EU settlement scheme is a disaster waiting to unfold this picking season with many farms struggling to recruit. I want to work with the NFU and the Scottish Rural Colleges to attract new entrants into farming and food and drink. We need to make that sector as attractive as possible. The Scottish Government must be commended on the extension of the national transition training fund that has helped the tourism and hospitality sectors and will continue to do so. Tourism and hospitality are rewarding careers. The Scottish budget includes £125 million for skills and employment support, including the young person's guarantee in the national transition training fund that I just mentioned, which is really important. I am glad that the announcement is made about continuing to support tourism and leisure in hospitality. That is alongside an additional £230 million for Skills Development Scotland, and I have a meeting with them tomorrow to look at how we can target investment into our tourism and food and drink industries. We also need to address issues raised in briefings regarding construction and social care sectors. Again, clear career pathways are needed with complementary skills networks, which are key to success. In conclusion, the Scottish Government is working in collaboration with colleges and universities to create 5,000 industry-focused courses. It is working with the SDS with additional support investment of £230 million to create new training opportunities and mitigate the skills shortages caused by Brexit. It is working with employers regarding the young person's guarantee and providing an additional £45 million to support local partnerships to ensure that no young person is left behind. Time after time after time, the Scottish Government has to mitigate against Tory policies that damage my constituency and Scotland. It is clear beyond any doubt that the only way to protect Scotland's interests, its business and its place in Europe is to become an independent country. The member did not take an intervention during his speech. It is impossible, of course, technically if you are remote and being broadcast into the chamber to actually intervene on his speech. Is it in order for a member to give a speech from an office in the building when there are so many empty spaces in the chamber? That does not facilitate the debate that we are intended to have during this allocated time. I am aware of the occurrence this afternoon. I will certainly consider your comments, but I will certainly look at the context in which the member participated. I call Graeme Simpson to be followed by Michelle Thomson. My very first speech in MSP five years ago was about Brexit. My first speech in this session is about Brexit. The difference this time is that Brexit has happened and some of us have moved on from that, but not the SNP. The whole title of the debate is negative and the contributions from the SNP have matched that tone. For a party built on division and grievance, to stage this debate takes quite a collective brass neck. We are having this debate against a backdrop of an economic calamity caused not by Brexit, but by Covid. We do not actually know how that is going to play out. The signs are that the UK economy could come back very well, but Covid and the response to it is the biggest challenge that employers face right now. At least the Government motion does mention that, but just on that UK bounce back, the unemployment rate has been falling and the employment rate rising. To listen to some of today's speakers, you would think it's impossible for anyone to come to Britain to work. EU citizens already here, of course, could apply to stay under the EU settlement scheme and should have done so, but there's a host of other visas and work permits open to the world. We have the skilled worker visa, the health and care worker visa, the temporary worker, seasonal worker visa, the youth mobility scheme visa, the global talent visa, the frontier worker permit. Britain is not closed. Willie Rennie Of course he's right about those issues, but why are people choosing not to come here? It's because they've got other countries that they can choose to go to. It's much easier to get into those countries. Surely, if we're trying to compete to get the best people to come here, we should make it as easy as possible, like what we had when we were members of the European Union. Graham Simpson Well, I've just outlined a whole host of ways that people can come here. They're welcome to come here. Mr Rennie should recognise that fact. Net migration from non-EU countries has risen to its highest level for 45 years. For the year ending, March 2020, an estimated 316,000 more non-EU citizens came to the UK than left. The number for EU citizens was 58,000. I was interested to read the paper from the Construction Industry Training Board. Their research shows that 8 per cent of the construction workforce in Scotland was born outside of the UK and 23 per cent of construction companies who operate here in Scotland employ non-UK-born workers. They say that the dependency of employers in Scotland on migrant workers is low, their words. Only 3 per cent of employers who operate in Scotland feel dependent on migrant workers. Most construction industry employers who operate here do not expect the introduction of the points-based immigration system to have an impact on their company. 