 I want to move straight on. Next, I do a business as a waiter motion 12891 in the name of Angela Constance on World Refugee Day, supporting people to Settling Scotland. Can I ask members who wish to speak in the debate to press the request to speak buttons down? I call on Angela Constance to speak to and move the motion. Cabinet secretary, 13 minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Yesterday was World Refugee Day, a day when people around the world gather to acknowledge and pay tribute to all those who have been forced to flee their homes. It is an opportunity for all of us to remember the plight of refugees and people seeking asylum and to show them our solidarity, our support and our understanding. Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of hosting a round-table discussion to mark the first meeting of the new Scots leadership board, along with councillor Elena Whitham, Zabir, Zazai of the Scottish Refugee Council and Professor Alison Phipps of Glasgow University. We heard from people across Scotland who have welcomed and supported refugees over many years. Some of them came to Scotland as refugees themselves and were able to offer the lived experience that is so vital for our learning of the best ways that we can support people. All of them have worked tirelessly to help people to settle into a new country. At the round-table yesterday, there was a real commitment and a real compassion coupled equally with an honest reflection on what has worked well and what could be done better. There is absolutely no quarter given to complacency as we consider how we work together with our partners and how we collectively can do more. The leadership board is a new innovation of the second new Scots refugee integration strategy, which I was delighted to launch in January. The strategy continues Scotland's ground-baking approach to integration and is the product of partnership working between the Scottish Government, COSLA and the Scottish Refugee Council and many other organisations across the public and third sectors, as well as communities and individuals. A year ago, I launched an engagement process to inform the development of the second new Scots strategy. Our aim was to ensure that the new strategy kept refugees and people seeking asylum at its very heart. We sought the help of community groups and other organisations across Scotland to hold engagement events. We asked them to talk about what is important in helping people to settle into their new communities and to provide feedback to inform the strategy. The response to the new Scots engagement exceeded all our expectations. Over three months last summer, more than 2,000 people took part in over 90 engagement events. That included over 700 refugees and people seeking asylum. I would like to thank everyone who gave of their time and their talents to organise and participate in events and to contribute their ideas and their experience. The engagement feedback was absolutely crucial to ensuring that new Scots reflect lived experience. I am pleased that we will be publishing an in-depth analysis of the engagement feedback. The report provides a rich source of evidence, both for those working to implement the new Scots strategy and anyone else with an interest in integration. One of the responses quoted in the new Scots engagement document is that it comes directly from someone with lived experience who says, "...we don't simply seek food and shelter, but a full life and a proper identity beyond the label of asylum seeker or refugee." The report in particular highlights the importance of language and how fundamental it is for communication and understanding. That is why language is a new theme for the second new Scots strategy. Over many years, refugees have made their homes in Scotland through two world wars from Bosnia and Causaville in the 1990s and more recently from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Syria to name but just a few. Like anyone else coming to Scotland, they have brought their skills, their expertise and their cultures, and they have shared them with us, and we are all the richer for it. We believe that integration begins from day 1 of arrival. For many refugees, employment is a crucial part of the process of settling into a new country. Refugees often face barriers and accessing employment, especially employment that matches their skills. I am delighted to be working with the bridges programmes and other partners on the refugee doctors project, supporting people who are qualified doctors in their countries of origins to achieve the necessary registration to progress to working in the NHS in Scotland. I am equally pleased that we have been able to expand the project this year to include dentists as well. There is a real appetite among new Scots partners to engage more with the world of work and the economic players so that we can work collectively to ensure more real and lasting opportunities for people who come to make a new life in Scotland. Getting to know people and building social connections is an important part in settling into a new country. Initiatives such as the cup of tea with a refugee campaign led by the Scottish Refugee Council give people the chance to get together, share their experiences and build friendships. Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a cup of tea event with young people who had been supported by the Scottish guardianship service. I was delighted to hear from young people about their lives, their experiences and their hopes and aspirations and very much look into the future. Some of the young people even shared with me their favourite Scots words and phrases. I am not quite sure if I am allowed to say by hookie in the chamber, but there I have. I have never really thought of phrases such as going for the messages or all right pal as particularly Scottish or Glaswegian. Learning is always a two-way process. I am really looking forward to meeting some of these incredible young people again at a really great event that is planned for Rothsy this Saturday. I hope that it is not an explanation of the word, but you do know it. We all know it, I think. I warmly welcome many of those excellent projects that she talks about. I wonder if she could specifically mention what English language training has been provided or is available to people in a more formal setting that will help them to make that move to new careers. Yes, absolutely. Scotland has an ESOL strategy that goes as far as 2020. In terms of the most recent financial year, £1.4 million has been invested in community planning partnerships. Moving forward, that resource has been placed within the college sector to ensure a greater stability and to enhance opportunities in terms of the recognition of qualifications as well. We have also funded some really interesting pilots that are about looking at peer learning and not to replace English lessons within a more formalised education sector, but we recognise that, in terms of reaching into communities, the often more community-based or peer-led English language opportunities are also very important to offer. As I was saying, young people are at the very heart of the refugee festival Scotland this year, which is highly appropriate during this year of young people. Refugee Festival is also a festival for everyone. It showcases the vibrancy, creativity and passion of refugees who live in Scotland and gives people a platform to speak, perform and share their talents. The celebrations are great fun, but many of those events also challenge us to think about the experiences of refugees. Above all, it is a festival that provides a chance for people to get to know each other better and, crucially, to break down barriers. However, I know that many people, particularly those in the asylum process, continue to face big challenges. Poverty and destitution are far too prevalent and are a barrier to integration. Last year, the Equalities and Human Rights Committee brought a much-needed focus to the issues of destitution, asylum and insecure immigration in Scotland. Patrick Harvie I am grateful that the minister has moved on to the issue of people still in the asylum system matters just as much as integration for refugees. I know that the Scottish Government has offered support to my constituent, Llewgen Gain, who was very recently in recent days subject to detention and the threat of deportation. Will the minister join me in congratulating the many campaigners who have worked hard to ensure that, hopefully, later today, they will be able to welcome him back to Glasgow? Will the minister continue to offer support to people in that situation? I will offer Mr Harvie, his constituent and all the campaigners who have involved my continued support. I also congratulate what has been achieved thus far. It is absolutely imperative that, as we move forward, we challenge the notion that we have a two-tier asylum system and that it is absolutely unacceptable. The Scottish Government is working with partners to develop a strategy with practical actions to try and mitigate some of the worst aspects of those who are at highest risk. However, it remains the case that we are unable to tackle the root cause of the issue, which is UK asylum and immigration legislation and policies that seem to have destitution built into it. The provision of accommodation and advice services for asylum seekers also continues to cause me deep concern. I have made the case to Home Office ministers for public or third-sector provision where profit is not a motive. I am extremely disappointed that the procurement processes for new contracts have not supported that as an option. We will continue to work to ensure that the new contractors, whoever they may be, understand the Scottish context and legislation and deliver services that support people as they rebuild their lives. The success of the Syrian Resettlement programme shows what can be achieved when programmes are well-coordinated and funded, with a focus on integration support. Scotland has now received 2,300 refugees under the programme, and we remain absolutely committed to welcoming people. The Scottish Government will continue to do what it can to take a holistic approach to all refugees and people seeking asylum. However, the tailored support that is part of the resettlement programme is in stark contrast to the complete lack of support that is provided to people in the asylum system. I repeat what I said to Mr Harvie earlier that we have a two-tier system that is utterly unacceptable. People who have been forced to seek protection in Scotland should feel welcome, they should feel safe and able to participate in their society. As New Scots has shown, there are real opportunities to take positive steps when we co-ordinate action and are informed, first and foremost, by the experience of refugees and communities. If I can end by quoting the UN Secretary General, Antonia Guterres, who says that this is not about sharing a burden, it is about sharing a global responsibility based not only on the broad idea of our common humanity, but also on the very specific obligations of international law. The root problems are war and hatred, and are most certainly not people who flee war, hatred and violence. I am delighted to move the motion in my name. I am pleased to open the debate for the Scottish Conservatives in support of World Refugee Day, and I would like to welcome and echo much of what the Cabinet Secretary has said in her opening remarks. Every minute of every day, 20 people leave behind everything to escape war, persecution or terror, and by the time we have finished the debate, 2,400 people will have fled their homes. I want to take this opportunity, from my part, to thank some of our armed forces for the humanitarian role that they play in rescuing and protecting refugees, and in particular at the moment, the Royal Navy and Royal Marines, who continue to patrol the Mediterranean, rescuing migrants and refugees while targeting the human traffickers that profit from their misery. For refugees, leaving home is not a choice. Many have to leave behind everything but what they can carry, and sometimes they are running without even the chance to say goodbye to the people they love. World Refugee Day honours the strength and courage of refugees and encourages public awareness and support. On their journeys to find safety, they will endure cold, hunger, trauma, despair, disease, violence and loss. The only thing that they often carry with them is hope—the hope that they will find peace and safety once more. With that hope also comes great sadness, a reminder that they have now left their homes and many will never return. It is our role to provide that hope. As a national government, local authority or small community, it is our duty to offer the hand of friendship to those who have lost their homes and possibly their families. Indeed, family plays such a major role in all that. Material things can be replaced while the people we love are essential to our wellbeing and we should do everything that we can to ensure that families stay together. Christina McKelvie It is on the point of family. Can I ask Michelle Ballantyne, if her party would be supporting Angus McNeill MP's Refugee's Family Reunion Bill, which would bring back together those families, usually unaccompanied children, bring them back together to be with her parents, would her party be supporting that? Michelle Ballantyne I have not seen the wording of it yet, but we will certainly look at it very carefully. That leads me nicely to saying that I am really pleased to hear that the UK Government is continuing its mandate resettlement scheme post Brexit. Under this project, children recognised as refugees by the UNHCR can join close family members in the UK. The UK Government is a strong supporter of this principle, with over 24,000 family reunion visas issued in the last five years, as well as granting asylum or some other form of leave to over 9,000 children in the past year alone. I would rather not at the moment, because I am going to run out of time otherwise. Earlier this year, the UK's vulnerable person resettlement scheme reached the halfway point in its commitment to settle 