 The next item of business is the statement by Michael Matheson on the Scottish Government response to the Infantry Cremation Commission. The minister will take questions at the end of his statement and should therefore be no interventions or interruptions. I call on Michael Matheson, minister. I start today with a recognition. A recognition that there can be no action I take today or words of comfort I offer that will ever truly solve the pain of families who have not only lost their precious children but have also had to then bear the burden of doubt of what happened to the ones that they love. That said, I offer my heartfelt condolences as a minister, as a member of this Parliament and as a father. Since this issue first came to light, I have been clear that there are two areas that must be addressed. That steps be taken to ensure that this can never be repeated and, as far as possible, to ensure that families who see cancers in their own cases can get them. The foundation for putting those safeguards in place has been the work of the Infantry Cremation Commission under the leadership of Lord Bonomy. I take this opportunity to thank all the members of the commission and to those who submitted evidence to it and for their efforts. Lord Bonomy provided the final report of the Infantry Cremation Commission to the Scottish Government on Thursday afternoon, and it has been published in full this morning. Through this process, Lord Bonomy visited a number of crematoria across Scotland and the rest of the UK. He spoke to professionals across the health, funeral and cremation field. The commission has analysed a large volume of documentation and information. The commission makes 64 recommendations to prevent these events ever being repeated. The Scottish Government has accepted them in full and without reservation. Lord Bonomy made certain that parents had a voice in this process. He met parents on a number of occasions, including in the last month, when he shared a draft of his report for comment. The central focus on the bereaved families is reflected in the commission's very first recommendation, which states clearly that the interests of the child and the bereaved family should be the central focus at all times. Today, we have published a response to each and every recommendation, setting out what we will do and when we will do it. While not all of the recommendations are directly for government, our role will be to ensure progress is made. The proposals that I will outline to Parliament were agreed by the Cabinet this morning, chaired by the First Minister from Kirkwall, a commitment that he had made to the parents when we met them on Thursday. There are a number of actions that we will take forward immediately. The need for a renewed legislative framework is highlighted by a number of recommendations. Not least, the current definition of ashes as set out in the 1935 cremation regulations is not fit for purpose. This was an issue that Dame Eilish Angeline identified in her report on Mortonhall. It is likely that most, if not all, of the changes to law will require primary legislation. We are already committed to bringing forward a new burials and cremations bill and we will publish a consultation on that new legislation by the end of this year. In the meantime, we will act to ensure that all crematoriums will be operating in such a way that they will already be compliant with the new legislative provisions when they come into force. Good practice does not need to wait for legislation. The commission recommends the establishment of a national committee chaired by the Scottish Government to have oversight in this area. We will begin work to establish the committee immediately, with the first meeting taking place over the summer, if at all possible. Affected parents will be key members of that group. Indeed, we will be involved in all of our activities to respond to those recommendations. A key first task will be to respond to recommendation 61, which asks the national committee to develop a code of practice for infant cremations. This will set out the minimum standards and the best practice in relation to infant cremations. As I have already said, good practice does not need to wait for legislation, so the work on this code of practice will be prioritised. This code of practice will provide a robust foundation for all activities in this area. The commission has also recommended that an inspector of crematoria be appointed with responsibility to monitor working practices at crematoria and with the authority to investigate complaints. I fully support this, and I will work to put this role in place as quickly as possible. Through the proposed legislation, we will also create powers to extend that inspection function to the funeral industry, as the commission recommends, to ensure that all parts of the cremation process are subject to independent scrutiny. This work for the future is crucial, but for many parents, questions remain about what happened in the past. Just last week, we learned about further allegations emerging in relation to Hazelhead crematorium in Aberdeen. Last year, Lord Barnumay published guidance for local authorities and private crematoria, advising how they should establish independent investigations where they were required, just as the City of Edinburgh Council established independent investigation by Dame Eilish Angelini into the cases and practices at Morton Hall. It is very disappointing that every other affected cremation authority did not follow Lord Barnumay's guidance and launch an independent investigation in the same way that Edinburgh did. As I said earlier, the First Minister and I met some of the parents last week, and I welcome that a number of those parents are in Parliament today to hear this statement. Last week, the parents told me that many of them still do not have the answers they needed about their own case. They spoke about having nowhere to go, about not knowing where to turn, and they spoke very movingly about having to carry the burden of trying to find out what happened to their babies. Every parent who has concerns must have their case investigated, and they must get the individualised response that they need. The Edinburgh investigation provided this for families affected by Morton Hall, and I believe that every family must have the same opportunity. For that reason, I am today announcing that we will launch an independent national investigation team. I am grateful that Dame Elish Angelini has kindly agreed to lead this work for us. Dame Elish and her team will be able to look at every document and every record. They will interview every concerned family and will expect to speak to any officials or staff member who may hold information. They will be able to investigate cremations in local authority crematoria and in private crematoria. They will be able to look at the NHS at funeral directors as well as crematoria. Parents can be reassured that every step will be taken in order to find out what happened to their babies. In addition to investigating individual cases, following last week's announcement by Aberdeen City Council, I believe that there is now particular concern about practices at Hazelhead crematoria. Accordingly, Dame Elish has agreed that our investigation will look more broadly at practices there. If issues emerge in the course of the investigation about other crematoria, those too will be interrogated. I should add that the remit for Dame Elish's investigation will also include the requirement to refer to Lord Advocate any evidence of criminality for investigation by Police Scotland. That is in keeping with the Mortonhall investigation remit. The national investigation team is in place now, and parents can from today notify us if they wish their case to be investigated. They can do that by completing a simple form that is available on the Scottish Government website or which can be sent to them by post. It is difficult to know at this point how many parents will come forward, but we will support that work however long it takes. This is not the end of the road. However, the Mortonhall investigation and the cremation commission reports are significant stepping stones along the way to where we want to go, but we are not there yet. There is much still to be done, there are new laws to make, there are procedures and processes to update and there are individual cases in crematoria which we will now investigate. Sadly, some parents will never know what happened to their children, but I hope that those parents will recognise that we will do all that we can for them to get the answers that are available. I hope that all parents will recognise the important legacy of the last 18 months is that this will never be able to happen again. The minister will now take questions on the issues raised in his statement. I intend to allow around 20 minutes for questions, after which we will move on to the next item of business. Would it be helpful if members wished to ask a question? Could press the request to speak buttons now, please? I want to associate myself and my party with the opening words of the minister and recognise the enormity of what has happened to these families and the pain and suffering that they have experienced in the loss of a child exacerbated by the baby ashes scandal and not knowing what has happened to their children remains. We can sympathise, but we have not walked in their shoes, so we will never understand what they have gone through. I want to welcome the report and its 64 recommendations, the fact that the Government accepts them all. Throughout the report, it acknowledges the need for all those actions to recognise the central role of the bereaved parents in any future changes. Scottish Labour welcomes the proposal for new legislation, and we will, of course, fully support its introduction subject to the usual parliamentary scrutiny. We also share the view that good practice does not need to wait for any legislation and that that should be shared throughout Scotland, but also that any legislative and non-legislative developments be shared throughout the UK and abroad to help to prevent other families wherever they live from having to go through what those Scottish parents have. I am very pleased that the parents will be part of the national committee that will be established, and we would ask the minister to ensure that a broad geographical spread of parents are represented on it. The report recommends a code of practice to be developed. Can the minister advise how long it might take to have that drawn up and implemented? When will the new inspector of crematoria be appointed, and who will he or she be accountable to? We are very pleased that the independent national investigation team will be able to look at all cases and try to help to find out what happened to every child. It is right that Dame Angelina will be able to look at those cases and the happenings at Hazelhead in Aberdeen, a case that has caused real concern to families in that city and beyond. That is a good report, and I commend the Government for it. I do not think that we will get all the answers until we have a full public inquiry and ask the minister will he and the Scottish Government reconsider their position in relation to such an inquiry. I thank the member for his support for the report from Lord Boromy, which I think we should all be very grateful for in the work that the commission has undertaken and the way in which they have also conducted that process in engaging with families throughout the work that they have undertaken. The member made the specific point about sharing good practice across the UK. As the member will be aware, Lord Boromy has highlighted the issue about looking at whether we should share that advice and information with our counterparts in the rest of the UK, which we are more than willing to do. We will do so in a proactive way to ensure that they consider our findings and also the course of work that we are taking and see if there are any lessons that they can learn as well. We certainly do not want to see what happened in some of our crematoriums in Scotland repeated anywhere else for that matter. In relation to the national committee, which is the key recommendation that has been made by Lord Boromy in recommendation 57, it is important that we move that forward as quickly as possible because of the role that it will have in developing its action plan for implementing all of the recommendations. We want that to be a committee that is made up of all of the different stakeholders, including parents who can be involved in it. I am more than happy to look at the geographical spread of those parents who can be a member of that committee, but also to have the representative organisations from health, the funeral industry and local