91 per cent of those who employ migrant workers don't expect that the number of non-UK workers they employ will change over the next 12 months. That's what they told us. That's not to say that there aren't challenges. There are challenges. It's not a black and white issue, as Willie Rennie said earlier. I've been speaking to hauliers as well, and there is a shortage of lorry drivers that I think the UK Government could help to address by relaxing some of the rules. We've got to be honest about that. But you have to ask why, when there is such a well-paid job as being a lorry driver, can't we train enough of our own people to do it and get youngsters interested? The skills gap in the haulage sector has been here for a while and can't be blamed solely on leaving the EU. Age Scotland highlighted the number of vacancies in the care sector, though their figures are quite out of date, given that we've been through the pandemic in the meantime. I suspect that any current figure has more to do with that than anything else, but it's a challenge to fill vacancies in this vital sector and has been for a long time. That's where our amendment comes in. It talks about the need to create more apprenticeships, reversing the trend of decreasing college student numbers that's occurred under the current Scottish Government, setting out plans for a return to in-person small group learning in higher and further education, and introducing individual learning accounts as called for by CBI Scotland. The Government needs to concentrate less on trying to score cheap political points and more on filling the skills gap that we've had for years. That's something that should unite us all. All parties will have ideas that Mr Lockhead should be reaching out rather than trying to stoke grievance. My biggest fear is not Brexit. I see that as a land of opportunity. My biggest fear is that we'll have a large group of young people left behind because of Covid. The unemployment figures are not telling the full story. There are many thousands who do not show up in those figures. They're not claiming benefits. They're just waiting, often in desperation, for things to open up again. Let's give them the hope that they deserve. I must start with an historic declaration of interest. In late 2017 and early 2018, I was a co-author of two reports on Brexit and Scottish business, which drew attention to the prospect of a hard Brexit having significant implications for skills availability. Brexit has been harder than any of the over 200 business leaders with whom I engaged anticipated. It's fair to say that none of the business leaders anticipated the attitude of the UK Government would be characterised by an F business approach. As a direct consequence, Scotland's skills challenge is even greater than expected. I agree completely with the motion stressing the challenge to our labour market from the utter madness of the Tory Brexit. Skill shortages are increasing. Ending free movement is hugely damaging. The future we face is filled with uncertainty and the disruption to international trade raises huge questions for business. One thing is clear. I shan't give way. For the record, I have noticed a huge difference between the chamber and Westminster. The vast majority of members here engage in speaking and substantive debate. Westminster is characterised by barric room lawyers, hence my refusal. One thing is clear. The labour market that we need to prepare for is not the labour market of pre-Brexit, pre-pandemic Scotland. Thankfully, the Scottish Government has not been standing idly by. It's commissioned a range of work, and I'll reference in this speech both the Higgins report and the Cumberford Little report, both of which give a clear sense of what is needed if we're to have the skills to meet the challenges of the future. The Cumberford Little report, one tertiary system agile collaborative inclusive, makes a telling observation and I quote, We must insist on excellence rather than competence within the content assessment and currency of technical and professional qualifications. This is a very welcome call from an excellent government commissioned report. The call for a focus on excellence is mirrored in other quarters. Take, for example, the Higgins report towards a robust, resilient wellbeing economy for Scotland. It's given considerable prominence to the importance of skills development in building a sustainable future. Of particular interests is its emphasis on ensuring high quality skills that effectively reflect real world business and economic needs. For example, it raises an issue of business concern the following terms and I quote, Many apprenticeships have high value in the labour market but this depends on their quality. Expanding the number of apprenticeships in this period of depressed economic activity will be challenging. Generating new apprenticeships that are not of high quality will undermine the reputation and value of apprenticeships. Therefore, putting quality at the heart of skills development as these reports make clear is of fundamental importance in my opinion. I hasten to add, however, that I wholly appreciate the competing demands and complexities that the Scottish Government faces. They are right to have a concern for short-term challenges, particularly for young people, given the potential for serious long-term damage to individual figures and the economy. However, our concerns regarding the wider economy, business and young people are not mutually exclusive. It is perfectly rational to have short, medium and long-term ambitions for the skills sector where issues of excellence and quality are one of the golden threads. From a business and economy standpoint, the Government has also undertaken a great deal of work in recent times to develop effective policy frameworks that set a clear international context to our needs. Excellent work led by Ivan McKee in producing Scotland a Trading Nation identified 15 priority 1 countries and 11 priority 2 countries for our exporting ambitions. Separately from that, the Office of the Chief Economic Advisor to the Scottish Government conducted a competitor analysis across 66 good sectors and 19 service sectors with data from over 100 countries. That formidable piece of work identified eight key competitor countries to Scotland. There is a tie-up