20,000 people, including 3,000 children by 2020, with 10,538 refugees already settled in the UK. As the cabinet secretary indicated, arriving in an unfamiliar country, not speaking the language with no belongings and potentially traumatised from your experiences, is not the end of journey for families. Integrating into a new society is challenging, and we show our humanity and care by recognising that challenge, and ensuring that the support for every step of the journey until families have found their feet in our communities. I am delighted therefore on Monday that the Home Office did award the promised £1 million fund to the civil society organisation reset to provide training and support to help communities across the UK who want to welcome refugees through the community sponsorship resettlement initiative. Deputy Presiding Officer, I am proud of the role that the United Kingdom is playing here. Contributions are being made at all levels of society, whether it is the work of the UK Government, the very welcome new Scots strategy to help it to integrate refugees or the acts of individual communities. Right now, in Gala Shields in the Scottish Borders, an event called Reach Out 2018 is taking place, and that is where I would have been if I had been playing hooky today. The event, organised by TD1 Youth Hub, the Scottish Refugee Council and Volunteer Centre Borders, is showcasing the fabulous work that has been taking place to bring young people together. The project led by TD1 Youth Hub in Gala Shields started in September 2017 and has grown its success through the confidence building and skills that young people have gained from each other on a weekly basis. The group brings together both Syrian and local Gala Shields young people who regularly attend the TD1 activities and share experiences and learn together. For many, what started as volunteering support for refugee families has now become real, deep friendships. The Scottish Borders has welcomed five Syrian refugee families to the area, all of whom are making considerable efforts to integrate into their new communities, overcoming culture and language barriers. Support for them has been truly multi-partnershipped, involving council services, local schools, health services, partner agencies, registered social landlords, Borders College, the Department of Work and Pensions and Job Centre, Skills Development Scotland, Police, Fire and Rescue Services, Voluntary Bodies and Local Communities and Volunteers, but I would like to single out that. I am very grateful for Michelle Ballantyne for taking the intervention. At the start of her speech, she mentioned that by the end of the debate there will be 2,400 more refugees in the world. As she is coming to the end of her contribution, I wonder if she could reflect on the fact that that is roughly the same number as the number of children that the UK Government abandoned when it ended its commitment to the dub scheme early. Michelle Ballantyne Yes, and I hear your point, but the point here is that if we are bringing people here, we have to be able to support them effectively and make sure that this is a journey, not an end. Most people who are made refugees do not want to leave their countries and their homes and we also have to work very hard abroad to make sure that they can return to their homes. I want to get back to the point that I want to mention two people in particular who I know have done a huge amount of work on this. I would like to mention Hamid and Abdul. Their contributions to the Borders Volunteer Centre and the work with refugees have been immense and they have been tremendous in the resettlement process. I know many feel that without them the whole system would struggle. Their work has not only improved the lives of refugees coming to the borders, but it has also served to enrich the lives of those who have been involved in the process. In doing so, it has prepared them to take up to 10 refugee families who I know when they arrive will be immensely heartened seeing how the families who have gone before them have integrated and found lives and settled and hopefully it will make their transition much easier. Actions and groups like this all help to reduce the risk of social isolation and allows refugees to connect with people in the communities that they are settling in, particularly important for children and young people. In conclusion, we must ensure that all those who welcome them to communities in Scotland are able to live free from persecution and as valid members of our communities. Our job is to make sure that they have new homes, but if they want to return to their own homes, in the countries that they came from, we do everything that we can to enable that as well. I thank the cabinet secretary for bringing forward this debate to celebrate world refugee day. I also thank the Scottish Refugee Council and Oxfam Scotland for their briefings for today, but for the tireless work that they and others do to support people in crisis. I would like to acknowledge the work of our local authorities and third sector partners across Scotland for their part in supporting refugee and asylum seekers settled in the community. I am sure that we will hear lots more about the work throughout the debate from members who are taking part. In the Parliament today, we joined millions of people around the world who, on world refugee day yesterday, showed support to people displaced by conflict, violence and persecution. At a time when record numbers of people are being displaced, when we see countless photographs in the media of the horrific conditions asylum seekers endure in their quest for safety, when there is headline after headline about hostile policies from Governments across the world, from turning away rescue boats to separating children from their parents, we must come together and say that refugees are welcome here. We must show unity and ensure that this message is heard by all displaced people now living in Scotland. Scotland has a strong record of welcoming refugees and asylum seekers to our country, and around 10 per cent of the UK's dispersed asylum population live in Glasgow. In my region, central Scotland, I am really proud of the on-going work to settle Syrian refugees as part of the Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme. When I was a councillor in Hamilton, I assisted with the settlement activities in the early part of the resettlement scheme. 32 families have been settled in South Lanarkshire between 2015 and 2018, but more must be done, so I was pleased this year to hear the council commit to resettling a further 120 Syrian refugees. There has also been some amazing grassroots community work in Lanarkshire, such as the wonderful volunteers behind a group from Wishaw to Calais who gather supplies and fundraise to transport those supplies to refugees who were encamped at the so-called jungle camp in France. There is lots of on-going positive work in Scotland to show that we are a nation that welcomes refugees. It is important to share those good news stories and celebrate them and ensure that they are known, because whether it is undoubtedly an abundance of goodwill towards settling refugees, it would be wrong to deny that prejudice and challenge is not still faced by those seeking refuge here and attempting to rebuild their lives. For example, just last month, Syrian refugee Shabazz Ali was left fighting for his life after a suspected racially motivated attack, just two miles from where we stand today. After fleeing violence in Syria, it is shameful and disgusting that that should happen in the country that he sought refuge in. The violent actions of the perpetrator were quickly condemned by the community who came together to show their support and raised thousands of pounds for Shabazz to help him to rebuild his life during his recovery. The goodwill of our communities is no doubt remarkable, but we cannot rely on goodwill alone. The community requires proper resourcing for the language courses for refugees who want to learn or improve their English, and for the housing and education needs of resettled families. The Scottish Government's contribution via the equality fund is welcome, but local authorities are undoubtedly under increasing financial pressure. The funding crisis must be addressed if we are to ensure the vital role of local authorities in supporting community cohesion is fulfilled. I think that COSLA has reflected that in their briefing to members today. Earlier this week, I met with Sibir Zazai, who is the chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, and the cabinet secretary has already mentioned it. I was also fortunate to get along to Serenity cafe yesterday as part of the cup of tea with a refugee celebration, and I pay tribute to Aberlour for her work on that as well. I was also asked when I went in to come up with a favourite Scottish word. I was trying to think of something positive because there were a few interesting choices. I went for Bonnie, which I thought could have captured perhaps the mood of the day. When I went in, I sat down with two young men who were chatting about their mobile phones—a normal conversation that you would expect between young people. It emerged that the young man who was anxious about his phone had been separated from his family and his father in Iran, and his friend, who is now settled in Glasgow, who was translating. I realised how important those mobile phones were to those two young men. It is important that we hear those personal stories, because the scale and depth of horror in the human cost of persecution faced by those seeking refuge cannot be conveyed by numbers and statistics. On paper, we accept a lot of what the Conservative amendment is saying, and I appreciate the tone that Michelle Ballantyne has taken, but the Conservative amendment is something that we cannot support today, because it feels to recognise that we have a UK asylum system that is lacking in compassion and humanity. I am reminded of the equality and human rights committee's report last year, which talked about people and she has brought a copy along with her. Driving people in Scotland with unsecured immigration status into destitution and the amendment does not reflect that reality, and that is why the Scottish Labour Party is not able to support that. We are content to fully support the Government's motion today and to support the amendment in the name of Ross Greer. Scotland has a big role to play in offsetting the worst effects of those damaging policies, some of which we have heard about. Joining up resources of public and third sectors on devolved competencies, including health education, legal services and some housing, is an important step forward. Prevision of accommodation options and advocacy is vital in enabling people to rebuild their lives. That is why we have put down our amendment today. Evaluation is important, because we need to identify good practice and build on it. For example, in South Lanarkshire, we know that some stuff has worked well, but we need to know about the rest of the country. I have just finished by saying that Sebeer Zazai, who is an Afghan refugee, who is now the chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council said that the mark of a nation is how it treats the most vulnerable and difficult times. I agree, and I would like to celebrate his achievements in the work of everyone working to support refugees and asylum seekers in Scotland. I am loath to cut members off, but there is no time in hand. I have to be quite cruel at times, not that that is my normal modus operandi. I do not think that you moved your amendment, by the way. Did you move it? I moved the amendment in my name, Presiding Officer. I now call on Ross Greer to speak to a move amendment 1289.1. Mr Greer, six minutes please. It is difficult to really comprehend the true scale of the tragedy of being forced from your home, to have to flee to another country or even another continent to seek help. The UN Refugee Agency estimates that there are over 28 million refugees and asylum seekers across the world today and an additional 40 million people who are internally displaced. The number of displaced Syrians alone exceeds our total population here in Scotland. For many, the journey to safety itself is too often a deadly one. The Guardian yesterday published the names of 34,361 refugees who have died trying to reach Europe since 1993. That is only those whose deaths have been reported. We know that many more go unreported. I have stood by the unmarked graves of those whose stories will never know who could not even be buried with the dignity of their own name. I have spoken to the rescuers to see wreckage and debris scattered across the Mediterranean and know that they were too late for whoever and however many people were lost in tragedies that we were not even aware of. We are talking about those who have drowned after boats capsised, suffocated during journeys, crammed into the hold of vessels not remotely seaworthy with hundreds of other desperate people, those who have been murdered by racists, criminals and slave traders, or have taken their own life after losing hope. It is all too easy even for those here to lose hope in the face of this monumental human misery, but it is our responsibility, not to lose hope but to give it. As the Government motion acknowledges, there are individuals, groups and public bodies across Scotland and across all the UK who are giving their all to provide that hope. The new Scots strategy rightfully recognises the importance of integration starting from day 1. Every effort must be made to ensure that refugees are welcome here and have the opportunities and support to integrate into Scottish society. Jeremy Balfour I agree that the best policy is to try to help people to stay in their own country, or that they have to come at least as far as possible so that they are not caught up with smugglers and other people who are seeking to cause them damage. I am grateful for the intervention. I think that many people across the world use the many millions that are suffering in Yemen at the moment. We would love the opportunity to stay in their own home, but because of