authorities, all of whom have a part to play in taking this agenda forward. An important part of their early work will be the code of practice. If we establish that code of practice early, it means that the areas that we will implement through legislation will already be in place. What it will effectively do is underpin that code of practice in legislation and in good practice. The time frame is something that the committee will have to advise us of, but we are keen for that to happen as quickly as it can. Within a reasonable time frame, it will allow us to carry out what will be a complex piece of work, but to undertake it as quickly as it can be. The accountability of the inspector will be to the Scottish Government. It will be independent in the role that it will undertake. I am also keen to accept the recommendation from Lord Borrome in looking at how we can extend that inspection role to the funeral industry more generally, but we will require primary legislation for that purpose. That is an area that we will take forward in the Birels and the cremations bill when it comes before Parliament. The member's final point about the public inquiry. One of the things that is extremely important here is that families are able to get a full and thorough and rigorous investigation into their own individual circumstances. As I said in the previous statement about Morton Hall, a public inquiry will not deliver that for individual families, but the national investigations unit will be able to do exactly that to make sure that there is a detailed forensic examination of each individual case. Of course, if there is something that comes to light in the course of Ailee Changelini's work that should lead us to think that there is something more that has to be done, we will consider that. Given the very detailed work that has been undertaken by Lord Bonomy and the investigation work that they will now undertake, I believe that that will provide us with a comprehensive picture of what has happened and what has not happened effectively within our crematorium system in Scotland. I thank the minister for advance sight of the statement. This has been one of the most distressing, depressing and gruesome episodes of this Parliament. Distressing, because for those very many parents involved, events unraveled like a bolt out of the blue, plunging them back into a grief that many of them had fought hard to come to terms with. Depressing because of the scale of indifference of a different era, however much we might wish it otherwise, in their approach to those matters and that that practice was allowed to rumble on into what I think is an entirely different era and different view of how these things should be dealt with and gruesome because of the nature of all about which we speak is intensely personal and intensely difficult. Can I welcome the report from Lord Bonomy? Can I welcome the Government's response and acceptance of all the provisions and recommendations within it? And can the minister be assured of our support in giving the earliest possible progress to all of those recommendations as he brings them to Parliament? Scottish Conservatives have previously called for a public inquiry, but can I say to the minister that, in the light of the reports from Dame Elish and Lord Bonomy, we are now persuaded that, although a public inquiry should never be ruled out, the best possible hope for parents looking for a resolution of their personal circumstances lies with the independent national investigation team, and he has our support for the establishment of that body. All those matters will he undertake to work with all sides to ensure the widest possible parliamentary support, achieved with a sense of purpose and without further delay. Can I welcome the member's comments? I do, like him, recognise the real difficulty that this has caused for so many families for something that they thought they had dealt with many decades ago for them to then find themselves revisited with it. I particularly welcome his recognition of the value of the national investigation team and someone of Dame Elish Angiolini's standing and knowledge in this field who has been able to undertake that type of investigation for each and every individual family. What I can give him an assurance of and all members an assurance of is that we will work in a cross-party basis in taking this agenda forward in making sure that we get the right policies and practice in place and that we have the right system of accountability in place in making sure that we can have faith and confidence in how the process works into the future, because I am sure that all of us are united in our determination to make sure that this can never happen again and that if there is a legacy that comes from this deeply depressing episode is that we have a system in place that has the right safeguards to ensure that that cannot happen. I have no doubt that all parties are part to play in assisting us in achieving that. In implementing Lord Bonamy's recommendation to appoint an independent inspector who will monitor the working practices and standards at Crematoria, can the minister provide further detail on how it is envisaged? The inspector will take forward the investigation of complaints from the public when that complaints process will be up and running and what steps the inspector will take to provide feedback to cremation authorities on their performance, as it strikes me that those are all vital measures that can hopefully go some way to restoring public confidence. We will move forward with the inspector as quickly as we can within the existing powers that we have for the purposes around crematoria and cremation authorities. In terms of extending it into the wider funeral industry, we will require primary legislation in order to make it much more comprehensive. However, I can say to the member that our intention is to have an inspection regime that allows the inspector to be able to undertake detailed inspections of the conductor policy and practice within any crematoria in Scotland and to do so without fear or favour and be able to investigate any issues. Equally, where a relative has a point of complaint to be able to refer that directly to the inspector and for that inspector to have the responsibility to investigate that as well. What the inspector's role will be is not so much to look at historical matters, which will be the responsibility of Dame Eilish, Angelina in the national inspection unit, but to make sure that any complaints thereafter are investigated thoroughly and independently and that they will report to us on a regular basis the findings of their inspections of cremation authorities and any complaints that they inspect as well. Can the minister say what timescale he has set out for putting in place the review of training for health professionals and for updating publications to ensure that brief parents and families get the right support and guidance, referred to at PARA's 2.1 and 2.54 in Lord Bonomy's report, and what support will there be for groups such as SANS and the miscarriage association to contribute to that work? One of the things that I'll be doing this afternoon is writing to all of the agencies who have a role to play in implementing the recommendation set out by Lord Bonomy, including our NHS chief executives, and all of those who are involved in support organisations working with them, including those within the third sector, and for them to be feeding into the national committee on the progress that they are making in implementing those recommendations. There are many of the recommendations just in the way that, just like the ones that Sarah Boyack has mentioned, that do not require any form of legislation, and we want to see those changes implemented immediately. In relation to organisations such as SANS and others who can assist them in doing so, I would expect that to be part of the process in shaping any type of information that has been delivered to parents who have been affected by a bereavement in using their expertise and their advice on how they should shape that documentation and that advice information. All organisations who have a part to play in this will be written to today by me setting out the key recommendations that I am asking them to implement immediately, and to then feed their response into the national committee who will be responsible for monitoring and driving forward any further work that is required in this area. The minister mentioned the establishment of the inspector of crematoria there. Could you clarify, please, that it would be your intention to establish and extend the legislative requirements so that you would give effect legal basis to the powers that you might confer on the inspector? There are a range of powers that we have under the existing cremation regulations from 1935 for the purposes of being able to regulate and investigate crematoria as they stand, but in order to do it in a comprehensive way and to extend it into the whole pathway, we need to make sure that the inspection purpose is also covering the funeral directors aspects of it as well within the funeral industry. In order to achieve that, we will require primary legislation, which will be a key part of the new legislation that we intend to bring before the department. There are obviously wider issues around regulation within the funeral industry itself, and the consultation will be drafted in such a way that will allow individuals and groups to express their view on what further regulation might be required within the funeral industry in Scotland. We will consider that and we will consider whether that should be included in any future legislation in order to ensure that the public can have confidence in the funeral industry in Scotland in a comprehensive way by having an investigation process to inspection, but also an appropriate regulatory process that is established around the system as well. I thank the minister for advance sight of the statement. I also welcome the report and the recommendations, and I am glad that the Government is going to follow them and offer the support of the Liberal Democrats in his Parliament to progress that legislation. The minister has said that every family must have their case investigated and I agree entirely. However, relying on the goodwill of those to provide evidence and potentially incriminate themselves seems an unlikely course of action. Can the minister therefore explain what powers the national investigation team will possess to ensure that it has the required teeth to compel people to provide evidence and so ensure that the investigations are robust and forensic to obtain the answers that the families affected deserve? There are powers within the 1935 cremation regulations for Scottish ministers and they will be able to compel documentation and documents relating to the cremation process. Those powers will be conferred in the national investigation unit, so they will have the power to be able to compel information and documentation from any cremation authority for any case that they happen to be investigating. The member should also take a level reassurance from the fact that, in the course of the investigation conducted by Dame Eilish Angelini into Mortonhall and by the investigation that has also been undertaken by Lord Bonomy in the infant cremations commission, that at no point have they made any level of resistance from any party in providing them with information or in responding to their investigation into those matters. I have no reason to believe that anyone would wish to do the same with the further independent investigations unit, so I am assured that everyone will wish to comply with it and the powers that ministers have to compel the documents and the information will be conferred on the national investigation unit in order to compel the necessary information that is required. My constituent Nicola Merchant is in the gallery today. Nicola lost her little boy Liam in 2002. He was born 16 weeks early and survived for just six hours. The minister referred to the fresh allegations regarding the reported practice at Hazelhead crematorium, where babies were allegedly cremated alongside adults. That has caused Nicola and many other parents enormous concern and has led to serious questions about what happened to their babies. Given that the recent council audit failed to identify those practices, I welcome news that the national investigation team will now investigate the broad practices and operation at Hazelhead crematorium. Can the minister provide reassurances that that will not prevent individual cases relating to the facility being investigated at the same time? Can he advise whether the contact details for the national investigation team will also be distributed to MSPs so that we can assist