because, remarkably, seven countries are both priority 1 and are also our key competitors. I will not list all the countries here, but I would point out that research shows that those countries have a very high commitment to skills development to international standards. I would ask the minister whether there might be a case in the future for looking at international skills benchmarking with such countries. The work that the Scottish Government has done in both commissioning externally and undertaking its own research is to be commended. As we move forward, the Scottish Government will have my full support as it faces the complex and developing skills challenges. This is a crucial debate for us. We need to make sure that the Covid pandemic and the fallout from it does not mask the skills crisis that we were already facing in Scotland. As the SNP Government's motion acknowledges, a skilled and productive workforce is vital to addressing labour market inequalities, creating fairer workplaces and delivering inclusive green economy. Those warm words have not yet translated into action from this Government with tangible outcomes. The pandemic has meant that the Scottish Government has additional consequentials from the UK Government. We are one of the most powerful devolved parliaments in the world, but the skills crisis and the jobs crisis that we are facing and exacerbated by Brexit needs to be tackled. We need to make sure that those additional consequentials are invested wisely. We need a system for reskilling that works for Scotland that pushes the boundaries of what we have seen and shows real leadership in the process to address the inequalities and the skill shortages that predated Covid. We have to be clear that this is a Scottish crisis. There has been a steady decline in employees receiving job-related training over the past 14 years in Scotland. People who are already in employment need access to training, especially those on low incomes, a point that I am going to come back to. One of the most striking things in the excellent briefing that we had from Edinburgh College last week as MSPs was the number of people in our city who are in low-paid employment but who need access to skills and who need access to decent training and that our colleges need more funding to deliver on that urgent training requirement. I hope that ministers will respond to that particular point. It has been revealed that the SNP's national transition training fund has had an unacceptably low update and leadership means accepting when things have failed, going back to the drawing board and starting again. Today's motion welcomes the national transition training fund in 2021-22 and the commitment to invest an additional £500 million over this session. We need to see what lessons are being learned from what did not work with the previous scheme. We need to see how success will be measured and if success is not delivered, how that scheme and that £500 million will deliver the change that we need. I would like a specific comment on that, please. The National Transition Training Fund was designed in the expectation of a significant upturn in our employment. That did not transpire. I presume that we all agree that that is a good thing and that it reflects the fact that, even in those circumstances, it supports 6,000 people in phase 1. We need to do more to accelerate that. The points that were made by Alex Rowley were right about raising the issue of social and educational inequalities that hold people back. We need access, and I would like the ministers to think about that, about free training opportunities for people on low incomes or people on precarious or short-term contracts. How will people be supported to get access to those opportunities and develop their skills? For example, in the care sector, which has been mentioned by several people today, we need to make sure that, if training involves time off work, there is financial support available to fill the gap of those missing hours or where uptake will be low. For example, caring or childcare responsibilities, how do they impact on preventing women in particular access opportunities? We have repeatedly, as Scottish Labour has raised the issue in relation to the principle of a national care service, because far too many people are paid low wages and they do not have that opportunity to develop their skills or to progress professionally and they do not get to access an attractive sector as a long-term option. That is why we want nationally negotiated terms and conditions, but it needs to be linked into training as well. I really want to see the issue of care highlighted in terms of training, because it is becoming more and more vital to us in terms of the need to recruit trainers but also to retain them. The ambition of the Scottish Government needs to be matched by real goals so that we can identify how it relates to people's real working experience. We need to think about the job losses during the pandemic that have particularly hit women who have lost their employment and have had to homeschool or act as carers. There are some real opportunities here. In North Ayrshire and our UK colleagues in Preston, you can see procurement being used to include apprenticeship and training opportunities. I would like the minister to address that in his closing remarks. There are specific sectors that are mentioned by colleagues right across the chamber today, which have been hit by Brexit as well as the pandemic. I think that more needs to be done to support people to stay in employment and to keep those businesses going. There were some very important points made by Paul Sweeney about the points that we have made today in our amendment about flexibility and visas. We could see when Scottish Labour was in power that the fresh talent initiative made a huge difference to our economy. It enabled