weapons that the UK Government sold, the Saudi Arabian Government, it does not have the opportunity to do that. Back to the point about integration. The right to vote is an essential component of integration. The ability to choose those who make decisions on your behalf is at the core of who we are as a free democracy. For as long as someone who is a refugee or a asylum seeker is resident here, that is their home. The decisions that we take in this place in Westminster and our council chambers affect them just as much, and in many cases even more so than everyone else. If refugees are to be able to integrate fully into Scottish society, if we are to demonstrate that they are truly welcome, then they must have the right to vote. That is what the Green amendment today proposes, and I sincerely hope that members will support it. I welcome the Scottish Government's existing commitments, including those that were made to me in the chamber just a few weeks ago, that it is their intention to propose in the coming reforms of our electoral system that we do in franchise all legally resident refugees and asylum seekers as part of broader electoral reform towards residency-based voting. I believe that Richard Leonard made similar commitments in the Labour Party yesterday, and I appreciate Monica Lennon's note of support today. I am also glad that the Labour amendment makes clear the importance of evaluating national and local refugee resettlement and integration programmes. We will be aware of brilliant local work going on, which should be shared widely as best practice. I am sure that we are all equally well aware of local councils in particular who could do so much more, who could dramatically improve the support that they offer if they were better resource to do so. However, of course, there is only so much that can be done at Scottish or local levels, of course. For the most part, asylum policy remains reserved to Westminster, and under Westminster, British asylum policy has been nothing short of disgraceful. The UK is one of the largest detention centre estates in Europe, with almost half of those detained being asylum seekers facing deportation. We are not short of reports on instances of human rights abuse in UK detention centres. The situation is so bad that detainees have often resorted to hunger strikes to protest against the inhumane conditions that they are held in. The Conservative Government even blocked a UN special rapporteur from investigating Yarlswood detention centre, which predominantly houses women, despite substantial allegations of sexual abuse there. Perhaps a Conservative speaker today's debate might want to explain that decision. This is not an issue that is simply limited to one detention centre. There have been reports of abuse at detention centres all over the country, including at Dengaville in Scotland. The Westminster Home Affairs Select Committee is currently conducting an inquiry into Brookhouse detention centre over reports of racial abuse, bullying, suicide and self-harm, and detainees going on hunger strike. The UK continues to detain children despite pledging to end this in 2010. The numbers are not as high as they were under Tony Blair at their peak, but as we condemn the barbarity of US detention policy, let's not forget that there is little difference in how the UK Government operates in practice. Let's not pretend that, as a society, we can call ourselves civilised while detaining children while deporting them back to situations where their lives are in danger or denying them sanctuary in the first place. As a bare minimum, a civilised society is one that never abandons children in need. The Tory amendment today claims that the UK Government has committed to taking in 900 unaccompanied child refugees currently in mainland Europe. I would be grateful if they could tell me how many have actually been resettled or why we should believe in this new target, because this is the same Government that, as I mentioned, committed to taking in 3,000 unaccompanied children who were already in Europe under the dub scheme, but then in December 2017 reduced their target to 500 and failed to meet even that. Thousands of children abandoned and lost while the UK could have taken them in. The Conservative amendment refers to the high standard of welcome provided by the UK Government to refugees. Those who have been or today face being deported back to their death would disagree. The children detained by this Government would disagree. The many thousands denied sanctuary in the first place would disagree. I will not pretend that there is some cosy consensus in this Parliament today when one party here is the very Government-causing, unimaginable suffering to some of the world's most vulnerable people. When the Greens and many others in this Parliament say that refugees are welcome here, we mean it. In our struggle in this country to show refugees and asylum seekers the basic and unaliable dignity that they deserve, we are far from finished. I move the amendment in my name. Thank you, Mr Gw. Now, I call Alex Cole-Hamilton. Mr Cole-Hamilton, six minutes please. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am very grateful to the Government for bringing this motion forward today. Before I address Scotland's response to the refugee crisis in the world and it is a crisis, there are more people displaced today than any time since World War 2. I want to make reference to something that has come up a couple of times in this debate. That is the situation of the treatment of refugees in the United States. There is an inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty, which is a poem by Emma Lazarus, which says at one point, give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. Those words spoke to the American dream of sanctuary, of protection, of opportunity. It was dreamt in over 6,000 languages in every corner of this planet and saw movement of people from all kinds of situations over the last century to the United States. That dream was also followed by many Scots. That dream today—I think that it is fair to say, Deputy Presiding Officer—has been utterly shattered by Trump's America, with the Muslim ban, with the images of law students filing habeas corpus petitions for immigrants at points of entry, and of children, child refugees from Honduras and El Salvador crying in cages. The flame of liberty is guttering in America right now. The golden door that Emma Lazarus described in her poem has been replaced with a prison and a detention centre. To hear right-wing commentators like Ann Coulter refer to these as child actors coached for the cameras, well, if there are devils that walk amongst us, Presiding Officer, then she is one of them. All told, 68.5 million people are on the move right now, displaced from their countries of origin against their will and for reasons beyond their control. As I said, it is the highest since World War 2, and it is displaced by identity politics, persecution, war, poverty and climate change. Remember, more and more people are being forced to leave their communities because of the changing weather systems on our planet caused by man. We need to see the humanity behind those numbers. Each of those numbers is a tragic story. That is why the response of our country is so fundamentally important. We have some proud tradition, some proud history of responding well to the crisis of this kind in the kinder transport in World War 2 and our response to Biafra. To some degree, in Syria, there is some pride and certainly the response of our communities to those situations that we should be justifiably proud of. However, we do ourselves a disservice and those refugees a disservice if we are to self-congratulatory about that. Remember, for every 10,000 citizens in Germany and in Sweden, they took in 70 Syrian refugees, yet for every 10,000 citizens in Scotland, we took only four. We talk about hostile environment policy in terms of immigration and that was exemplified in the Windrush scandal, but we are also dangling false hope for refugees if they think that they are coming to anything less than a hostile environment here. A number of points have been made about the UK Government's reversal of the Dubs commitment to bringing in 3,000 refugees. That is the main reason that we shall also vote against the Conservative amendment tonight. I worked, as many of you know, with Abel Ahr and the under guardianship service that we have heard something of today, working with unaccompanied asylum seekers who are children and child refugees and victims of trafficking. I saw that hostile environment firsthand in the attitude of the UK boarders' agency, who said that they start from a presumption of disbelief instead of a very high bar on things like proving your age or proving that you have been a victim of rape or torture in your country of origin. In the insidious reality of no recourse to public funds, which is particularly damaging, for those women who come to this country with uncertain immigration status, who are married to abusive spouses, who flee that abusive relationship, then find themselves having to raise children without recourse to public funds in this country, it is an absolute outrage. Those who are forced to attend an interview in Croydon without resources to get there or for children who are victims of trafficking or seeking asylum, there is no consistency in the application of social work assessment when they get here. However, it is in the reaction of the right-wing press that we see so much of UK Government policy forged. There are distortions of populism that create a fear in our community and othering of refugees. Refugees are not here to steal your job or seduce your daughter. They are fleeing the worst places and circumstances on this planet and they bring with them culture, resilience and skills. If we give them sanctuary, they will repay that 100-fold. I want to close, as I started with an extract from a poem. What they did yesterday afternoon is a poem by Roseanne Shire. She is a Brit but was born in Kenya to Somali parents. She says at the end of that poem, I come from two countries. One is thirsty, the other is on fire, both need water. Last night, I held an atlas in my hand and ran my fingers over the whole world and I asked it, where does it hurt? It replied, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere. That pain is visible on our TV screens, in our streets and in our communities and at the points of entry to this country all around the British Isles. If compassion is the most important pillar of our human condition, our response as a country to the crisis will be the measure by which our generation is judged. I absolutely support the Government's motion. Today, we need to do far more for the refugees that we should be looking after. Thank you very much. I now move on to the open debate. It is speeches of six minutes. Christina McKelvie, followed by Jeremy Baill from Ms McKelvie, please. I would normally like to start a debate like this with an outward-looking positive tone. While I will come to that soon, I simply cannot ignore the inhumanity that the world has witnessed this week in Trump's America or proposals in Italy to round up the Roma. That is a quote. We do not have to imagine, do we? We can see it on our TV screens, children, toddlers, babies, ripped from their loving arms of their mothers and their parents and forced into a cage. If he happened to be the youngest, he would get put into a tender age shelter—a cage, Presiding Officer. I will let that ring out in this place. The US Government, but not the US people who are calling this out, the ones that great bastions and defenders of liberty were caging children. An inhumane and repugnant policy and one mirrored too closely in the UK Government detention centres that I know, a hostile environment that leaves people destitute as evidenced in the eric equality and human rights report hidden lives in new beginnings, a piece of work that we did last year on the committee and we are following it up this year to see if progress is being made. While Theresa May may roll out the red carpet for this right-wing supremacist demagogue who bans Muslims from entry to the US, who derides Mexicans, who mocks those with a disability, who exploits executive privilege, who disregards human rights and who now unashamedly dehumanises children, young, defenceless children whose only crime was to seek refuge and shelter. Scotland is forever, I hope, will be forever, proudly different from that. The message that will ring loud and clear when Mr Trump makes his unwelcome visit will ring in his ear. Scotland does not agree with you, Mr Trump. I ask our Prime Minister to rescind that invite, because I am sorry that I do not want that man walking about in any of the countries of the United Kingdom. Seeking asylum is not a crime, it is absolutely not a crime. At committee this morning, we heard from the UN who said that around 63 million people are currently displaced, either around the world or in their own countries, the highest figure since World War 2. That is a startling figure. Those people who seek shelter in Scotland will be welcomed. Those who cry out for sanctuary in Scotland will be heard. Those who travel across land and sea will be safe in Scotland. We can be your sanctuary. On World Refugee Day, we celebrate the progressive, positive steps that unite us in our difference and our diversity. The second new Scot's refugee integration strategy recognises that strength in our differences. It recognises the values of our diversity, the intrinsic colourful bond between human beings that helps us on our way towards equality. I think that the culture that refugees bring to Scotland just makes our tartan that little bit brighter, a bit like the cabinet secretary's jacket today. The strategy is already working. Two of the principles that underpin the new Scot's strategy are refugee involvement and inclusive communities. We have seen that in clear display at the event that I attended yesterday at the Serenity cafe, the same as my other colleagues in the chamber, hosted by Abilure and the Scottish Refugee Council. A cup of tea with a young refugee actually did not get a chance