in putting those out to our constituents who we are in contact with? What I can say to remember is that, since the announcement was made by Aberdeen City Council last week about the allegations relating to the crematorium at Hazelhead, we have been in touch with them to get clarification at the practice that those allegations referred to is no longer continuing, which they have confirmed is the case. We have also been in touch with them today to advise them on the establishment of the national investigations unit. The acting chief executive has welcomed it and has accepted that it would be an appropriate way for the activities act at Hazelhead to be properly and thoroughly investigated. I also say to him that what the national investigations unit will do is that it will investigate individual cases and where in those individual cases it becomes a part that there are activities or practices or policies operating within an individual crematoria that require further investigation. They will take that further investigation into that individual crematoria itself, and they will look at that in great detail. With regard to the situation in Aberdeen, Dame Eilish has recognised, given the concerns that have already been highlighted, that there is a recognition of a need for further investigation into activities there and will make that a part of the early inquiry that she undertakes. It will consider both individual and detailed policy and practice, which sits around any individual cases as well. Very often it will be the individual case that will give rise to any concerns about the policy and practices that are undertaken within an individual crematorium, which will lead to even further detailed investigation into their practices and their policies. I understand that there was in place a one-year time limit in order for brief parents to make representation under the human rights act, which began when parents became aware of their own within. I was surprised to learn that one local authority has chosen not to wave that one-year time limit, which is now affecting my constituents' cases. Does the minister share the frustration of parents in Falkirk, who have lost a child and have every right to know what happened to their baby's ashes, regardless of how long it takes? Will the Scottish Government make representation to all local authorities, urging them to wave any time limits that may be in existence? I am dealing with some constituency cases, because Falkirk crematorium is based on my constituency. What I can give the member an assurance of is that the investigation that will be undertaken by the national investigations unit will look at cases that could go back several decades. As in whenever that particular case occurred, it will investigate that, just exactly in the same way that the Dame Eilish's investigation into Mortonhall was undertaken. What will then happen is that, once that investigation has been conducted, if there are any concerns about what could be interpreted as being criminal activity, that that matter will then be referred to the Lord Advocate to consider whether Police Scotland will have to investigate the matter further. When it comes to cases that the national investigation unit will consider, it could go back many decades if necessary, and if parents who have experienced issues from several decades ago will investigate them in great detail. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Like Mr MacDonald, I am extremely concerned about the new allegations that are emerging in Aberdeen, and this is extremely worrying for families in the north-east of Scotland. If Dame Eilish's independent national investigation team inquiry into Hazelhead is going to run parallel to the current council inquiry, or will it take over the inquiry completely? I also ask if a whistleblowing policy will be put in place so that staff members, former and current staff members and officials, can contact that team directly or the new inspector when he or she is in post. Understanding, although Aberdeen City Council has indicated that it intended to undertake an investigation following the allegations that it received last week, it has as yet not put anyone in place. Following the discussion that my officials had with the acting chief executive of Aberdeen City Council today, they have accepted that the most appropriate way for the allegations at Hazelhead crematorium to be investigated is through the national investigations unit, which will be led by Dame Eilish Angelini. We are not anticipating a second investigation to be undertaken in Aberdeen now that the national investigations unit has been established. On whistleblowing, which is a valid issue to highlight, once the national inspector has been put in place, what will be an important part of the inspector's role will be to ensure that there is an opportunity for anyone who has concerns or issues that they wish to raise to be able to contact them in order to flag up those concerns or issues in the form of a whistleblowing policy or whatever. However, I have no doubt that once the inspector is in place, he will wish to make sure that he has an opportunity for anyone who may wish to raise concerns with them, whether it be families or staff, to be able to do so in a way that is also confidential, so that he can then consider whether further investigations are required. I think that the minister has said of Parliament well with the sentiments that he has expressed today, and the response that he has outlined on behalf of the Scottish Government. He will appreciate that those of us who have supported a public inquiry have done so because it was the call of the affected parents. Could I ask him whether he envisages that the work of the investigations team would lead to a full public report with the same care for privacy that was displayed in relation to Mortonhall? That would help us all to understand the scale of the scandal and the tragedy and give the recognition that he spoke about to those parents who have suffered and who have borne the suffering of what is a scandal and a tragedy. The way in which we expect the national investigations unit to operate is to provide appropriate information and documentation to the affected family themselves to consider and to engage in any dialogue with the national investigations unit about any further information that can be provided. We would also expect at the end of that process for that information to be drawn together into a comprehensive fashion, which would then be submitted to the Scottish ministers. I would expect that report to cover many of the issues that have already been highlighted in the Mortonhall report and the report just completed by Lord Bonomy. However, in drawing all that information together, it would be a useful way of highlighting any further factors that need to be taken into account. If there are any issues that remain outstanding that the national investigations unit believes that the Scottish Government requires to address, we will act quickly in responding to those issues as and when they arise. I apologise for missing the start of this afternoon's statement. Can I welcome the national investigation team in working with the Glasgow answers for assies' parents? I know that that will be very important to them, but it is always ensuring that that does not happen again to another generation of parents who suffer similar tragedies. Concerns have been raised that the Odawe crematorium in Glasgow might have difficulties, as others might, in meeting a number of the recommendations that are contained in Lord Bonomy's report. The current practices might still have to improve. Can I ask what support the Scottish Government can provide local authorities in crematoria in a constructive fashion, working in partnership with them, without, of course, diminishing the primary responsibility of local authorities to get that right? I will write to every cremation authority, including those that are held by local authorities, setting out the key recommendations that we are asking them to implement immediately and to take forward. That will include Glasgow City Council and any other cremation authority in Scotland that is responsible for the running of a crematorium. It is important that we do not wait until legislation is in place. As I have said to members, our intention is to get the national committee up and running to get the code of practice in place and to implement those changes as quickly as we can in order to ensure that there is a consistency of approach right across the country in practice and in policy in this whole area. The national committee will be key to supporting us in achieving that, so that by the time we get to the point of legislation, we will be in a position where the policy and practices will have already changed. The recommendations that are being set out by Lord Bonimi will be intimated to the cremation authority that is responsible for Daudawu today, and we will be asking them to implement them forthwith to ensure that there are any changes that are required to their policy and practices. Many thanks. That concludes the ministerial statement. I will give a few seconds for members to change places if they so wish. The next item of business is consideration of motion number 10268, in the name of Kenneth Gibson, on a written agreement on the budget process. I would invite those members who wish to speak in this debate to press the request to speak buttons now, and I call on Kenneth Gibson to speak to and move the motion. On behalf of the finance committee, Mr Gibson, five minutes please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I am pleased to speak on behalf of the finance committee and inviting the Parliament to note the revised written agreement between the committee and the Scottish Government on the budget process. The visions made relate to the introduction of the financial powers contained in the Scotland Act 2012. For the purposes of the draft budget to be introduced in autumn this year, the taxes that will be included are the two devolved taxes, the land and buildings transaction tax and the Scottish landfill tax. Members may also note that it is intended to revisit the written agreement in due course to recognise the introduction of the Scottish rate of income tax, and the committee will, of course, invite the Parliament to acknowledge any changes in that regard. The written agreement is an important document that sets out the expectations that we and the Government should have of each other in scrutinising financial matters. Please note that this debate should be viewed in conjunction with the standards, procedures and public appointments committee debate that will immediately follow. Without trailing it too heavily, the small but perfectly formed changes to standing orders that will be invited to agree for the first time make scrutiny of Government proposals for revenue-raising and explicit responsibility of the finance committee and the Parliament. Turning to the written agreement itself, I will first set out what the changes mean for parliamentary scrutiny. Following that, I will say a few words about the information that the Government will provide Parliament to inform that scrutiny. The main changes to Parliament's role in scrutinising the draft budget are set out in paragraphs 14 to 16 of the revised written agreement, until now it has been the case that it was within the finance committee's power to bring forward in its draft budget report a set of alternative spending proposals. Under the revised written agreement, that has now been expanded to include alternative proposals for spending and taxation. Without alternative proposals, the committee will also be able to make recommendations on the Government's tax proposals. It will also be the case that subject committees are able to recommend alternative budget proposals for both tax and spending in their reports to the finance committee. The extent of the power to both spending and revenue is a significant and welcome development for the committee and is designed to ensure that we are in a position to make effective use of it if and when we choose to do so. Recognising that, from this year on, a significant focus of the finance committee's scrutiny will be on the revenue-raising proposals of the Scottish Government. As has been true of spending powers, in suggesting changes to the draft budget proposal set out by the Scottish Government, the finance committee must consider the overall shape of the budget. Any increase in overall spending must therefore be connected with a commensurate increase in tax levels. The written agreement also makes clear that any recommendation to increase tax levels should identify how the additional funding should be allocated. The obverse is also true and that any recommendation