people to seek employment after graduation, enabled them to switch into work permit employment or other legal migration routes that they qualified for. There was also a scholarship scheme for overseas graduates that enabled them to combine post-graduates study with a year of work experience. It is a good example of how we negotiated vital changes with our UK colleagues to meet our countries need at the time. One of the things that has really come across in the debate is the need for the SNP Government to work to make more demands on the UK Government, to do that constructively, but also for the Scottish Conservatives in this chamber to advocate change for Scotland within their own party as well. The points that Graham Simpson made, there are different visas on offer, but they simply do not meet the needs of employees that we need in Scotland now. I want to finish on the issue about Edinburgh because we have a particular issue regarding festivals. I want to see what the Scottish Government is going to do to support people in the city to get access to training because we are losing huge numbers of jobs because of the pandemic and because we are losing it out in retail as well. We need urgent action to target those industries going forward. We now move to closing speeches, and I call on Patrick Harvie up to six minutes, please. I welcome Richard Lochhead to his new role, and I also welcome the expression of priorities in the motion. While the Scottish Government might once have placed all the emphasis on narrow ideas like economic growth, it is good that this motion prioritises addressing inequality, creating fairer workplaces, and it is good that the Scottish Government does not have to do that. The Government has taken some criticism for even bringing a motion that acknowledges the direct harm from Brexit, but clearly it is absolutely necessary to identify and name the problem, however uncomfortable the Conservatives are in taking responsibility for what they have done. While opposing the Conservative amendment, I acknowledge that they are not all enthusiasts for Brexit, like Mr Mundell. Others are merely apologists for it, and some of the Conservative speeches today were vaguely coherent, but none appear to take responsibility for the profound harm that Brexit has done. Nor do they acknowledge that pro-independence parties were returned with a strengthened mandate in the general election just six weeks ago. Their concern about needless disruption to the labour market can hardly be taken seriously. The Conservative position is that disruption arising from their own anti-European obsession is just fine, even when 62 per cent of the people voted against it. Yet at the same time, even considering asking the people about independence is somehow intolerable disruption. There is not the slightest hint of consistency in that position. Mr Mundell's threat of a hard border at Brexit is just one more reminder that it is the Conservatives who seek hard borders, who want borders to be things that divide and control people rather than free and open places where people can meet and mix as they wish. The Greens certainly have common ground with much of the Labour amendment, from the need for wider trade union recognition to stronger action to improve the standard of living. We will vote for this amendment at the session time. I know that Paul Sweeney wants to see deep changes in the UK Government's immigration system. I wonder whether he really thinks that years or even decades of anti-migrant policy from successive UK Governments will simply disappear if we just ask for humane immigration policies. If the UK Government was remotely interested in ending its anti-immigrant stance, then yes, we could work with them to achieve a lot of what Paul Sweeney is seeking. However, I do not really think that Mr Sweeney imagines that Pretty Patel would even pick up the phone to discuss this. Ross Greer set out very clearly what a fundamental betrayal of EU citizens the EU settlement scheme represents. I hope that Stephen Kerr now has some understanding of the harmful impact that his Government has had on EU citizens in Scotland and throughout the UK. Ross Greer also mentioned some other issues raised in the Green amendment that was not selected for debate. There is ambiguity at the moment from the Scottish Government on the idea of a physical token in relation to the EU settled status scheme. The Scottish Government appeared to be generally sceptical of this idea when we raised it before the election. The manifesto then opened the door to this policy. I am still unclear whether it will proceed. Surely, that decision should have been taken by now. There is a critical contribution that EU citizens in Scotland make to our society, especially in sectors that suffer from widespread job insecurity, low pay and poor working conditions. Multiple speakers in the debate have recognised that, seeking action to fix those long-standing problems, not only because so many people's work is vital to our wellbeing as a society, but because nobody should be expected to live with exploitative working conditions. The cabinet secretary responded to one challenge on that from Daniel Johnson by saying that sectors such as hospitality also offer positive opportunities, but that risks implying that we should give undiscriminating support for employers regardless of how they treat their workers. We need to address individual abuses, such as those suffered by staff at Glasgow bars, ad-lib and blue dog, who are owed hundreds of thousands of pounds in unpaid furrow, but we also need a systemic approach. It requires determination from government to intervene to raise standards across sectors such as hospitality, retail, social care, further on higher education and more. Those abusive and exploitative conditions are at least as much of a problem in recruitment as any of the other factors that members have discussed today. People are clearly suffering because of Brexit and because of the deliberate policy choices of the UK Government. However, they are also suffering because of their treatment by employers. With all employers now dependent on state intervention in the Covid recovery, there is an unprecedented opportunity for the state to clearly set the conditions for that support, to raise standards. It is vital that we do not miss that unprecedented opportunity if we want an economic recovery that works for everyone. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I call Daniel Johnson up to six minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. There was an important debate to be had today, one about the future economy, because it is a challenge. Indeed, many people have recognised that as much as Covid presents us with challenges it has accelerated many of the factors that were present in the economy before. The fact that we have to embrace a knowledge economy, one that is grounded in skills but also in critically that we have to focus on productivity based on investment. Ultimately, the economy today is global, one that does not recognise borders and those that seek to construct borders are trying to push water uphill. However, that was not the debate that we had today. We had parallel debates, seemingly, from two parties of government speaking from parallel universes and both of them on an entirely different planet. So, not for the first time, I find myself in very active agreement with Willie Rennie. We had a debate from two parties trying to present things as black and white when they quite simply aren't so. I would politely say to the Scottish Government that they have to recognise the context within which we entered Covid. That was not one of, you know, entered Brexit. It was not one with any issues whatsoever. One characterisation of the economy that I read discussed of high employment but low productivity with low quality jobs and need for increased R&D with shortages and mismatches in the labour environment or hollowing out of the labour market. That wasn't just some random report that stated those things. That was Benny Higgins' report into the future of the economy. It was stated very clearly on this explanatory page. Those were the issues faced by the Scottish economy. Those are the issues that the Scottish Government should have been tackling over the last 14 years and quite simply cannot escape the legacy of its own policy decisions. Equally so, the Conservatives have to face up to the fact that Brexit does cause costs. Businesses face challenges and there is a shortage in the labour market. Those are just simple and unarguable facts. We were in the European Union for decades. Just in a moment, the single market was created in 1992 and from that point we benefited from free movement of goods, people and capital. Businesses came to depend on that. When you break up that union, when you put up that border, you create costs and businesses can't simply switch overnight. That's the fundamental reality that's being faced in the economy and that's why we have skills issues and if the member can answer those points I'll be glad to give way to him. Daniel Johnson makes a very strong point about the disruption of Brexit and the changes that are affected by Brexit. Would he then also accept that there are opportunities, there are costs, there are opportunities? Does he accept that there are also opportunities and we should have confidence in Scotland, in Scotland's producers, in Scotland's exporters, in Scotland's businesses and so on for newers that we can actually go into the world and we can sell more than we've sold in the past? I keep hearing of these opportunities but sell do I and do I hear them defined, let alone quantified? Until they do, I'm afraid not. Until they do, I struggle to take a word they say seriously, let alone acknowledge that there are opportunities. Oliver Mundell? I thank the member for taking the intervention. Does he agree that seeing tariffs removed on Scotch whisky is a good thing? Daniel Johnson? I gladly will look at the removal of tariffs but trade deals, which amount to little more than 0.2 per cent of GDP, will see in a single year beef exports quadruple from Australia to the UK in comparison with what Australia was able to exit. The EU as a whole in the first year of the deal. I'm very sorry but if Mr Carr would like to intervene again to define and quantify an opportunity, quantify, I'd be happy to do so. I suspect that he's remaining in a sedentary position for a very good reason. I'm trying to make the mistake that it was 0.2 per cent contribution anticipated to UK GDP for the Australia-UK deal. Actually, it's 0.02 per cent contribution. Daniel Johnson? I'm grateful for that intervention but we have to talk about how we address those long-term skills needs. Fundamentally, that is both about people and skills but also about investment and support of enterprise and industry. It seems to me that the Scottish Government has over relied on the national transition training fund. They have simply restated figures around modern apprenticeship. We welcome apprenticeship, we welcome support but they have to acknowledge that the national transition fund has fallen well short of what it was set out to do. Apprenticeship starts are 20 per cent down where they were on quarter four last year. Quite simply, young people deserve better because we know they will be the hardest hit in any downturn. Just as they were in the 2008 financial crash where youth unemployment almost doubled, we have seen 15,000 more young people unemployed in the last year. We must also see better investment and support because there is over focus on skills. Unless we have investment in productivity, in plant and equipment, we simply will continue