for a cup of tea because I was so interested to hear their stories that I missed the tea. That gave our refugee community that exact sense of belonging and empowerment and what they need to settle in Scotland. Even more, I heard first hand from those young, amazing refugees themselves and how safe and secure they now feel in our country. I asked them what was the best part, and they said that health and education, but to feel safe was by far the most important aspect of being in Scotland. That is a real testament to our award-winning guardianship service to make someone feel safe. Those youngsters told me that no longer do they face persecution or threats, that no longer must they flee from danger nor scramble for shelter, that they have been welcomed into a country that stands in solidarity with their plight and pledges to ensure that they become fully active and empowered citizens. Those citizens are here, they are here and now of Scotland. They are not foreigners in a strange land nor are they shirkers or skyvers. They are Scots. As welcome to this country as you and I, Presiding Officer. A testament to the Scottish Government's progressive welcome and refugees has been our leading role under the Syrian Refugees Resettlement programme that we have heard a lot about it this afternoon. However, thanks to that leadership from the local authorities and Scottish Government, Civic Scotland, churches, charities and all the organisations, we have ensured that well over 2,000 Syrian refugees have been welcomed to Scotland. To put that into context, Scottish councils have met their goal to resettle 10 per cent of refugees brought to the UK just two years into a five-year programme. Let me be clear that, whilst we can congratulate the work that the Scottish Government has achieved, we also call on the UK Government to do more. A goal of 20,000 refugees over five years is a shocking dereliction of duty, an abdication of human morality and should be immediately revised. I urge them to do that. In Scotland, we can stand on our record. We stand by our principles that refugees are welcome here. We work with them, we educate them, we empower them and, most importantly, we learn from them and we listen to them. The Scottish Government in partnership with our charities, the third sector local authorities, volunteers and everyone else who values the contribution of refugees make our society better. It pledges to ensure the safety and security of those who call Scotland home. We want Scotland to achieve that compassionate Scotland, one that does not care where you come from but where we are going together that matters. I welcome the debate and the Government bringing forward this debate. I congratulate the Scottish Refugee Council, who are organising the 10-day refugee festival across Scotland. I hope that those events highlight some of the good stories that have been told here today and can be told in other places. As other members have already pointed out, we are at a unique place in our world at this moment. There are more refugees in the world now than there have ever been since the second world war. Sadly, half of our refugees are children who have had individual experiences that most of us could never even imagine. When we talk, we can talk about policy, which is important, but out of the minute we need to say what is best for individuals and particularly for children. I think that, as the previous speaker mentioned, we can be proud of how we have dealt with the Syrian refugees coming to this country. When the scheme was first announced, I was a local councillor here in Edinburgh. I saw first hand how it should work at its best. UK, Scottish, local authorities, third sector coming together, putting aside political differences and working together for the best of those who are coming to our country. I think that it has worked well. I look here in Edinburgh and see those who came under that scheme integrated into Edinburgh life, not put in one part of the city but spread across the city. Schools working with children in those schools so that they can understand what is going on. However, the difficulty that Edinburgh faced and Edinburgh continues to face is in regard to the shortage of housing and suitable housing. I have a constituent at the moment that I am working with who is a refugee living in a flat that probably none of us would want to live in with heavy damp. The child has health conditions, but it is proving impossible to find another house for that individual simply because there are so few available in Edinburgh. It was interesting when I was on the equal opportunities and human rights committee and we did that report last year. One of the questions that we need to come back to as a parliament and as a Government is whether we keep refugees in central Scotland alone or whether we do a dispersal that is wider across the whole of Scotland. It was interesting when we took evidence on that point. There were pluses and minuses on both, but I think that if we are going to continue with the policies that the Scottish Government has taken forward, which we support, we need to look at dispersal. We have to look at the support that comes not just when a refugee arrives, but the on-going support that they will acquire, particularly for those who do not have English as their first language. However, the point that I made to Mr Gehr, and I think that it is an important point, but yes, refugees do not want to leave their country. Where possible, we should stop the journey at the earliest part. Why? I think that my time is about to go. I am very grateful to that point. I am sure that every refugee in Scotland would agree that they did not want to have to flee their own home. Will Mr Balfour agree that the UK Government, as the world's second largest arms dealer, massively contributes towards the need for people to flee their home? I think that, with respect— Jeremy Balfour, sorry. You made that point already. It is a way over simplification of that to bring forward that as an argument. I do support what the UK Government is doing through the international development in helping countries such as Turkey to help people who are refugees there to save them from having to come to Germany, France, Britain and other parts of Europe, where they are often smuggled, where they are often put in danger and they end up in prostitution. I think that we need to look at how we do help as many people stay as close— One of six people in Lebanon is a refugee. In Jordan, the figure is one in 14 persons as a refugee. In Turkey, it is actually one in 23. Most refugees are currently close to their home countries, but surely Mr Balfour would agree that it is a global responsibility that those countries should not be left to cope alone. I am trying to make to the cabinet secretary that it is far better for us to support into those countries where the people are rather than them having to trek across the whole of Europe with that danger. I support more money that has been given to Jordan and other countries for that, and I think that that has to be one of our key priorities going forward. Fulton MacGregor, to be followed by Kezia Dugdale. I want to start by saying that I welcome the Parliament's recognition of world refugee day. World refugee day has taken place every day in June for the last 18 years. The first world refugee day took place in the aftermath of the possible refugee crisis, and I am saddened to stand here and say that since then, several more global refugee crises have occurred. A UN report noted that, in 2017, someone was displaced from their home every two seconds. With more than six to eight million refugees around the world, they currently outnumber the population of the UK. Recent weeks and days have seen the tension in the US-Mexican border. Like my colleague Christina McKelvie, it is almost impossible to stand up here and talk in this debate and not mention the heartbreaking situation that we all have seen on our screens over the last couple of days. People involuntarily flee in their homes due to extraordinary unchecked violence, including murder, rape, abduction and forced recruitment of children into gangs. Those families have been seeking protection in countries throughout that region. I welcome the president's executive order reversing his administration's policy of separating migrant children from parents after the outrage from the world community. As the First Minister said today, we must still be critical of the whole detention system and to think that now children will be detained with their parents rather than being detained separately is not much of a plus. I would also mention that the United States removed itself from the Human Rights Council in the face of such a tense situation. We are all familiar, of course, with the tragic situation in Syria. A UN projection stated that the Syrian crisis has created over six million refugees, and this conflict that has now lasted longer than World War 2 has shown few signs of de-escalating. I am sure that many members here in the chamber will be like me and remember the Don't Bomb Syria campaign a few years ago when the UK Government decided to get involved. Every month, we hear of boats of refugees sinking in the Mediterranean, killing entire families. The desperation that people must have to escape their homes and endanger their families is unfathomable. When you realise that placing your family in an overcrowded dinghy is a preferable option to remaining in your home, the turmoil that these refugees are fleeing from starts to become a bit clearer and we all must sit and take note. These stories take place hundreds of miles away, and it might be easy to put them into the back of your mind, but that is truly a global issue. Scotland has done much for refugees in recent years, and I believe that the Parliament needs to recognise the hard work that has gone into welcoming these many vulnerable people. For local authorities, the decision to participate in the international humanitarian protection schemes is completely voluntary, and I am proud to say, as others have already, that every single local authority willingly committed to supporting the scheme. Last December, the 2,000 Syrian refugee was successfully resettled in Scotland three years ahead of target, and since then, 500 more refugees are now called Scotland home. Several local authorities are looking after on accompanied asylum-seeking children who have arrived in Scotland with no parent or carer to support them. As tragic as those situations are, they are made a bit easier by those authorities providing a wide range of services to ensure that those young people have every opportunity to prosper in Scotland. So far, local authorities have cared for almost 40 on accompanied asylum-seeking children. I also echo Cods's recommendation that the Scottish Parliament should recognise and applaud the hard work and dedication of local authority staff and their community partners in today's debate, and I will do just that and also say proudly that my local authority of North Lanarkshire is among these. In February 2017, I lodged a motion here at the Parliament to recognise the work of Kay Smith with the charity Help Refugees. She successfully fundraised, in my constituency, for 24 refugee camps in northern Greece. The hard work of Kay and the generosity of the people of Coatbridge and further afield ensured that those camps provided food, water, warm clothing and shelter to those who were forced to use them. Also, since Andrew's day last year, I was delighted to welcome a group of young Syrian refugees to the Parliament. The families arrived in Scotland in November 2015, so their visit here coincided with the anniversary of them arriving in our country. As well as local councils, the Scottish Refugee Council, Oxfam, Amnesty and many other charities, they have been invaluable in helping refugees to adjust to life here in Scotland, as well as educating the general population of the issue. Although all those achievements are not worthy and should be commended, there is always more that can be done. We cannot ever grow complacent. Local authorities are unanimously willing to help, but the issue of funding is holding them back. COSLA recently undertook a review of the cost of delivering support to unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. That showed that the UK Government is significantly underfunding its humanitarian protection schemes. The funding gap is as high as 100K in some cases. That significant funding gap that councils face is seeking to accommodate and support unaccompanied asylum-seeking children needs to be highlighted. I urge the UK Government to work with local councils and the Scottish Parliament and others to in how that issue can be remedied. I must also note that the Home Office needs to look at the policy regarding refugees coming to Scotland. As we all know at present, asylum is a reserved issue, whereas areas that are critical for refugees coming here, such as health and education, are not. Westminster's policies are directly affecting the work of the First Government, the First Parliament and the local government in the third sector. Those organisations are left to deal with the results of the UK Government's draconian immigration and asylum policies. That is not acceptable and should be fully devolved to the Scottish Parliament. I am running out of time. I will end on that point. I believe that those policies and areas of confidence should be devolved to Scotland and about upholding the values that Scotland will continue to be seen as a welcoming safe place that everyone can call home. Thank you very much. I call Kezia Dugdale to be followed by Sandra White. Ms Dugdale, please. Thank you. I can start by commending Ross Greer and what I thought was an excellent and thought-provoking speech at the start of the debate. In it, he informed us all that every three seconds somebody else becomes a refugee somewhere in the world. I started to do just a little bit of maths. That means 20 minutes, and it also means that in the two hours in which we will debate this afternoon, every single refugee that we welcome to Scotland, all 2,500 of them, will have been replaced by somebody