to decrease tax levels should also identify where spending should be reduced. Any other committees or individual members who wish to make alternative proposals will be able to do so by tabling amendments to the finance committee motion on the draft budget. Any tabled amendments to the motion must follow the same balancing requirements in terms of the overall budget as applied to the finance committee with increases or decreases in spending being matched in revenue terms and identifying where any changes would be reflected in the budget. While that is a welcome position for Parliament, it would be remiss of me not to point out that such amendments do not automatically guarantee amendment of the budget bill itself. Paragraph 19 to 23 of the revised agreement set out what information will be provided by the Scottish Government to enable Parliament to carry out its scrutiny. That includes a commentary on the expected income, including tax receipt forecasts and the assumptions, rates and thresholds on which they are based. In future years, when information on actual receipts is available, the draft budget commentary will also include outturn figures for the devolved taxes, including any variance between outturn and forecasts. The estimates are intended to provide context to the draft budget and inform Parliament's scrutiny of it, but they are not intended to constrain the Government from making any adjustment to the indicative tax rates and thresholds prior to the Parliament's scrutiny of the relevant subordinate legislation. Presiding Officer, I move motion S4M-10268, in my name. Many thanks, and I now call and join Swinney. Cabinet Secretary, you have six minutes. Presiding Officer, I welcome this debate and the remarks that have been made by the convener, and I endorse the proposed changes to the written agreement. Those reflect careful consideration by the Government and the committee, and a consensus view on how we should reflect the impact of the Scotland Act 2012 in our budget process. The decisions that we take collectively about public expenditure are among the most important for which we are responsible, the impact on our economy, on our public services, on the environment and on our citizens. The procedures that we follow when taking such decisions have served us well since devolution, but we must ensure that they remain robust as the surrounding financial and constitutional context changes. I have experienced first-hand both in opposition and in my time as the finance secretary, the strength of our budgeting arrangements. They support a transparent, consultative approach to decisions about public spending and compare well with practice in other legislatures. The budget process, as detailed in the written agreement, strikes an effective balance between the respective roles of Government and of Parliament. It reflects the importance of our committee structure and provides scope for detailed scrutiny and debate with stakeholders. Over time, the Scottish Government and the Finance Committee have worked together to refine the written agreement, to reflect changing circumstances and to support effective parliamentary process. We have worked to pursue shared interests in the effective presentation of the budget document, changing the emphasis of that document to include an increasing focus on the achievement of better outcomes for our citizens, along with the need for strategic consideration of the content and development of the public finances. The implementation of the Scotland Act 2012 now requires us to make further changes to the written agreement. The Scotland Act devolves, with effect from 2015-16, responsibility for landfill tax and stamp duty land tax, as well as the power to borrow to support capital investment. We welcome those developments, while noting that, together, devolved taxes and capital borrowing would represent a relatively modest 2.5 to 3 per cent of devolved expenditure. As the updated written agreement makes clear, the Government will set out its proposals for the bans and the rates of the two taxes in the draft budget 2015-16, which is due to be published in October. We will also provide a commentary on the expected income to be generated by the taxes and the forecasts that underpin the Government's plans. To support parliamentary and wider scrutiny of the draft budget, we are establishing the Scottish Fiscal Commission, which will provide an independent commentary on the Government's tax receipt forecasts. The written agreement also makes clear that committees and individual members have the scope to advance their own tax proposals, provided they form part of a balanced budget proposition, while reserving legislative responsibility for setting tax rates and thresholds to the Government. Through that approach, we can support effective public scrutiny and debate while delivering reasonable certainty in the budget process, which is necessary for effective planning of public expenditure and which also helps taxpayers' preparations. We will also set out in the draft budget further information about capital borrowing, building on the material presented in last year's document, which will all form part of the Government's integrated capital plan to stimulate and to improve the performance of the Scottish economy. Looking further ahead, the agreement notes that additional changes would be needed in due course to reflect the introduction from 2016-17 of the Scottish rate of income tax, and, of course, the Government will engage closely with the committee in the formulation of all amendments and revisions to the agreement that are required to facilitate the implementation of the proper scrutiny of arrangements surrounding the Scottish rate of income tax. I stand ready to work with Parliament to consider the implications for our processes of a positive vote for change in the referendum later this year. Presiding Officer, I look forward to working with the finance committee and colleagues across the chamber through this year's budget process, and I commend to Parliament the proposed updates to the written agreement. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. We also would like to endorse the written agreement between the committee and the cabinet secretary for finance and place on record our thanks to the finance committee for the work that they have done in achieving this agreed and consensual document. It does, as the convener made clear, clarify, improve and expand some elements of the budget scrutiny process to clarify the budget strategy phase, which, of course, takes place in spending review years. It includes, I guess, a recommitment to the provision of level 4 detail figures for scrutiny, and that has been an on-going problem in terms of the amount of information that committees feel they have been provided with, but there is a clear commitment here to provide greater detail than level 3, and that is good. It does, of course, as both the convener and the cabinet secretary described, outline how the scrutiny process will deal with the new powers that the Scottish Government and this Parliament are undertaking, mostly in terms of how we can raise finance, particularly through the land transaction tax and the landfill tax, but also through the capacity to borrow. All of that is very welcome, as is the broadening of the opportunities committees have to influence budget decisions and to propose their own alternative amendments. That seems to us to improve the scrutiny process as well. All of that is to be welcomed. I cannot really let this pass without noting the irony that having reached this consensual agreement. We do it, and the Scottish Government immediately invoked paragraph 12, in which the Scottish Government believes that it may not be able to meet the 20 September deadline. That is the deadline for publication of the draft budget. The Scottish ministers will consult the finance committee on our revised timescale, and, of course, that has been necessary this year. The committee has dealt with this with the cabinet secretary as a result of the change to a recess and the referendum on September, the 18th. We have often argued that the referendum process has stopped important decisions being taken and delayed scrutiny of normal governance of this country. That is a classic example of it, because, potentially, it squeezes the amount of time that the Parliament and committees have for scrutiny because of the late publication of the draft budget. It is clear, of course, that the draft budget could not have been published at the usual time because it would have fallen in recess, and that would not, of course, have been appropriate. The question simply is, why not publish it early rather than late? The cabinet secretary must surely be already working on next year's budget. He already has a past occasion published indicative figure, so he has some idea of the basis on which he is calculating next year's budget. He does rather beg the question of what perhaps the Scottish Government is hiding, what difficult spending decisions have been pushed beyond the referendum. No doubt the cabinet secretary will feel that that is an unjust accusation. If he does so, the simple solution would have been for him to have published early rather than late. Nonetheless, the chamber welcomes the new framework and, once again, puts on record our thanks to the committee and, indeed, the cabinet secretary for reaching agreement on it. Many thanks. Deputy Presiding Officer, the motion before us asks us to note the revised written agreement on the budget process between the Scottish Parliament and the Finance Committee, which, of course, are at this side of the chamber. We will certainly do that now and, of course, at decision time. The Scottish Parliament has made significant changes to the Scottish Parliament, to the Scottish Government and, most important, to the budget process that we are discussing just now. We will have to look at the Scottish Government's forecasts, their specific forecasts for the land and buildings transaction tax and new tax and for the landfill tax, which is more of a replacement tax. We will have to look specifically for the first time at the rates and the bans for both of those taxes, which will have an impact on a number of companies, businesses and voters across Scotland. We will have to consider carefully the Scottish Fiscal Commission report. They, of course, will report on the two devolved taxes that we talked about, but also, I think, for the first time on business rates. It will give the opportunity to examine carefully the Government's forecast for business rates. We will have to consider carefully the borrowing plans laid out by the Scottish Government and, of course, extremely importantly, the block grant adjustment mechanism and the actual effect of that mechanism of the budget for that financial year coming up. There is a huge amount for this Parliament to do and, in particular, for the finance committee to do when looking at next year's budget and, indeed, every budget after that. It is worth dwelling on how we got here for the 2015-16 budget. It is a good example of a committee doing its job challenging assertions by Government so that we end up in a better place for this Parliament. Initially, when the Government wrote to the finance committee in November, it suggested that the budget should be published by mid-November of this year. That would have given the finance committee about six weeks in which to scrutinise the Scottish budget, which would be a tough ask in any year. However, when you add in all the elements that I referred to at the beginning of my contribution—the landfill tax, LBTT, borrowing and block grant adjustment—to have expected this Parliament to scrutinise the budget in that period of time, I think that quite simply was unachievable. The finance committee and the guys of the convener wrote very clearly to the Government that we did not think that mid-November was acceptable and we did not see any reason why it could not be as soon as possible after Parliament recommencing after the referendum. The Scottish Government responded several months later, trying to offer a compromise of the 30th of October, by which to publish the budget. Again, my view and the view of the committee was that that would not give Parliament enough time to scrutinise the 15-16 budget. Again, particularly given all the more complex issues that we would be looking at for the very first time, the committee wrote back again, stressing that it did not think that the 30th of October was acceptable and that we could not see any reason why the Scottish Government would want to delay this any more than the first week or two after we came back from the referendum, and certainly before the first part of the October recess. Eventually, in March of this year, the Scottish Government wrote back and accepted the committee's recommendations. It was five items of correspondence over a four-month period, but ultimately it is an example of the finance committee doing its job. Therefore, we get the best possible scrutiny of the budget instead of what was proposed, which would have been a small number of weeks and clearly not enough to do the job that we were being asked to do. Many thanks. We now have a short open debate, and I call Jamie Hepburn around four minutes or so. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I cannot help but reflect where Ian Gray pontificates in hiding matters. It is his party that has established a cuts commission that will not report the latter of the referendum, but to the matter at hand, this agreement is an important one because it allows this Parliament the ability to scrutinise the Government budget proposals in a transparent and open matter. It is clear that from time to time, we will need to update the agreement in light of new developments in the Scotland Act 2012 and the devolution of landfill tax and stamp duty land tax, as it was. It will be known in future land and buildings transaction tax as one such instance. We know that this Parliament is putting in place the measures to take forward the devolution of those powers by passing the landfill tax bill and the land and buildings transaction bill. We are getting only the revenue Scotland and tax powers by land and, of course, the Government is putting in place arrangements to establish an independent fiscal commission, which will further enhance and aid parliamentary budget scrutiny. It is correct to update the written agreement to reflect the new reality. Indeed, the agreement says that, in respect of the two devolved taxes, the draft budget will include a commentary on the expected income, including tax receipt forecasts and the assumptions, rates and thresholds in which they are based. The commentary will also reflect the views of the Scottish Fiscal Commission on the level of receipts. All the work that we are undertaking as a Parliament was reflected in the new agreement. I want to turn to another important consequence of the Scotland Act 2012, which is also reflected in the written agreement. It was referred to by Mr Brown. That is the issue of the block grant adjustment. The agreement says that, at paragraph 23, the Scottish Government will provide information about the calculation of adjustments to the Scottish block grant carried out by HM Treasury. The UK Government command paper, which informed the Westminster Parliament's consideration of the Scotland Act 2012, said that, when the smaller taxes have evolved, currently plan to be April 2015, there will be a one-off reduction, which will then be deducted from the block grant for all future years. In its most recent report on the implementation of the Scotland Act 2012, the UK Government reported a change in that position. It now wants to reduce the block grant baseline and adjust the Barnett form. That could involve a different level of adjustment on a year-on-year basis, not the one-off adjustment that is expected by this part and, indeed, the Westminster part when we agreed the Scotland Act 2012. David Gawk, the Exchequer, Secretary to the Treasury, told the Finance Committee last week that it would be a one-off adjustment because it was being agreed on a one-off basis one time and the Barnett form was not being changed merely updated. I would posit that those words are semantics, Presiding Officer, and the UK Government seems to be clearly shifting the go-post away from what this Parliament agreed when we agreed the Scotland Act 2012 to go for. That is an important matter for the agreement that we debate today because the block grant adjustment will be an important part of the Parliament's budget. I do hope that the Westminster Government will play fairer than it seems to be at the moment in agreeing this matter with the Scottish Government. I think that it is important for this Parliament to emphasise agreeing it soon because that will affect the coming budget process. I think that it is important that that message comes from this debate. In conclusion, I commend the agreement and I welcome the approach taken by the Scottish Government working with the Finance Committee to put the agreement in place. It is very important for this Parliament that we see such an agreement put in place to ensure that we can undertake the thorough job of scrutinising the coming budget and future budgets as well. That concludes the open part of the debate. I now call and join Mason to wind up the debate on behalf of the Finance Committee. Mr Mason is around four minutes or so. Thank you, Presiding Officer. You were absolutely right when you said that it was a short open debate. I have never seen an open debate completely filled by Mr Hepburn before. I am pleased to be able to close this debate on the revised written agreement between the Finance Committee and the Scottish Government on the budget process. In his opening speech, the convener set out what the revised written agreement means in terms of the expectations on the Parliament and the Government. With that being explained, I will say a little about what that means in terms of scrutiny of the draft budget in practice and how we can move our approach to financial scrutiny forward. In our report on the draft budget for 2014-15, the Finance Committee agreed to adopt four principles of financial scrutiny, namely affordability, prioritisation, prioritisation, value for money and budget processes. Those principles provide a framework for the budget process that recognises the distinct roles for the Finance Committee and the subject committees. The issues of prioritisation and value for money will be for subject committees to pursue in their scrutiny, looking at the decisions that the Scottish Government makes in directing its resources and how effectively public services spend that money to achieve outcomes. Questions of affordability and budget processes will be for the Finance Committee to consider, asking whether the appropriate balance has been struck between revenue expenditure and about the integration between service planning and performance budgeting. The written agreement already recognises an element of the budget processes principle, with the draft budget including an overall assessment of the progress that is being made towards a more preventative approach to public spending. It is under the principle of affordability that will provide us with a new challenge in scrutinising the use of the financial powers in the Scotland Act 2012. That includes the Government's revenue forecasts, the commentary that will be provided on those forecasts, details of any planned borrowing and information about the calculation of the adjustment to the Scottish block grant to take account of expected revenue levels. This year, the Finance Committee intends to use its call for evidence to focus on the revenues that might be raised by the land and buildings transaction tax and will be seeking views on the impact of the rates and thresholds that the Government sets for that tax. In doing so, the committee may have regard to the likely impact on the property market and the wider economy of the level at which taxes are set. Undertaking the scrutiny at the earliest opportunity should ensure that we start to develop the experience that is necessary to fully scrutinise revenue decisions in future years. In debating the committee's report on the draft budget 2014-15, the cabinet secretary challenged the committees involved in the budget scrutiny to tell him how the Government could improve the linkage between expenditure and performance as measured through the national performance framework—a framework that has to be said that has been widely welcomed. I am confident that the scrutiny framework that we now have in place will enable committees to respond to the challenge positively and constructively. I realise that this has not been the most confrontational or contentious of debates, but one or two interesting points have been made along the way, for example, by Ian Gray in relation to the timetable. It has to be accepted that there had to be a change of timetable this year. Broadly speaking, the committee was in agreement about that, and Gavin Brown gave a very positive report on how the cabinet secretary had moved on his initial proposed timetable. I think that I would just say to Ian Gray those well as an accountant that we have to have sympathy for the staff, and it is all very well saying that the cabinet secretary could bring forward a budget somewhat earlier, but there are practical implications to that. In closing, the revised written agreement makes a clear transition in the approach to financial scrutiny and the role that the committees of the Parliament have in holding the Government to account for its budget decisions. I know that I and other members of the finance committee are very much looking forward to scrutinising the forthcoming draft budget. Many thanks. That concludes the finance committee's debate on a written agreement on the budget process, and it is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of motion number 10312, in the name of Stuart Stevenson, on the Standing Order real changes budget process. I call on Stuart Stevenson to move the motion on behalf of the Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee, please. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I rise to speak to the small but perfectly formed changes that Mr Gibson referred to. They are in fact the addition of 14 words to the Standing Orders, five of which are the word revenue. The Standards, Procedures and Public Appointments Committee is considered what changes are required to the Standing Orders as a result of the revised written agreement between the Finance Committee and the Scottish Government, and the financial powers introduced by the Scotland Act 2012, which came into effect in April 2015. Currently, Standing Orders only includes the high-level rules governing the budget process. For example, the requirement to publish a draft budget by 20 September each year. As we have heard in the previous debate, the specific details of the budget process are set out in the written agreement. We think that that is the right approach, and we recommend that it is continued. It is the advantage of flexibility, because the budget process can be adjusted in the written agreement without the need to amend Standing Orders. The changes that we are recommending to Standing Orders are therefore relatively limited, as we are not proposing any significant changes to the broad structure of the budget process. The changes add references to public revenue alongside public expenditure at appropriate points in the Standing Orders to reflect the new requirement to consider the receipts from the devolved taxes. The Scottish rate of income tax will not come into force until 2016-17, and so we are not including references to this tax in Standing Orders at this time. There may be a requirement to make further amendments to the Standing Orders in about a year's time, in preparation for the Scottish rate of income tax coming into force. The motion in my name invites Parliament to note the committee's report and to agree that the changes to Standing Orders are made with effect from 27 June 2014. I move the motion S4M-10312 in my name. Many thanks. The question on this motion will be put at decision time. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is a debate on motion number 10347, in the name of Humza Yousaf, on asylum seekers and refugees. They need to create a more humane system. I invite members who wish to speak in this debate to press the request to speak buttons now, please. I call on Humza Yousaf to speak to and move the motion. Minister, you have around 10 minutes with time at this stage for interventions. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Last night, I had the enormous pleasure of speaking at the launch of Refugee Week Scotland 2014, the stunning venue at the old fruit market in Glasgow. Refugee Week in Scotland, which is co-ordinated by the Scottish Refugee Council, is now 14 years old. It is bigger and better than ever, with more than 120 cultural and community events and workshops around Scotland celebrating the diversity and the various contributions of our refugee communities. It was a great spectacle to be a part of this year. This year's theme, and every year's theme to this year's theme, is welcome, giving the strong message that refugees and people claiming asylum in Scotland are welcome to a country, a very appropriate theme for the year of homecoming and also very appropriate for this year, of course, when we have 17 nations and territories of the Commonwealth being welcomed to Scotland and to Glasgow more specifically. Highly appropriate. Also, because of the various negativity that we have heard in some elements of the media, some elements of the political structure as well towards migrants but also towards refugees and asylum seekers too. We live in a world in which people travel more and more. However, not everybody who travels has a choice in the matter. They travel because they are searching for safety and for sanctuary. Scotland, as we all know across the chamber, has a long history of welcoming people from all across the world, whether they are visitors, whether they are students, whether they are migrant workers or indeed those who are fleeing persecution and looking for asylum, as well as the dispersal of asylum seekers by the Home Office in Glasgow over the past 13 or 14 years. We have also had a history of supporting refugee resettlement, but, even before that, it is not something that goes on just years, but decades and even centuries. The mid-19th centuries at the time of the great hunger in Ireland, Glasgow and Scotland also gave sanctuary, not without its problems of course and difficulties, but gave sanctuary to those who are suffering a great persecution and hunger. Over the last 20 years and more recent times, we have had refugees from Bosnia, from Kosovo, from DRC and asylum seekers, who have come out with the resettlement programme too, from Iraq, from Afghanistan and, most recently, as many of us know, from Syria. We celebrate the contribution that our refugee communities have made to Scotland culturally, socially and even economically as well. During my time as a minister and before that as an MSP and various other guys, it is a great pleasure to meet many asylum seekers and refugees, as most of the chamber has done too. I am greatly impressed by their determination to rebuild their lives in Scotland and contribute to Scottish society. They are not out of choice and have left their home, the place that they call home, and you can see in their eyes a determination to make sure that they succeed and what is their new home. However, it has also been made abundantly clear to me that there are barriers that are built into the asylum system specifically, which do not make integration easy. In fact, they make integration a lot more difficult, but in some cases, very clearly, they also exacerbate the terrible trauma that people have faced and people suffer. None of us can imagine what it is like to have to leave your home in the midst of persecution, in the midst of conflict, in the middle of the threat of sexual violence. However, on top of that, having to navigate your way out of a country and into another country, when you face a number of barriers that would be there anyway, regardless of the asylum process, such as language and so on and so forth, it is a difficult thing for any of us to comprehend. The barriers to integration that is cited today by refugees and asylum seekers reflect long-standing concerns about the highly negative impact of the UK asylum system over successive years. Those are concerns that are not just expressed by the Scottish Government, indeed by previous Scottish Administrations, and are shared by many people of many parties. I will highlight some of those impacts of the asylum system. People have waited many, many years for the Home Office to reach their decision. All of us, again, members of the Scottish Parliament, have always had asylum seekers come to us, and I have been aghast that some have had to wait over 10 years for a decision. I came across a young lady yesterday who has told me that she has waited 20 years and her decision has still not been complete. In fact, she went to the Home Office a couple of days ago and asked whether or not she wanted to return home. She said, well, after 20 years I am home, and she was quite correct to say that. Although I recognise that the time to process asylum applications has slightly improved, the vast majority of people who seek asylum in Scotland still face a harrowing trip to the Home Office in Croydon for initial screening. It is not a statutory requirement to be screened in Croydon, and I believe—I think that there will be widespread support for that—that those who have claimed asylum in Scotland should be screened here. There are trained staff in Scotland. That would result in a system that is more efficient and more effective, but I would say that that is more fair to those who are seeking asylum and refugee status in Scotland. I hope that that is a point that the whole chamber can unite across. The ethos of the screening process should be supportive, it should be enabling, it should help people to tell their story in a culture where the default is not disbelief or suspicion. That is not to say that all claims for asylum should be granted. Nobody is suggesting such a thing, but everyone who seeks asylum should be treated—and I think that those are the important words—with dignity and compassion, as their case is considered. That dignity and that compassion, so often we are told from asylum seekers, is what is missing in the system. In my own role as Minister for External Affairs, I have had the great opportunity of travelling overseas, and many are across the chamber again. When you travel sometimes for a long time, if you are away for days or weeks, the best thing is that flight back home. When you arrive wherever you are in Glasgow and Edinburgh and other parts of the country, once you arrive, you feel like you are home. You know that there is home comforts waiting for you, you know that there is a family often waiting for you, you know that there is a warm bed that is your own where there is no better sleep to be had. Home is home. Nothing is better than arriving home. Having a place to call home is a most basic need for everybody. A home that is secure, that is in good repair, provides a substantial contribution to the health and wellbeing and the quality of your own life. For refugees and asylum seekers, escaping the trauma of war, of instability, the home contributes to the stability that they so desperately need. Unfortunately, I hear too many cases of poor housing conditions, where repairs are not carried out timuously, overcrowding people facing frequent accommodation moves, preventing them from settling in to communities. Another area of great concern is the support that is given to asylum seekers or perhaps not given or the lack of support. Those who are in section 4 support do not receive cash. Given the card that we have talked about in the Parliament before in a member's debate, the Azure card enables them to buy food and other necessities only from certain shops. That is humiliating and dehumanising. The lack of cash makes it difficult to access basics such as culturally appropriate food and public transport, but it is, at its essence, dehumanising. It is not to trust people with cash but to give them a card. A bit of plastic can say that you are not deserving of real money. It makes it difficult for their lives. Many asylum seekers have told me that, with that card, their child might come to them for 50 pence for the tuck shop at their local school, but you cannot cut up the card and give them 50 pence. They only have what is on that card. Although buying something from the school tuck shop is not a fundamental human right, it is important for children to feel like they are able to participate fully in their school life and in their educational life. Fear of destitution and natural destitution are very real for asylum seekers who cannot work as well. We have put forward our proposals on integration from day 1. I am very proud that, in the Scottish Government, we do not have control over immigration and asylum policy fully, but we ensure that integration is carried out from day 1, not when somebody's status is settled or otherwise. We have produced the new Scots strategy, which many in the chamber will be familiar with. As I said, that was contributed to from COSLA, the Scottish Refugee Council, but, importantly, from asylum seekers and refugees themselves as well. It is a clear framework for the next three years for all those who are working towards refugee integration. Two of the projects that have been supporting asylum integration are, for example, the Scottish Guardianship Service, which is a unique service working with an accompanying asylum-seeking children who are separated from families. Another project that takes into the ethos integration from day 1 is the family key worker pilot for newly arrived asylum seekers, which provides support from the day of arrival to ensure that asylum seekers get the help that they need throughout the process from day 1. We are, of course, 92 days away from the referendum on Scottish independence. There is a debate where people are talking about the values of what is important to us as a country and as a nation. I think that this debate on asylum and how we treat those who are seeking asylum, who are fleeing persecution and prosecution are indeed an important part of that debate. In our propositions in Scotland's future, in the white paper, we are very clear that asylum too often gets politicised. We propose to separate immigration from asylum for that purpose. We also build a system that is built entirely on compassion. We say that from the very beginning we will close the Dungable detention centre, so we believe that that is absolutely incorrect and in a humane way to treat those who have failed asylum. We will give asylum seekers the right and the dignity of work. We will end the practice of Don Raid's as well. In conclusion, I would like to pay tribute to all the organisations and individuals who have worked hard to support refugees and asylum seekers and help them to rebuild their lives and integrate in Scotland over the many many years. Our desire to create a more humane system reflects our vision of the society and the country that we very much aspire to be—one that is open, one that is welcoming, one that is tolerant—a country that protects people fleeing persecution and violence, one that treats them with the sensitivity and compassion that they deserve, that does not add to their trauma and that helps them to rebuild their lives in a vibrant, diverse and inclusive country. Many thanks and I now call on Jamie McGregor to speak to and move amendment 10347.1. Mr McGregor, you have up to eight minutes if you wish. Thank you very much. I'm pleased to take part in today's debate and let me say at the outset that I'm proud of the fact that the UK has a long and distinguished record of offering asylum and providing a place of safety to those genuinely fleeing persecution across the globe. We recognise that many of those who come to Britain seeking asylum have suffered terrifying experiences and made a huge effort to reach our borders. It's important that we treat these people with compassion, dignity and respect, as indeed the minister has said. I don't think that there's any argument over that. As all modern liberal democracies should treat them, I think that most people believe in individual and collective freedom within the rule of law is the basis of our democracy. In terms of how we deal with asylum seekers who arrive in this country, the key is having a system of assessment that is efficient, robust, transparent and it processes the cases as quickly as possible and, above all, it must be fair. This is fundamental so that we can then offer the appropriate support to genuine asylum seekers and refugees. We need to recognise that some of the people coming to the country seeking asylum may not be genuine but want to come here for other reasons, including economic ones. In the interests of the genuine asylum seekers, therefore, these people must be removed from the country as smoothly as possible and we support the UK Government in taking all the necessary steps to remove those who have no valid grounds to stay here. The UK coalition Government inherited an asylum system that many described as chaotic and dysfunctional with a massive back load of cases and it is making steady progress at the moment in putting this right. The UK takes a positive role in working with fellow EU member states to ensure that asylum flows are properly managed and those in genuine need of protection are given it without undue delay while those who do not need protection are swiftly refused asylum and returned to their own countries. The detention of children of asylum seekers has been debated in this Parliament before. Indeed, I spoke in a debate on the subject in 2009. I am delighted that the UK coalition has made real progress in this area as it is sought to ensure that the welfare of children is promoted. It ended the detention of children at Dungeval as soon as it was elected in 2010 and Home Office policy is very clear that