to be reliant on the low-wage, low-value jobs that a number of members have set out their concerns. It is important that we look at the sustainability of the economy so that we do not rely on low-wage migrant labour and that we have a high-wage, high-productivity economy because that is what Scotland deserves. I will be speaking in my first debate of this new session after having listened to so many excellent contributions from new MSPs from all parties over the last few weeks. However, Presiding Officer, while we may be in a new session of Parliament, it is somewhat depressing that this afternoon the SNP appeared to be restating many of the same tired arguments that they made in the last session about Brexit. No one denies the issue of skills should be at the forefront of policymaking right now, given the issues facing many businesses in terms of job vacancy. I am making a speech today from the highlands where the hospitality industry depends on a skilled workforce and is bearing the brunt of over a year of disruption due to the pandemic. However, let's be in no doubt that the wide panoply of problems that exist did not suddenly begin on 23 June 2016, when the Brexit vote occurred, nor did it begin when we left the EU and formalised a new relationship with our European friends at the start of this year. There have been long-standing challenges in skills in Scotland for many years, and the Covid pandemic has exposed and, in fact, accentuated many of those issues. So, this is less about Brexit and much more about the frankly dire record of the SNP in government over the last 14 years. As others have said, it's a shame that the Scottish Government hasn't taken a more positive approach to this debate. We should be debating how we reskill and upskill people in Scotland, especially in light of Covid. We should be debating economic recovery for our communities, and we should be debating how we restore Scotland and how we concentrate on people's everyday priorities. However, instead today, the Government is yet again trying to blame Brexit for issues that are very much of its own making. Scram Simpson just said that there are indeed challenges right now, but the key to solving them is filling the skills gap, something that we all need to contribute to in terms of policy work. Covid-19 has starkly highlighted that increasing skills gap that already existed in Scotland. This isn't a new problem, but a consequence of years of failing to make significant investment in crucial areas. For instance, we know that the Scottish Government spent just £3.8 million on individual training accounts last year, which were worth just £200 each. Fewer than 20,000 people successfully applied, and the SNP has only set a target of 28,000 this year. Quite simply, that lacks any ambition at all. We also know that the Government has cut funding for innovation by £66 million since 2019, and that it failed to pay out more than 80 per cent of its digital growth fund, which was designed specifically to boost digital skills training, a staggering 80 per cent unused. In terms of education in general, closing the attainment gap would mean that more young people from the poorest backgrounds are able to access high-quality, further and higher education places. This is critical in ensuring that we have a strong domestic workforce able to meet the needs of emerging businesses in high-skilled sectors. However, we know that, in the past few years, the attainment gap hasn't been narrow. In fact, in some cases, it has been growing. Between 2017-18 to 2018-19, we expect a standard of literacy gap between S3 people, from the most deprived areas to the least deprived areas, increased, for example. It is particularly disappointing that the SNP has only committed £20 million towards education catch-up, which is a far cry from our calls for £85 million to be spent on a national tutoring programme to help children catch up with learning following the disruptions caused by the pandemic. All that points to the Scottish Government that it is happy to deflect from its own failings in developing the skills of our working population and young people, rather than focus on delivery. Can I turn to immigration? I stood in our garland butte at the recent election. The predicted depopulation in that constituency over the next 20 years is very stark and, indeed, hugely worrying. However, just as the causes of that are far more about the Scottish Government's decade-long failure to revitalise the local economy and improve connectivity, housing and jobs creation, the solutions are increased investments in improving the road network and helping local business. That has nothing to do with immigration or Brexit and everything to do with economic recovery. Those benches are, of course, the hard work of those who come to live, work and raise a family in Scotland. We welcome the fact that over 260,000 EU citizens have applied for settled status in Scotland, with over 5 million EU citizens applying across the UK. I joined others in calling on anyone who hasn't yet applied for settled status to do so before the 30th of June deadline. The Scottish Conservatives equally welcome people who come from all over the world to Scotland and want to contribute to our society, but, at the same time, it is important that we have an immigration system and process that is fair and robust and we support the points-based system as a means of delivering this, a system once promoted by the SNP in their 2014 white paper on independence. We also believe that it is critical that we continue to have a UK-wide immigration system that recognises where skills gap exists and looks to resolve them. To answer a question posed by Richard Lochhead earlier in the debate about the evolution of immigration, we need to look no further than the view of leading organisations such as the Scottish Chambers of