else in the world seeking sanctuary in the two hours that we will be debating in this chamber and then voting at five o'clock. I mentioned that really just to provide some context on the immensity of the challenge that we're faced with and the limitations, I guess, to the degree to which we can do something about it here in Scotland, and I think that it's important to have that context. I've spent the last week or so watching news bulletins, in particular the bulletins around the ship Aquarius, which has been going back and forth across the Mediterranean, being turned away by countries at their ports. I can't help but feel that every single country that makes that ship travel a little bit further is complicit in the pain and suffering of the people on board it, and I just only wish that it was a ship that could land on Scottish shores, because I know that our response to that would be very different. In the time that I've got left, I want to talk about the contribution that three organisations here in Edinburgh make to the plight of refugees who've settled in Scotland and then one that does so much overseas to support refugees. The first one that I'm sure the cabinet secretary is aware of is The Welcoming, which is based in Dalrai. I've had the great pleasure of visiting them and speaking with many Syrian refugees, mostly young men, who have found new homes here in Edinburgh and rely heavily on the services of The Welcoming Association to find new skills and to make their life here. The second one would be The Guardianship Service by Abelair, which we've already heard referenced, but Alex Cole-Hamilton and Fulton MacGregor both heard two young women, three young women from The Guardianship Service, at our cross-party group on children and young people around 10 days ago, where we had a young people's takeover of that particular cross-party group. We heard passionate, incredible stories of two Syrian young women and one from Albania, sharing how important the welcome that they'd received when they'd come to Scotland was and what they're doing now to pay it forward, what they're doing to support other refugees in Scotland. The one thing they asked us all to do was to support the refugee festival and for us all to travel to the Isle of Bute later on this month to support the festival's work there. The final person I wanted to mention is a young Syrian boy that I met at Liberty High School last week at the prize-giving. He's one of a number of Syrian refugees at the school and he received a prize alongside many other peoples that night. I have no doubt that it was one of the proudest days of his life and I was hugely impressed by the leadership of the school in terms of just how inclusive they are and how well supported that young man is. The reality, Presiding Officer, is that we're actually served by refugees in this Parliament. Nezra Hasanoch, who works in our canteen, had to flee Bosnia in the early 90s. She fled for Croatia just as the war was breaking out there. Her hometown, Preador, was the first town in Bosnia that forced the Muslims within it to hang white sheets on their doors so that Serbian forces knew how to slaughter or knew how to take away. She's made her life here and her kids go to Scottish schools, so we should be aware that this is very much a live issue for all of us working in this building from day to day. I look around the chamber and I see many people who've travelled to Bosnia. I can see Gail Ross earlier on, James Dornan, who was in the chamber and others who've had the privilege of travelling to Srebrenica with Rembrandt and Srebrenica Scotland. It made me think of something else that Alex Cole-Hamilton said about how we should be careful not to part ourselves too cleverly on the back about our contribution overseas, because if you study what happened in Bosnia, you'll know that when the refugee camp in Potucari was filled up with men, women and children, when it reached the 5,000 that it could fit within that one hangar, the UN soldiers asked the men to leave and they actually passed the men from that refugee camp into the hands of the Serbian soldiers who then forced them through the hills over Tuzla, where they were slaughtered and killed by mortars and gunfire. It's a very complex issue, but our armed forces aren't always the good thing that we think they are in areas of conflict like this. Bosnia also allows me to come on to the final part of what I wanted to recognise, which is the contribution of Scottish organisations to on-going conflicts overseas. One incredible organisation is no doubt Edinburgh Direct Aid, which has been operating since 1992 and started in Bosnia with Alan and Christine Wilkett. Christine famously was shot and killed in Sarajevo on Sniper Alley and you'd have thought that the charity's contribution might have ended there, but for the past 25 years or so they continue to do incredible work in Bosnia, in Kosovo, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Kenya, Gaza and now most of their work is in Lebanon. In fact, they are currently building schools in Lebanon with money raised here in Scotland. They've built two primary schools already and they're starting their work on a third school in Lebanon, but on the Syrian border, which will specifically support Syrian children, who are desperately in need of an education at the same time as they desperately need a home. If I could invite, say, the Edinburgh Direct Aid to have a summer campaign, a summer plea, and that is for sanitary products, that's the one thing that they're desperately short of and they'll be looking for people to donate as much as they can to be packed into containers which will travel towards the Lebanon before Christmas. I would encourage all colleagues to look at the work of Edinburgh Direct Aid and to continue to support everything that they do to try and make our world a safer, fairer, better place for people in direct conflict. Sandra White, followed by Oliver Mundell. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I see that some of the Tories have left the room and I didn't want to bring this back. I mean absolutely no disrespect to Michelle Ballantyne and others, but I really felt that I was living in a parallel universe when I heard the speeches. We've got to remember that it's the wars that we created, the wars that we took part in that created refugees and asylum seekers, so of course we've got to welcome them here. They seem to have a very short memory that the present prime minister was one that said vans round saying, go home. They seem to forget that and I really felt as though I was living in a parallel universe now. I think that they really shouldn't be allowed to get away with it. You've got dawn raids, vans telling people to go home and then to have these very sweet Scottish Conservatives and I feel that I had to really say that as well. Something else that I feel that I really need to say before I do start my speeches is that the largest number of refugees, the largest number of Palestinians and yet we haven't been able to welcome anyone here. They're in camps, they'll be there since 1948. They're in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. I just wanted to put that on the record, Presiding Officer. I know that basically the motion does not talk about that in certain aspects, but it has to be said. I want to go on to perhaps something a wee bit more positive, but first of all, I really am eternally grateful for all the groups and individuals that do all the work on the ground supporting refugees and asylum seekers. There are too many to name, some of them have already been named, but I think that we all owe them enormous debt for the work that they do. I'm also incredibly proud of the approach that the Scottish Government is taking, humane, empathising, supportive and welcoming. The second new Scot strategy builds on the work that has already been done before, the foundation of dignity, respect and that's at the heart of that, and that's really, really important, but human beings, we're talking about not people that's just been shipped from one place to another. The strategy will ensure that Scotland is a safe place for everyone, people are able to live free from persecution and they become valued, very valued members of communities. We've seen it all, lots of us have a constituents that we've helped throughout the years, in fact they've helped us by letting us know about their culture, education, employment, leisure activities, we've all got to work together and I do believe that we all do work together, but it does call for strong resilient communities and here I'll obviously say, I represent Glasgow in the Kelvin constituency and I was involved at the very, very beginning when we took the first influx, 3,000 refugees in and at first it wasn't easy, I must admit, but you know by talking to the people, getting the local communities involved, this is up in Scythill, getting the police even involved, see within a couple of months everyone was protected of each other and I'm obviously reminded of the dawn rays and the Glasgow girls and et cetera, et cetera, which we all know about, but the key to that was working with communities and everyone rallied round, rallied round so much that we all know it's history now that they defended these people against dawn rays and that's what it's all about, that's what it's all about, being able to work together, be able to share the culture, skills and experiences and really build strong relationships, which is absolutely, in fact, meeting a Malo on Monday with another couple of people who are here now, have went to university working, absolute credit to our country and credit to themselves as well. It's been mentioned here before and I think the cabinet secretary mentioned at Monica Lenn mentioned basically meeting with the Scottish Refugee Council, the new chief executive, and I was very proud to meet him and hear his story and that was at the Scottish Afghan Society's annual grand aid party where the Scottish Afghans come together to celebrate Eid after a full month of fasting. Fantastic night, I must admit, I really wanted to join in the dancing but they were too fast for me but they were absolutely wonderful and I had the pleasure of sitting and chatting to the new chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, Sir Beers Aziz. He's also a partner in the new scot strategy, he was a refugee in 1999, brought to the shores of the UK, he was dispersed to Coventry, now lives in Scotland, he is the chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council. I think that's fantastic, that in itself shows what can be done and what has been done and I wish him well in the future role that he has. He certainly has been through the whole gamut of how you go along with the refugee integration, his own personal experience, he's gone through the asylum system which we all know about and his research and campaigning background which is really grassroots what better person and we're able to bring that person to Scotland to be the chief executive and I think that that is absolutely wonderful to do that and in closing Presiding Officer as I said I can't thank the people enough the the various agencies but all I can say is when we're out there rallying and marching we always say in Glasgow and I'm sure it's throughout Scotland as well refugees are welcome here. Thank you very much Presiding Officer. I call Oliver Mundell to be followed by Bob Doris. Thank you Presiding Officer, I'm very pleased today's debate has taken place to mark world refugee day. I think a number of the contributions have been sobering and remind us all of the very serious challenges we face not just here in Scotland, not as a united kingdom but as global citizens. I think there have been a number of disappointing attempts within that context to try and oversimplify some of the issues and again I think some not just yet but perhaps in a second. I also think there have been a number of disappointing attempts to mischaracterise the very good work that the United Kingdom does and I'd politely say at this point to Kezia Dugdale the UK's efforts abroad and to Ross Greer for that matter the UK's efforts abroad go far beyond just military there is a huge amount of humanitarian support that comes from people of this country and I'm very proud of our record on that. I pay tribute to the armed forces and I actually pay tribute to much of the work that the UN does in the terms of humanitarian aid. All I was doing in my speech was pointing to one example of humanitarian UN forces getting it very badly wrong in Bosnia. I think you would do them a service if you would acknowledge that as well. Oliver Mundell. I absolutely acknowledge that and some of the things that happened there as Kezia Dugdale rightly outlined in her speech are truly appalling, unforgivable and there is absolutely nothing that can be said that can make up for that but I think it's wrong to ignore the good work that does take place alongside it as well and I apologise if that's not the point that the member was looking to make but certainly others have sought to suggest that the UK's only international efforts seem to be around the military and that's not the case. I don't think that anyone's denying that there are challenges but I think that we can be proud of much of that work and long may it continue because never has the need been greater. The world's population of forcibly displaced people has reached a record high, as we've already heard, and as Fulton MacGregor pointed out, the number of displaced people in 2017 was the equivalent of the UK's whole population. Around half of all refugees are children and as we've heard several points about this debate, many of them are separated from their family. In what seems to be an increasingly complicated and difficult world where famine, war, exploitation and hatred continues to be rife, meeting the needs of the most vulnerable can often seem like an impossible task but it's all the more vital that we do what we can to assist both here at home and abroad. I recognise that there is always more that we can do and I think that as a Parliament tonight at decision time we will send out that message but at the