family detention is used only as a last resort in the removal of failed asylum seekers from the UK. After all, after all voluntary returns, options have failed and an independent family returns panel is consulted prior to every enforced return. Gregor Fork giving way, he mentioned that he is pleased that the coalition Government made that step of not detaining children in Dungeval. What is his reaction to when Scottish children or children from Scotland are taken for detention down in Yarlswood? Why does it make it any different just because it is in Yarlswood? I have to come back to it another time with an answer to that. All I know is what I said is true. Dawn raids on failed asylum seekers has also been a real issue of concern that has been voiced in this Parliament in previous years. Indeed, I voiced these concerns myself. Again, we would want to see such raids used only as a last resort, but where a family has chosen to break the law and defy the decisions of UK courts, we have to allow the agencies time and place to carry out operations to rectify that situation and ensure compliance with our laws. The timing of such operations will depend on a number of factors, including the safety of the family and others and any concerns raised by the police and others around public order. In terms of the issue of allowing asylum seekers to work, the UK Government is clear that the purpose of the current policy is to deter economic migration through the asylum route. Economic migration comes through other routes. In relation to the level of financial benefits provided to asylum seekers in the UK, in addition to the free accommodation and utilities provided by the Government, I am aware of the recent court ruling on this subject and the Home Office is considering a range of options and once again to avoid doing anything that might encourage economic migration through asylum. Those granted refugee status can of course access welfare benefits and tax credits just as UK nationals can as well as entering the labour market. I want to conclude by paying tribute to those charities in Scotland working with genuine asylum seekers and refugees. We should all commend the good work that they undertake. We are supportive and move to encourage refugees to integrate with our communities in this respect. We agree with the new Scots document and recognise the positive part that they can play in society. I hope that we will work with other EU countries that they are doing in order to do something about the disasters at sea in which so many unfortunate people have been drowned. I move my amendment that emphasises the need to ensure that our asylum system is efficient and fair, one that deals with cases in the shortest possible time so that some of the problems that we will hear about today are not suffered by asylum seekers waiting months and months for a decision to be made. I now call on Alison McInnes to speak to and move amendment 10347.2, a generous six minutes. I too welcome this debate, which is fitting in this refugee week. I am in no doubt that across the chamber we want to see the asylum system constantly improving and evolving. We should therefore welcome the ambition in the new Scots report to better integrate refugees into Scotland's communities. I share the vision that was set out by John Wilkes, chief executive of the Scottish Refugee Council, when he said, our vision is for a Scotland in which all people seeking refugee protection are welcome and where they are protected, find safety and support have their human rights and dignity respected and are able to achieve their full potential in their new communities. We should commend the excellent work of local authorities and third sector organisations in supporting individuals and families seeking asylum in Scotland. Their work means that those seeking safety and a place to start their lives again, free from fear and persecution, are able to access the things that many of us take for granted, such as housing and education. Of course, the picture is not perfect. The report highlights that 96 per cent of refugees experience homelessness at some point and that there needs to be greater, more flexible ESOL—that is English for speakers of other languages provision—for women with families. Let us be in no doubt that the Scottish Government already has a duty to ensure that individuals and families joining us here in Scotland have those things. Those are very basic human rights, so I reject the idea that independence is a magic pill to a better system, or that the UK arrangement in place at the moment is cold and compassionless. The system is not perfect, but progress has been made. I am not wishing to interject on the subject of independence, but just in relation to some of the responsibilities that the Scottish Government currently has, housing would be a core responsibility for this chamber, but there are certain restrictions in the Scottish Government. I have made representations to Margaret Burgess's housing minister in relation to the quality of housing of asylum seekers and refugees, but that place does not have power over that. Do you agree that that is something that could be looked at in terms of housing standards for asylum seekers and refugees in Scotland? I suppose that a despair of the constant negativity from the SNP, which is always looking at what they cannot do instead of looking at what they can do. There is no doubt that there is plenty of scope within devolved responsibility to improve the system. The Liberal Democrats were the only party in the last general election to campaign to end child detention. Over 7,000 children were locked up in Labour's last five years, an average of almost four children a day, and we committed to ending that course of action, and we have delivered on that commitment. The new pre-departure accommodation at Cedars at Gatwick was designed and is operating in conjunction with Barnardo's, and is used only as a last resort. Only advice of an independent panel of child welfare experts after all voluntary returns options have failed. At the most, it can only accommodate nine families at a time and self-contained apartments. It offers the maximum freedom of movement and privacy within an unobtrusive secure perimeter with welfare services provided by Barnardo's. On the name, Cedars stands for the principles that staff will work to, kind that we could sign up to compassion, empathy, dignity, approachability, respect and support. It is the same question that I asked Jamie MacGregor. I wonder if she has an opinion then of whether or not Yarlswood is somewhere that I will read a testament later on that has been described as horrendous as a not a detention centre that was described by one refugee as a persecution centre. I wonder whether or not she thinks that that is a suitable place for children from Scotland of asylum seekers to be detained as they currently are. Children would have really come from ought not to be detained unless it is a very, very last resort. We have seen a significant change in the whole procedure, and it is a very last resort under an ensured return process that children will be held at Cedars at Gatwick for no longer than 72 hours. It could not be further in look or feel from an immigration removal centre to what was there in the past. The use of Cedars is the exception. The aim is to encourage and support families to leave voluntarily without the need for enforcement actions. We have made progress, but undoubtedly there is much more work to do at both a UK level and within Scotland, because it still takes too long to reach a decision on many asylum cases and too many people face homelessness. We must continue our proud tradition of providing safe haven to those fleeing war and terror, and we must have a system that recognises the trauma which individuals have faced and which has resoluted that their future will be brighter, but in getting there there is a journey and a constant evolution of policy and practice to make the new challenges and to move the amendment in my name. Many thanks. Before I call Graham Pearson, I want to inform the chamber and indeed all the open debate speakers that I can give you all five minutes or thereby in the open debate. Mr Pearson, up to six minutes please. Thank you Deputy Presiding Officer. The minister alluded in his speech opening this debate, the tremor, the tragedy and the fear that is faced by many people who cross the globe seeking asylum in a foreign country. It has been acknowledged across the chamber that the United Kingdom, Britain and within that Scotland has played its part very often in ensuring that those who seek solace are granted respite in our country. At that human level, individuals in our community and communities themselves have shown by example the support that they can offer those who would arrive at our doorstep in dire need. At that human level, we have seen some great examples of the support that has been offered. Unfortunately, as I go round doorsteps in the south of Scotland, I am also met on the doorsteps by a resistance to that approach, some indicating that they fear that asylum seekers or refugees achieve better treatment and some alleging that they have been used as cheap labour and thereby resulting in either unemployment in an area or a fall in wage rates. It is a type of misinformation that some political parties would utilise to create fear and jealousy in our communities. The major task that is faced by the minister and his Government is to ensure that accurate information is out there in our communities in order to reject that kind of information that passes as fact and eventually becomes accepted wisdom among some within our community. It does no service to Scotland and it makes the task of ensuring that those who would seek asylum in our country and those who would want to be acknowledged as refugees, it makes their task so much harder and it also makes it difficult for the authorities and others to deliver on behalf of those who need so much from us. Do you believe that the media plays an important role in putting across factual information, rather than misinformation, that in some areas fuels the word that would be hatred towards some of our asylum seekers and refugees? I am grateful to the member for that intervention. I would acknowledge the part that can be played by the media but all the more strength delivers to my argument that the Government needs to ensure that repeatedly ad nauseam the facts are put out there in the public domain in order that we understand exactly what is happening in our various communities. In that context I commend the work of the Scottish Refugee Council, COSLA, the third sector, individuals across our various communities and the communities themselves for the work that is on-going in improving the nature of the reception that we offer to asylum seekers in our country and also the development through the stages of refugee and on-to-one-would-hope productive residents. The introduction of a new Scots material is to be welcomed and Scottish Labour supports the motion from the Government in that regard, as we do support the amendment from the Lib Dems. On an institutional basis there is an indication that £13.5 million has been given by successive Scottish Governments to aid the integration of asylum seekers and refugees into our communities. In all truth, that is a modest sum of money over a 13-year period. No doubt, the award of £2 million from the big lottery to the Scottish Refugee Council will come as a welcome benefit in enabling them to do the work that they deliver on all our behalf. It is well recognised that the addition of asylum seekers over the generations, as the minister said in his contribution, has benefited Scotland throughout the ages. There is no doubt, too, that in asylum seekers coming here and attaining that refugee status, there is still great difficulty in the 28-day timeframe that is expected to move asylum seekers from accommodation into mainstream and the ability of the universal credit system to deliver some kind of financial support. In closing, I would say that there are a number of questions for the minister. Can he give us assurances that some clarity of information will be forthcoming? Will he, as is absent from the document, obtain accurate numbers in terms of asylum seekers and those who are refugees in our country in order that we know what we are dealing with? Will he commit to ensuring that none of those categories of people will be taken advantage of by unscrupulous employers who seek to take advantage of their weakness? I note the big comment of the card system that is utilised. The card system was brought into disrepute many decades ago when it was used in terms of social security. It placed those who needed to use those cards in a very weak situation at a point