Commerce, who say that they do not believe that the evolution of immigration powers to Scotland is necessary to achieve a business solution to migration targets. All CVI Scotland, who note the importance of maintaining a single UK-wide immigration policy that gives Scottish businesses flexibility that they need to attract talent. It is therefore critical that we have an immigration policy that works and acts to complement a reskilled and upskilled domestic working population. That is why the UK Government should be commended for recognising the need to offer young people more opportunities to retrain and reskill. That is why the Scottish Conservatives have called for a retrain to rebuild scheme worth £500 every year for every single adult in Scotland and unlimited apprenticeship opportunities for Scotland's young people. Those proposals will be life-changing for many and we call on the Scottish Government to implement them. In conclusion, the Scottish Conservatives want the next five years to be more than just a rerun of the last five years. The SNP spent that time obsessing over the constitution rather than getting on with the day job. As a result, the skills gap has grown, the attainment gap has widened and the SNP is failing the people of Scotland. As Oliver Mundell said in his opening speech, people of Scotland deserve better. The Scottish Conservatives have bold ideas to take our country forward and we want to work with others to ensure that Scotland recovers from the pandemic and that we reboot our economy in a way that rewards hard-working people. That is our driving aim and I encourage the chamber to support our amendment tonight. I call Jamie Hepburn to wind up minister. You have up to nine minutes. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Can I begin by saying I and Mr Lochhead laid this motion, this table, this debate in a spirit of optimism? I have to say sadly that optimism has come crashing to the rocks over the course of today's debate because I thought it was interesting that Donald Cameron said in his contribution that today should have been an opportunity to discuss how we will reskill Scotland's population. That was the purpose of today's debate. That is the very purpose as to why we brought forward this motion for debate today. In that regard, I agree with the point that was made by Sarah Boyack and Daniel Johnson about the criticality, the importance of those issues. I readily concede and indeed I would say that our motion concedes that not all of the challenges that we face are as a consequence of Brexit. Some of them are long-standing and we have sought to respond. The idea that Brexit has had no consequences for the skills base of Scotland's population and the impact on our economy and our society is a non-starter. I will give way in a second to Mr Kerr, because you certainly said some things that I want to respond to. I can assure Mr Kerr of that fact. Mr Mdell's amendment, there are parts of which I would absolutely have had no problem with the idea of creating more apprenticeships. No problem with that, that is something that we have sought to do year on year. Yes, of course some challenges in the last year, but I do not think that his amendment can be held to be a serious contribution to a debate on the issue of the impact of Brexit when it removes any reference to the consequences for businesses across Scotland. As his amendment sees to a point made by Mr Rowley, I will give way to Mr Kerr. Truthfully, we all wanted to have a substantive debate on skills this afternoon, but from the minister's opening speech it was just a litany of Brexit this and Brexit that, so that when I intervened and asked a question about the number of modern apprenticeship parts, modern apprenticeship starts in Scotland quarter on quarter, I gave the minister the numbers, it was poo pooed, it was just dismissed. I want to understand what is going on in our modern apprenticeship programme and what the ministers are going to do to stimulate us to get more modern apprenticeships. He wants numbers, I am happy to give him numbers. In 2015-16 we delivered 25,818 modern apprenticeships against a 26,500 target. In 2016-17 we delivered 26,262 modern apprenticeships against a 26,000 target. In 2017-18 we delivered 27,145 modern apprenticeships against a 27,000 target. In 2018-19 we delivered 28,191 modern apprenticeships against a 28,000 target. In 2019-20 we delivered 29,035 modern apprenticeships against a 29,000 target. That would suggest to me that, as I heard from you Mr Kerr, a year on year reduction in apprenticeship numbers does not stand up to scrutiny. It is fundamentally inaccurate. He wants more figures, I am happy to give him more figures. In the same period in England we saw 28,300 apprenticeship starts in 2015-16. In that same period by 2019-20 we saw 171,600 starts. That is a reduction of nearly 114,000 starts in England. I will take no lessons from Mr Kerr and the Tories on the administration of apprenticeships in Scotland. On Mr Sweeney's amendment, I am happy to confirm that we will support that amendment. I agree with the broad thrust of what it lays out. I would, as he probably got the sense, take some issue of what is termed as the disappointingly low uptake of the national transition training fund, something that was reflected by Sarah Boyack as well. I would make the point again that the fund was primarily designed to respond to an upturn in unemployment, which we had expected to see, which we have not seen. I would imagine that we would all think that that is a very good and welcome thing. Nonetheless, in the last year 6,330 people were supported by that fund. Indeed, the delivery of some of that fund continues through colleges and universities, but I am not going to quibble over that minor form of words when we agree with the essence of the amendment and we will be supporting