heart of it we must, as other members have touched upon, not forget our common humanity and we must never be complacent however proud we are of the good work that's taken place. Christina McKelvie Can I thank Oliver Mundell for taking the intervention and he talks about humanity and compassion and I believe him when he says that, Presiding Officer. I wonder if he would join with me in calling for the UK Government to stop detention without time limit because it's time people had a time limit to their detention. Oliver Mundell. I thank Christina McKelvie for that intervention and I recognise, as I think anyone would, the point she's making and I'm sure that the Home Office will be listening and looking at what's said here today. I'm not here to speak on behalf of the UK Government but our immigration and asylum system is imperfect in places but we've got to recognise that there are no easy answers and no easy solutions to many of these challenges and rather than looking to use this debate to get into deep-rooted political points, I think it is important that we use it as a chance to celebrate what's happening here in Scotland but also to recognise the courage of refugees, many of whom have gone through appalling experiences and as other members have pointed out it's right that we remember that they didn't choose to come here. For many people it's not a choice at all and we must be mindful of the painful experiences people have been through losing their home, leaving their country behind and coming to terms with the reality that they're unlikely ever to be able to return home. The strength of our welcome and the quality of support on offer can go a long way but it can't make everything right. Although it's not the answer in itself, we have to make sure that we continue to play an active role in trying to solve some of the geopolitical issues that lead to people being refugees in the first place. I wanted to make one brief point and I recognise that I'm very much about to run out of time and that is that I think that we need to look at Scotland as a whole. Often there's a perception that Scotland's cities are the only place where refugees can be successfully settled. I think that we've seen recently that that's not true and I would simply say that rural communities are often equally placed, well-placed to do so, and wish to help. On Sunday I had the delight of being the manager and I do use the word in its loosest possible term of a football team in a tournament during Refugee Scotland festival at the wonderful facility in Tory Glen in the south side of Glasgow. I put a team full of star talent in the captain was Alan Allison-Felis MP, Gavin Eiland's MP, Ronnie Cowan MP, Shrewtley Dodd MP and councillor, Alan Casey, all were part of the lineup. I think that they'll be sticking to the politics, Presiding Officer, but they were part of the lineup in the tournament. However, the real stars were Abdul Bustani, my constituent in Glasgow Mary Helen Springburn, Glasgow Afghan United and the Scottish Unity Football League and the many footballers, refugees and many others who made the event such a success. The many women involved in the success come from the various corners of the globe. They wear their multi-layered identities well, Glaswegians and Scots, but also a strong national identity from their country of origin. They are proud of their culture and their upbringing, and they are proud to be Scots. I am very lucky in my constituency in Glasgow Mary Helen Springburn. Glasgow Afghan United, for example, have an annual burns, Milana, Jalal, Alden, Mohammed, Balkie, Supper, apologies for the pronunciation, which celebrates both burns and the national bard of Afghanistan, and it was a wonderful event that I attended, one of many events that they hold throughout the year. Or, Ronio Domeni, originally from Cameroon, who runs African Challenge Scotland, based in Springburn, in my constituency, who holds an annual festival running up to a fortnight of events that celebrate both Scottish and African cultures. I have not even mentioned or started the renowned wonderful Maryhill integration network. I have a vast amount of refugees in New Scots in my constituency making it a wonderful, vibrant place, and I have not even scratched the surface. The vast majority of refugees and asylum seekers thirst to be part of that vibrant community, the communities that they now call home. Integration is what happens when you give families the space, the respect, the opportunity, the dignity and the friendship that you would give anyone else. Integration happens. It is the default position of the most positive aspects of human nature. I do not want to point a falsely rosy picture. Are all refugees angels? Of course they are not. Are the communities that they seek refuge in completely racism free? Of course they are not. However, there are amazing stories out there every day of the week that you just do not get to hear. That is the point for putting that on the record today. Parts of the media have got a lot to answer for in relation to that. False pictures, stereotypes and negative stereotypes of refugees are common occurrence in some parts of the media. I do not want to give them any more publicity than they deserve. We know who we are talking about. I wanted to talk about some positive aspects of those who are seeking refuge in my constituency. I just missed Patrick Harvie's intervention in relation to a man who was trafficked to the UK from Vietnam. He was forced to work in a legal cannabis farm, spent six months in jail, won the half years in detention and then whist off for deportation after spending making a home in Glasgow in my constituency. I would pay tribute to Councillor Kim Long, who has been very active in the campaign for look to return to Glasgow. I just saw it on Facebook earlier that it looks that Bail has been granted and will return to Glasgow very shortly. That is a positive thing that I would like to put on the record. I hope that I can find the notes on this, and I will have to go to my phone. I made a comment at First Minister's Questions about my constituent, George Kacava, the other day, the 10-year-old Georgian lad who has been here since he was three years old. His mum passed away in February and we are going through the asylum process, and I left an absolute uncertainty. In mentioning what I am about to say now, I do not want to oversimplify this for Oliver Mundell. I would talk about an imperfect asylum system, because Reverend Brian Casey, the Church of Scotland minister in Springburn, who has been leading the campaign to keep George here in Scotland, says that, I think that it was today that George was detained for several hours on his own and separated from Ketino, his gran Katie, at Home Office Centre in London. I do not have any more information than that, but people are deeply worried. That is no way—I hope that there is an explanation to that. I hope that the explanation is the way to move quickly to guarantee young George the stability and security that he needs to continue his life and upbringing in Springburn that is his home along with his gran. Just that thought that he was detained and separated from his gran is no way to run an asylum system. We are debating World Refugee Day here. I want to put on record the great contribution that I see refugees make to the constituency that I represent. I am not actually talking about it, and I apologise, Presiding Officer. Young Sommer Bakish, who I did not even know was a refugee—why would I? I just put a motion down to Parliament congratulating him for winning awards at Springburn academy, and it was to my attention that his brother, his mother and father are facing deportation to Pakistan where they will receive religious persecution after six years in Scotland. Why would I know that young man was an asylum seeker? He was not. He was just a member of my community. I see vibrant communities in my constituency where people make Glasgow, Maryhill and Springburn, make Scotland their home. I see when the UK's hostile environment is just that. I see the sharp end of it that impacts on my communities, but I celebrate the refugees who make my constituency in Scotland their home. The last of the open debate contributions is from John McAlpine. I would like to start by apologising to myself and the other speakers that I had to miss some of the opening speeches. I gave you advance notice of that because I had a very important meeting supporting a young constituent of mine who was meeting the cabinet secretary for health. My constituent is her name is Dami Samuel. She is 20 years old and she has aspirations to be a midwife. Indeed, she had a place to study midwifery when she left school a couple of years ago, but she was unable to take it up because of the actions of the UK Home Office. Dami and her family live in Dumfries and, earlier this year, they featured in a documentary called Breadline Kids, which showed what it was like to be completely an utterly destitute. That is having no income whatsoever. Dami and her mum, who was a nursing assistant before her visa was revoked, cannot work as well as they cannot study. They have been entirely dependent on charity because of the situation that they find themselves in, because of the Home Office. Dami is completely in limbo. When I was talking to her today, one of the things that I found very poignant was that she regularly talked to a friend of hers who she was at school with and who is now in second year at university. That girl's life is moving on. Dami is stuck just waiting and waiting to find out what the result of her application is. This week, Dami was up in Glasgow collecting an award on behalf of the filmmakers at the Refugee Festival Scotland media awards, which I think I would like to make a special mention of because it shows them that there are journalists out there who are doing a great job actually exposing the treatment of refugees and migrants. Dami herself is not a refugee, but I think that the fact that the Refugee Council and the Refugee Festival Scotland asked her to collect the award reflects the fact that she is the victim of the same hostile environment that affects refugees. I just wanted to draw attention to her case because what a terrible waste of talent and what a terrible waste of someone who really wants to make a contribution to society here in Scotland. Dami and her family have had fantastic support from the community in Dumfries and Galloway. I wanted to go on to talk a little bit about how that community has been helping refugees more broadly. In Dumfries itself, we have an organisation called Massive Outpouring of Love, known affectionately as MUL. It is a humanitarian movement that began in September 2015. The initial idea behind MUL was to humanise the refugee crisis through writing and distributing notes of support and hope, but it soon became much, much bigger than that. Between September 2015 and February 2016, MUL collected and sorted over 40 tonnes of donations and sent them on to refugees across the globe. The organisation raised money to fund three caravans, one of which was utilised as a dental clinic in the Calais camp, while the remaining two housed vulnerable families. More money went overseas to buy supplies for community kitchens in Calais and paid for volunteers to travel to Calais, Dunkirk and Lesbos. Closer to home, MUL volunteers have been galvanising people to take action by visiting schools, to talk to children and offering training to multi-agency groups. They have welcomed a number of refugee families to Dumfries and Galloway where they assign befrienders to offer support and to act as a buffer between the families and the bureaucracy that they inevitably face on their arrival. Refugee women and children have also been welcomed from Glasgow to help to heal in the Scottish countryside. Making the transition from a warnt-owned country to life in rural Scotland cannot be easy, but the goal is to help that to happen as gently as possible. MUL want people who are displaced to be welcomed everywhere and to have consistent access to resources, help and support that they need to feel safe, be healthy and thrive. There is a very important force in Dumfries and Galloway encouraging communities and helping people in need. I want to end by mentioning the fact that Dumfries and Galloway's first refugee and migrant film festival, the Incomers Festival, is taking place this week to mark the 20th anniversary of refugee week. The film festival acts as a springboard for conversations about migration, refugees and asylum seekers across the region. It is a fantastic way to celebrate the fact that, as Dumfries welcomes more people from across the globe, it becomes all the more diverse, progressive and exciting for it. The way the people in the community have reached out to the Samuel family in their time of need is a fantastic illustration of that. We now move to closing speeches and I call Ross Greer for up to six minutes please. A number of the contributions today have reflected not just on the situation here in Scotland and the UK but across the rest of Europe and North America as well. It is important to have that international perspective on what is an international crisis. It is disappointing to look across the world and to see so many western nations turn their backs on refugees and embrace the politics of the far right. Just this week, as Kezia Dugdale mentioned, a ship carrying over 600 refugees was refused port in Italy. That has come after the far right Liga party of entered government there. That same party referred to earlier today by the First Minister for the threats that they are now making from government office against their already persecuted Roma community. Their leader, now the interior secretary of Italy, has just called for in a quote, mass purification street by street, quarter by quarter. That is what we are facing. Eventually, the Aquarius was able to dock in Spain but there are other ships and there will be far more. Italy turning its backs to refugees follows a trend seen in other European countries like Hungary and Poland. The rhetoric may be different but we should not pretend that the UK is actually that much different. There