that. Of course, we have committed £20 million to the fund in the coming year. Pan Gossel mentioned the training scheme and somehow suggested that we would be in love with it if it was branded with the EU flag as opposed to the union flag. We might have appreciated it more if it was a scheme that matched the breadth and scope of Erasmus Plus, rather than only guaranteeing funding for one year and having no provision for inward mobility to the UK. Critically—I think that this is the important point—no support being offered for adult education and youth work at all. Youth clubs and adult learners are cut out of the equation in the training scheme, reinforcing historical inequalities and a worrying value judgment as who they consider deserves the opportunity to experience international exchange, so much for concern about the attainment gap from the Tories. Ross Greer's contribution was a valuable one. I agreed with the fundamental points that he made about the uncertainty that EU nationals face. In the context of today's debate, it is important that we send a very clear message to EU nationals in Scotland. Those who have chosen to make Scotland their home, we should send a very clear message that you are welcome and we want you to stay in Scotland. It is important that we remind them the deadline for applications to the EU settlement scheme looms. We should remind them of the necessity that is laid out by the UK Government to apply to that scheme. We do not think that they should have to, but that is something that we should make sure that EU nationals are aware of. On the fresh talent initiative that Paul Sweeney mentioned and he cited in his amendment, that scheme was not without merit. Indeed, it was one that we as a party welcomed at the time. I am sure that he would agree that the context in which it was delivered at the time is rather different from the context that we are in just now. I can say to him that, through our moving to Scotland programme, we will provide information and advice to create a talent attraction service to try and encourage people to Scotland, the workers that we need. I will close. The impact on our economy and society as a consequence of Brexit is serious. It requires a serious response. How we ensure that our population has a skillset to respond and adapt to the times that we are in requires that serious response. We are willing to engage with colleges, universities, training providers and employers to get that right. We are also willing to engage with others in this place. I do not think that today's debate has been a proper reflection of the necessity to do that with serious intent. I reiterate the offer to every party in this chamber to work with us towards that end. That concludes the debate on mitigating, tackling and responding to the skills impact of Brexit, and it is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of business motion 396, in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a business programme. I call on George Adam to move the motion. No member has asked to speak on the motion. The question is that motion 396 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The next item of business is consideration of business motion 411, in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out changes to tomorrow's business. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press their request to speak button now. I call on George Adam to move the motion. No member has asked to speak against the motion. The question is that motion 411 be agreed. Are we all agreed? No member has asked to speak against the motion. The question is that motion 396 be agreed. Are we all agreed? No member has asked to speak against the motion. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 411, in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a business programme. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 411, in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a business programme. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 411, in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau setting out a business programme. and Bolton Metropolitan Metropolitan, but I counsel to the list of places in the common travel area from which travel to and from Scotland is not permitted unless you have a reasonable excuse. Those changes are being made as a result of the substantially increased prevalence of coronavirus in those areas, particularly with the new B1.617.2 variant being present in those areas. The regulations came into force on 22 May 2021, except regulation 4, which comes into force on 24 May 2021. This instrument makes further amendments to the health protection coronavirus international travel Scotland regulations 2020 and are amended to limit the exemption of seafarers, inspectors and surveyors of ships from the requirement to enter Scotland, only as a designated port and the requirement to take out and comply with managed self-isolation package, hotel accommodation transport to it and testing. To make saving provision such as a person who arrives in Scotland on or after 12 0 1 a.m. on 8 June 2020, but before the coming into effect of the amendment made by those regulations must comply with international travel regulations as they were at the time in which the person arrived in Scotland. That regulation came into force on 25 May 2021. Thank you. The question on those motions will be put at decision time. There are four questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first is the amendment 382.1 in the name of Oliver Mundell, which seeks to amend motion 382 in the name of Richard Lochhead on mitigating, tackling and responding to the skills impact of Brexit be agreed. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we will move to a vote. There shall be a short suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system.