has been a marked increase in hostile policies and dehumanising language across our continent. The creation of a fortress Europe that is sought to heavily police and militarise our external borders while facilitating free movement within them. In the United States, policies enacted by the Trump administration have gone to further depths of barbarity and callousness, forcibly separating children from their parents at the border, detaining them in camps, constructing, as Christina McKelvie referred to, tender age camps for the detention of babies and toddlers specifically, refusing them the basic dignity that all children in any corner of this earth deserve. Reports have come out of older children being forced to change the nappies of babies that they did not know as guards would not enter the cages that they were collectively held in. Recordings have surfaced of traumatised toddlers screaming for their parents as guards mocked them. Those are not care facilities, they are not summer camps as the tin-pot fascists on Fox News refer to them as, they are detention camps for children, for babies. Now, in the well-practised fascist tactic of implementing something so appalling that even the smallest roll-back can be seen as a compromise, the US Government will no longer separate families. They will detain them in cages together, what progress. To make matters worse, the former director of US immigration enforcement predicted that many of the children already forced to be separated from their families will never be reunited. He stated yesterday that you could be creating thousands of immigrant orphans. From this Parliament we should stand in solidarity with those resisting these actions. Yesterday I spoke to a friend from a sister church in the US. He mentioned the wonderful work of organisations such as Races in Texas who would welcome donations to their family reunification fund. The work of churches and others, literally going out into the desert to give water to those arriving via those dangerous routes, told me of families being offered sanctuary in church buildings, where in one case they have been trapped for nine months if they leave they will be arrested, sent to detention camps and then deported. Many churches have been forced to go underground with the support that they are offering after threats from the US Government to revoke their status. Over 150 years ago brave people ran an underground railroad for slaves to escape the southern United States to freedom in the north. Today I am very proud to say that I know people who are supporting another underground network for refugees arriving at the Mexican border. I have seen the reality of disastrous cruel and inhumane border policy. Last year I visited Lampedusa, the tiny Italian island, 200 kilometres on the Labien coast known as the door to Europe. I want to briefly share some of the stories of those I met there. One young man, 17 years old, told me how hundreds of people were crammed into the hold of a ship. When that ship began to sink on one side there were so many people with so little room to move that those unfortunate enough to be on that side simply drowned. There was nowhere to go. One 16-year-old who was brave enough to share her deeply painful story had been kidnapped in Libya, held as a sex slave, and when I met her pregnant by rape. And those who we couldn't meet but whose graves we stood beside, like Walaila, an 18-year-old woman from Eritrea, when gas canisters exploded at the warehouse she was being held in by human traffickers, they didn't take her to hospital, they put her on a boat to die in agony in the Mediterranean. It's their stories that I think of, the pain on their faces that I remember when I hear members here congratulating the UK Government on its record. Taking aside the points that Sandra White and I made in response to Jeremy Balfour about the UK's role in funding, supplying or directly taking part in conflicts that force people to flee, it's the UK Government's absolute inability to live up to our moral responsibility and to take in those that we can help that I simply can't tolerate. I'm privileged to know Alff Dubs, the kinder transport survivor who's kept the issue of child refugees on the agenda when the UK Government would rather go away. Christina McKelvie and I were with him last week and when I sat with him I couldn't help but think of the two and a half thousand unaccompanied child refugees that the UK Government committed to taking in before abandoning. Never mind 160,000 more have scattered across mainland Europe. When I hear the high standards referred to in the Conservative amendment of the UK silent policy, I can only think of the cases in just the last fortnight where members of this Parliament have had to fight desperately alongside many others to keep members of our communities off of deportation flights. The 10-year-old orphan Gorgie Cicafca that Bob Dorris referred to, who doesn't speak Georgian, who left Georgia under threats to his family when he was three years old but who the Home Office is seriously considering deporting. Human trafficking victim Duke Nugin, who's been detained pending deportation to Vietnam, who's fortunately made bail today, as Patrick Harvie mentioned but who still faces the threat of deportation. The Bakish family from Pakistan that Bob Dorris again mentioned, whose children are terrified that they'll be murdered because of their faith if they return, but have now been repeatedly turned down in their asylum claims and yet again faced deportation. I'm proud that this Parliament will join communities across the country today, standing not just for but with those whose life is here now after being forced to seek refuge in asylum. I'm proud of those in my own community, who this weekend hosted a wonderful dinner on Father's Day for the Syrian families now settled in Eastern Bartonshire with the food kindly provided by the families themselves. I'm proud that as a darkness appears to be once again falling over Europe, across much of Europe in the west, we will today insist on keeping here a light that they cannot put out. I'm very proud to say that I'm a member of this Parliament. Thank you. Pauline McNeill, up to six minutes please. 34,361 is the number of people seeking refuge in asylum who have died since 1993. All credit to the Guardian newspaper today, who reported that an organisation has sought for every single name of every single person. Obviously, they weren't able to identify all the names, but those are people. Two years ago, I invited a Syrian family to Christmas dinner. They were part of their refugee programme, Rana, Sami, Faraz and Sarah. They had been in Scotland only a few months and I didn't really know how my own family would react to complete strangers at the dinner table with the halal of Turkey, but to my surprise, they arrived with presents for the children. I have to say that it was one of the best Christmases that we've had and that we've had a second Christmas with them too. Sarah and Faraz, aged eight and nine, were still traumatised by the bombs that they heard going off at night as they tried to sleep. They're scared of my two large dogs, as they're used to seeing dogs eat dead bodies in the streets of Damascus, but we're working on that. They love Scotland. There's no doubt that anyone who settles here loves Scotland, but they are still very much adjusting to what happened in their own country when they've left their family behind. We live in the darkest of times, other members have talked about this. Oxfam says that more than 65 million people are forced to flee their homes by deadly conflict and violence, and recent political events across Europe show with a dangerous point that we have reached in dealing with this human tragedy. I agree with Ross Gail Greerholl-Hartedale that Scotland and Britain must be a shiny example ahead of other European countries to show how refugees should be treated. Jeremy Balfour and Arthur Mundell say that there's an oversimplification of the causes of this. There's no doubt that there's a certain element of complexity to war and conflict, but the US-led invasion alone displaced some 4 million people and Iraqis who flee that country and who are still fleeing Iraq because it is one of the most miserable places on earth right now. A decade of murderous sanctions, as is a product of the Iraq War, created the disaster in Syria, adding to the internal strife that already existed. The French and British bombing of Libya is still a source of many more refugees. So, there are some complexities, but some of it is quite easy to understand why all of Europe's borders are having refugees coming to them. In fact, half the global refugee population comes from three countries—Syria, Afghanistan and southern Sudan. Sandra White is quite right to point out that Palestinian refugees are still the largest. I personally was ashamed of the antics of the Tories around the acceptance or the denial of the Dubs scheme, which would have allowed 3,000 children to benefit, and instead we had 350. An FOI request has shown that councils were prepared to take far more. Some excellent speeches this afternoon from Alec Cole-Hampton, Christina McKelvie, Kezia Dugdale, Monica Lennon highlighting the problems that we face in Europe, and I won't rehearse that. 80 per cent of refugees are in neighbouring countries, Jeremy Balfour, I do not know if you know that, and in Lebanon it is one in four. I was there in 2016 and that was confirmed by politicians there. We need a global response to that. The refugee council points out that some of the poorest children that live in our country are refugee and asylum-seeking children. With an advocacy service of only £50,000 a year, I wonder if the cabinet secretary in her summing-up would address what more could be done to ensure that we have additional resources. I have a special plea on the issue of Dungavel, also mentioned by Christina McKelvie, and I agree with her that there should be a time limit on detention. However, I believe that MSPs, elected members, should have the right to make an annual visit to Dungavel to see whether the conditions that they live in are to our satisfaction. I know their support for this. I call on David Mundell, who I have been writing to for the past year, to back us in this. I have finished with the question of one of the ways in which refugees can feel more involved in any country. Forty-five countries have already given refugees the right to vote, mainly in local elections. However, it is one way that refugees can feel much more involved, given that they have not been able to be involved in the democracy of the country of which they live, because very often they have fled because of violence or persecution. Refugees are welcome here. We must be leaders in that. We have a good start with the strategy. I wholeheartedly support it, and I am pleased to contribute to this debate. I call Jamie Greene, up to seven minutes, please, Mr Greene. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I welcome this debate. I think that it is right that the Parliament uses its time in this way to celebrate the immense contributions that refugees have made to our country. However, as many have done today, I acknowledge that there is quite a substantial problem out there in the world. One source estimates that there are nearly 70 million people across the world who are either displaced, refugees or seeking asylum. It is a grim picture in every part of the world, from Myanmar to Somalia. However, in such worldwide misery, pain and turbulence politically, we also find days like world refugee day, which is, I think, quite rightfully aimed at Governments and Parliaments like ours to widen awareness of the sheer scale of this problem. We have heard many anecdotes today of some specific examples in various countries and some of the horror stories that people have shared. Indeed, some of the case work that some members are working on is related to people who are coming from those places. Here in Scotland and across the UK, we have provided support to refugees through a whole bunch of systems and schemes such as rehousing, integration schemes, language, schooling and education. Our motion acknowledges that the Scottish Government did complete its refugee housing target nearly three years early. I think that that is something to be warmly welcomed and congratulated on, and to congratulate the local authorities that helped to deliver much of that in notwithstanding that many of the housing shortages exist in different parts of Scotland. I thank the cabinet secretary for detailing some of the good work that her Government is doing on that. There are important points that have been made today in how people do integrate once they arrive into Scotland. Many are coming from Iran, Syria or Iraq, where doctors and dentists are. We spend a lot of time in the chamber complaining about the lack of such skills. Surely, getting those people back into their careers and the careers that they had in their normal environment may help them to regain some sort of normality and reality as they start a new life here in our country. All of our Mandel summed it up. We are happy to celebrate the successes of the system here in Scotland. We do not have any political points to make in that respect. I appreciate that there are members here who want to make political points and have made them valiantly. That is fine, but it is a fact, and it is a fact that the UK is the world's second largest donor of bilateral aid in the world through choice. Members are perhaps reluctant to hear that. Facts are often overlooked in the emotion of those subjects and the emotions in the individual cases and, indeed, sometimes the individual failures of the system. However, it is right that Scotland and the UK spend substantial amounts of money of its GDP on international aid. The UK is among just six countries to meet the 0.7 per cent of gross domestic aid spending targets—not France, not Spain, not Italy. Excuse me, Mr Greene. Could the private conversations at the back of the chamber be quieter, please? Excuse me. Could the private conversations at the back of the chamber be quieter? Thank you. Jamie Greene Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. Again, I restate—I know that some members do not want to hear those facts, but they are correct. It is the people on the ground that this money matters to who are thankful. They are just figures on briefing papers, but every penny of this goes directly to an important cause. Oxfam recently said that those who are critical of UK aid spending should remember the incredible impact that it has around the world, such as supporting 11 million children through school over the five years in one second. Britain—this is Oxfam's words, not mine. Britain is helping to lead the way in global aid spending by hitting the United Nations spending development target. Save the children, said, we should be proud that Britain stands up for the world's people. Our aid budget helps to save lives and expand opportunities. I am happy to give way. Jamie Greene I thank you for taking the intervention. Jamie Greene was on the Equality and Human Rights Committee for a long time. We did the inquiry into destitution, asylum and insecure immigration status, and he heard many of the facts, of the impact of the UK's asylum policies. Does he think that it is fair that the Scottish Government, local authorities and the charity sector in Scotland have to pick up the pieces of that policy? Does he agree with me that £37.75 a week is not enough for anyone to live on, never mind an asylum seeker? Jamie Greene For the record, I was not in the committee when you took that evidence and did that report. I was not privy to the rating of the report, although I acknowledge its contents. As Oliver Mundell said, has the system got it right all the time? No, absolutely not. That is why we have these debates, that is why people can make their political points as they wish. Yes, should the Home Office be listening to debates such as this? Absolutely, it should. That is why we are here today, in Government time, having this debate. On the point of who picks up the pieces, I think that Monica Lennon and others said that it is indeed local authorities who are doing much of the day-to-day work. They are at the cold-face front line of delivering many of these services. They themselves are under huge financial pressures, making budgetary decisions about provisions of services when they are difficult to housing stocks, difficult with getting people registered with GPs, getting the children of refugees or asylum seekers a place in school. It takes people from different political backgrounds, from local councils, the third sector, the charitable sector and even community volunteers to make the system work. In that respect, Mr Kelvia, I do agree. I think that there is a lot to be positive about how Scotland contributes to supporting refugees from right across the world. It is easy to miss the bigger picture about how welcoming we have been over the generations. I have many examples of that, but that was then. In today's very different picture, Fulton MacGregor said in his statement that this is a global issue. The cabinet secretary herself said that there is also a global responsibility. She is right, but things are far from perfect on the continent. We really talk about the grim reality of what a European-wide problem this is. It was a boat that just a few days ago was refused entry to Italy, refused entry to Malta, and it took another member state to step in in that area. The Schengen area is a shadow of its former self in that respect of allowing safe passage for those refugees. All of that costs money. Those are not just headline figures. This is real cash paying for real help. Those programmes and those schemes cost money. It is the people who implement those schemes that deserve some respect for the work that they do. That is what our amendment sought to recognise. Those efforts. It is a shame that others were not able to join us in the recognition of that good work. No amount of political points scoring in the chamber will address or tackle any of the complex and deep-rooted causes of international refugee problems. Perhaps the next time we have a debate in the chamber about that, we will bear that in mind. Colle Angela Constance, to wind up on this debate. Nine minutes will take us to decision time, please, cabinet secretary. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. This has been a good debate. It has been feisty in parts. Rightly so, we have heard excellent contributions from Christina McKelvie, Ross Greer and Alex Cole-Hamilton, among many others, as well as the outright condemnation of the detention of children with or without their parents. I want to make a quote from Gonzales Vargas-Yusa, who is the UNHCR representative to the UK when he was speaking at the launch of the New Scot strategy on 10 January this year. He said, in my 26 years in UNHCR, I have worked with many refugee hosting countries and have rarely seen such a professional and comprehensive piece of work. I believe that the New Scot strategy could be used as an example and a model not just UK-wide but in many countries around the world that host refugees. You should be proud of what you have achieved. I quote that passage in chamber today, Presiding Officer, not for one minute to pat ourselves in the back. I think that Kezia Dugdale and Alex Cole-Hamilton rightly said that we have to be guard against being too self-congratulatory or in any way complacent. I make that quote to pay tribute and congratulate, as other members have done, the many voluntary organisations, the many charities, the many faith organisations and all of our local authorities, as well as the Scottish Refugee Council, who are all at the front line day in, day out, doing what they can to support refugees and asylum seekers who have come to Scotland. Also, like Michelle Ballantyne, I would pay tribute to the arms forces in the role and humanitarian work that they play as well. However, the facts of the matter are that the scale of the challenge is beyond anything that we have seen historically. The UNHCR submitted over 75,000 refugees for resettlement in 2017, and that was to all states worldwide. However, that 75,000 was a 54 per cent reduction from 2016 due to the decline in resettlement places. We need to be helping other countries deal with the challenges that they face within their own borders, but we should not, for a minute, avoid our responsibilities in stepping up to the plate here and now and saying loudly and clearly that Scotland welcomes refugees and asylum seekers. I am very pleased to be able to support the Green amendment. We do indeed believe that people who have been welcomed here as refugees or asylum seekers should have the right to vote in the election. I met a young man yesterday who reminded me that he raised the issue with me two years ago, so he is absolutely thrilled. Excuse me, cabinet secretary. Could we stop private conversations at the back of the chamber, please? It is very rude and annoying. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I also say to Christina McKelvie and Ross Greer that the Scottish Government also supports calls to limit immigration detention to 28 days and, in fact, to move towards alternative community-based approaches, because they are far more effective. Based on the fact that 62 per cent of people who are held under Gable are actually released back into our community. I am pleased to say that we will be supporting the amendment from the Labour Party today. We agree in the importance of evaluation to ensure that we know what works and what does not. We also agree that integration of refugees and asylum seekers and host communities must be adequately resourced. I will point to the investment that we make in Scotland, whether it is through the family reunion crisis fund, whether it is through the equalities budget, ESOL, whether it is through legal aid or the commitment that I have given to develop a destitution strategy. Although I will not be making promises, I cannot keep. I will always approach this with a can-do approach and will never demure from my responsibilities to look at the art of the possible. Monica Lennon rightly says that the UK system, immigration and asylum system, lacks compassion. I would also say, as well as endorsing that, that it lacks resources, because we have seen what has been possible with the Syrian resettlement refugee programme because it has been funded and well co-ordinated. It is high time that asylum seekers also receive the same support. That gets to the heart of the matter when we talk about widening asylum dispersal. It is a great success and celebration that 31 of our 32 local authorities have received resettled refugees via the Syrian resettlement programme because of how it was co-ordinated and how it was funded. That is both in urban Scotland and in rural Scotland, as was touched upon by Oliver Mundell. As a Government, we support the widening of asylum dispersal in principle. It has to be voluntary. Glasgow City Council has done a great job over 15 years or so in accommodating and supporting asylum seekers. We recognise the need to seek new asylum dispersal areas elsewhere, too. We also recognise that this is a big commitment for local authorities, as the Home Office does not provide funding to support local authorities participating in asylum dispersal. The Home Office needs to support and fund the integration of asylum seekers as it does with refugees arriving for resettlement in Scotland and elsewhere in the UK. It needs to end the two-tier system, and that itself would help with the issues around dispersal. For the Scottish Government's part, we will continue to work with COSLA, the Refugee Council and will always seek for us to really step up to the plate, particularly when it comes to unaccompanied children. Others have mentioned the £10,000 per child funding gap as well. My time is running out and I am trying to answer as many points as possible. In terms of the Conservative Party amendment, at surface level it may appear factual, but when you scratch beneath the surface, although 900 unaccompanied children were transferred from Europe to the UK in 2016—this is a very old figure in the Tory party motion—it does not tell the whole story, because only 480 children have been transferred to the UK under the Dubs amendment. I have had that confirmed in correspondence from Caroline Noakes only last Friday, and that is a far cry from the commitment to support 3,000 unaccompanied children. The latest position is despite the work of Lord Dubs and many organisations that have highlighted the perils and dangers and risks of exploitation faced by children travelling on their own. I have also met women who have had to leave their 19-year-old children behind who cannot be reunited with their parents in Scotland due to restrictions on current UK family reunion policy. Currently, only dependent children under 18 qualify. As we approach 5 o'clock tonight, I hope that the chamber will indeed unite around the calls for a more humane asylum system that treats people with dignity and respect at all times and enables them to rebuild their lives and fulfil their potential. Jamie Greenean and Oliver Mundell said that they were sure that the Home Office would be listening. I hope that the Home Office is listening, and I hope that they are listening to our support on calls to end the two-tier asylum process. I hope that they will support Angus MacNeill's refugee family reunion bill. I hope that they will end the hostile environment. I hope that they will fund integration from day one. I really hope that they will revisit their disgraceful U-turn on the Dubs amendment. No one chooses to be a refugee to flee leaving behind everything that you have built up over a lifetime—a home, work, school or university, but most heart-breakingly of all, family and friends. It takes courage and perseverance beyond anything that most of us can imagine to leave everything behind and to start again from nothing. That is why the Scottish Government is committed to supporting refugees and people seeking asylum as they rebuild their lives. It is a moral responsibility, but it is always an enormous privilege. I am happy to consider, in the direct point to Pauline McNeill, what more we can do to help people who are only trying at the end of the day to find what we all want and need, and that is a safe place to call home. Thank you very much. That concludes our debate on world refugee day. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 12932, in the name of Joffus Patrick, on behalf of the Parliamentary Bureau, setting out a revised business programme for Wednesday 27 June. I would ask any member who wishes to speak against the motion to stay so now. I call on Joffus Patrick to move the motion. I formally moved. Thank you very much. No member has asked to speak against the motion, therefore the question is that motion 12932 be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. We turn now to decision time. The first question is that amendment 12891.2, in the name of Michelle Ballantyne, which seeks to amend motion 12891, in the name of Angela Constance, on world refugee day, supporting people to settle in Scotland, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. I will move to a vote. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 12891.2, in the name of Michelle Ballantyne, is yes, 20, no, 81. There were no abstentions, the amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is that amendment 12891.3, in the name of Monica Lennon, which seeks to amend the motion in the name of Angela Constance, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. The next question is that amendment 12891.1, in the name of Ross Greer, which seeks to amend the motion in the name of Angela Constance, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed. I will move to a division. Members may cast their votes now. The result of the vote on amendment 12891.1, in the name of Ross Greer, is yes, 81, no, 20, no, 0. There were 20 abstentions. The amendment is therefore agreed. The final question is that motion 12891, in the name of Angela Constance, as amended on world refugee day, be agreed. Are we all agreed? We are agreed. That concludes decision time and I close this meeting.