when they are vulnerable and often was discounted by unscrupulous shopkeepers who would not offer what was necessary but discounted the value of those cards. Evidence of that should be produced and utilised in order that we can get rid of them. It would also be helpful to know the numbers of employers who have been reported for taking advantage of those in the asylum and refugee community, number of gangmasters who have been convicted in Scotland in that connection. I would support any commitment that the Government offers to local authorities, particularly in Glasgow, which I think that we need to acknowledge has led the way in offering support in some very difficult circumstances. I close by supporting the motion and the amendment from the Lib Dems. We now move to the open debate. It is not often that you take part in a debate with the words asylum seekers and refugees and humane system in the same sentence. I want you to focus on that issue of humanity and what that means. About 13 years ago, I had a briefing when I was a unison steward from Margaret Wood of the Glasgow campaign to welcome the refugees and from that moment on, I was involved in that campaign. At the same time, the Scottish Refugee Council started raising awareness and this Parliament, and I am very proud of this Parliament and this nation for marking refugee week every year. One of the things that was drawn to my attention when I worked in social work in Glasgow was the checks that young people were put through to determine age. I do not mean to be totally alarmist here, but it would have put Nazi Germany to shame where there were measuring risks taking x-rays, checking dental work to determine a young person's age instead of just speaking to them and actually treating them as a human. Then we had the Glasgow girls, who I think that we should all be very, very proud of, fondly known as the Glasgow girls and their campaign around Don Raids. We witnessed on our tellies almost every night the people of Jumpchapel, of Castlemilk, of Springburn, of Sighthill standing up to UKBA detention vans and women in those areas being presented with national Scottish women of the year awards. A different Glasgow, a Glasgow that is humane, was the treatment of all those people who were humane. That is the question. I want to turn to Dungavel. For many, many years I have attended vigils in Dungavel run by the Justice and Peace organisations across Lanarkshire and Ayrshire. The detention of innocent kids in Dungavel was brought to my attention because they were put there next to some of the most notorious child traffickers in the world awaiting deportation. Is that humane? I do not think so. We should remember that those children are not criminals. I have to say to Alison McInnes that although the Lib Dems did end detention for children at Dungavel, they just get shipped to Yalswood or Collinbrooke or some of the others, and it is not a last resort. You could just go and listen to the testimony of the people that I know and they will tell you that it is not a last resort. What we have is a UK Government of all colours playing top trumps on who is the hardest on immigrants, who is the hardest on asylum seekers and who is the hardest on refugees. It makes me sick to my stomach for some of the things that I have seen over the years. Successive UK Governments refuse to sign up to EU directives to protect people, whether it is asylum, whether it is men's violence against women or children and whether it is trafficking, refusing to sign up to those directives. Then we have go home vans and adverts. How disgusting. We have a UK BA at the time who would determine asylum status along with traffic status and deny that person that protection all in the one envelope. Disgusting, not humane. We have people who have been forced into destitution. Then we have the obscene pictures on our telly of Jackie Smith, chatting a plane and rounding up women and children at Brand Street in Govan to send them back to Wharton DRC and tell them that they are there, but they will be all right once you are home. Or we have the situation of young women from Moldova, who in a film that we viewed in this Parliament last week, the nefarious merchant of souls. A young woman trafficked across Europe, horrific circumstances, brought to London, was saved by the Poppy project, was denied asylum status, and was sent back to Moldova because she said that she was not at risk. When she got there, the traffickers caught up with her. They abused her, beat her and done absolutely horrific things to her. A few months later, where was she, back in London, trafficked back? Humane? No. An independent Scotland, for me, is one of the ways that we can change this. We can have a humane system, a new model of asylum that separates immigration from people seeking sanctuary, because one of the most disgusting things about this whole process is the way that people conflate both things in the process of dehumanising the individuals involved. I want a system that has protection, that has compassion, that has dignity and has support. A Scottish Asylum Agency underpinned with all those values based on human rights. Now that is humane, and that is the kind of Scotland that I want to live in. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I too would like to take the opportunities to welcome Scottish Refugee Week and the number of events that are taking place across Scotland to mark the occasion. I would also like to congratulate all those at the Scottish Refugee Council for the work that they have done in preparing what is the 14th Refugee Week Scotland programme, which, as they say, aims to celebrate both the warm welcome that Scots give to refugees seeking sanctuary from around the globe and the contribution that we must remember. That is a contribution that refugees make to our communities. I also want to thank the many individuals and groups such as Margaret Woods and others for the help and support that they have given to asylum seekers throughout the very many years. For many years, as Christine McKelvie said and I know others will say as well, I have campaigned for the rights of those seeking asylum. I really truly believe, and I think that most people in this Parliament too, that we should be standing up for some of the most vulnerable people in our society, be they refugees, asylum seekers or anyone else in need of our help. I make this plea once again, and I have said it before to the minister and many others as well, that we here in Scotland as MSPs should be given the right from the Home Office to basically stand up and be able to serve our constituents, because that is what they are. The Home Office continually denies us that right, so I would make that plea once again. Like others, I have stood outside Dungavel of attending rallies. I have visited people held in Dungavel. I have even had my fingerprints taken in Dungavel. I have not had them back yet, but that is what goes on when you go to visit anyone in Dungavel. If you take a child at that time, I was visiting a family, you take a child, a chocolate biscuit, they take the biscuit off them because it is wrapped in a certain wrapper and you cannot give drinks etc etc as well. I would say that basically Dungavel is a detention camp, and that is what I would always have called it and still do, a detention camp here in Scotland, but it is out with our control. Some of the stories that have come out of Dungavel in the time that we have been here have been truly shocking. The Catholic Church said that it is almost inconceivable that conditions such as we are now hearing about can exist in the 21st century democratic Scotland. The display in alarming disregard of any consideration for human dignity, immigration is a reserved power, but maybe the time has come for a Scottish solution for humanitarian scandal on earth soil. However, despite the outrage from church politicians and organisations across Scotland, little has changed under the UK system, which is clearly not fit for purpose. That is why I am a little bit concerned about the amendments that came forward. If I just take them in turn, the Conservative amendment supports the work being done by the UK Government to improve the system. It really is a kick in the teeth of the many people who are here just now, still suffering under that system. The amendment is mentioned by the Lib Dems and the Conservatives of the Ending of Children detaining in Dungavel. Others have said that before me, and I will go on to perhaps mention more on that. Let us not forget, under the UK Government, that infamous go-home vans with their clearly racist slogan. They were the brainchild of the Libs and the Tories in coalition together. Let us not forget the posters and brands in the street in Glasgow, which said, is life here hard? Going home is simple. Another brainchild of the UK Government, and that is when I turn to the Lib Dems for the Lib Dems to cling on to the claim that they ended childhood tension at Dungavel. It really is simply ridiculous. If I could just finish that now, I will take an intervention. It was many groups and individuals have fought for many, many years to end this practice, and I wanted to go on to say that the practice actually is not ended, but I will take an intervention. Alison McInnes? Your remarks on the go-home vans and your suggestion that somehow that that was anything to do with the Liberal Democrats, you will know that that scheme was roundly condemned by both my colleagues Nick Clegg and Vince Cable. Indeed, myself signed the motion here in Parliament condemning them. Andrew White? I thank Alison for that intervention, but you know what they say. You go into bed with something, you go to take out everything that comes from it, so your Lib Dem colleagues went into coalition with the Conservatives down in Westminster and that's what they get for doing that. They could have stood up for themselves in other ways. Even when the Lib Dems pledge of Dungavel unraveled as quickly as you had pledged to support free education, we learned that children were still simply being transferred, as others have said, to other detention centres. In some cases, and this is absolutely true, they're still being detained at Dungavel under certain circumstances. Absolutely. Jamie McGregor says that his party supports the work that is being done by the UK Government. Does he mean the racist slogans and the vans that I mentioned earlier on, or is party's drive to appear more racist and xenophobic than UK to appeal to voters? That's what it seems like to me and many others. I'm not sure, but to say that the system is working is simply untrue. We know that the Home Office isn't fit for purpose and that refugee and asylum seekers are treated badly whilst being used as scapegoats in many parts for any ills in society. Rather than hiding from that, we need to look at how we can promote a fairer system, how we can foster trust and respect rather than mutual distrust. The new Scots integrating refugees in Scotland's communities is a good starting place, but we have to recognise that it's very clear that the Home Office and the UKBA is certainly not fit for purpose. The only way to be able to create a fairer and more inclusive refugee and asylum system is through independence and we have in control of our immigration. Margaret McCulloch, to be followed by Bob Doris. Five minutes. The debate about this country's relationship with refugees and asylum seekers is too often distorted, too unfair and misleading. Many of the most common assumptions about asylum seekers and refugees are unrecognisable to those of us who have had first-hand experience of working with them. The Scottish Refugee Council has tried to challenge those assumptions by setting out simple, clearly rethan facts about the realities of asylum. I want to put some of those facts on the record today. 80 per cent of the world's refugees live in the developing world. Many of them in refugee camps haven't been forcibly displaced. Africa, Asia and the Middle East host three quarters of the world's refugees, Europe hosts 16 per cent and the United Kingdom just over 1 per cent. It's true that asylum applications peaked in 2002, but by 2010 they were down to a record low. In 2012 in the UK less than a third of refugees who apply for asylum are successful, so we are no soft touch. Asylum seekers are not automatically entitled to council homes. There are asylum seekers in dispersed accommodation, but this is allocated by the Home Office. It is nearly always in hard to let properties, and the number of asylum seekers in dispersed accommodation is equivalent to just 0.05 per cent of the population in Scotland. Home Office rules actually prevent asylum seekers from working, so they are dependent on state support, which can be as little as £5 per day. According to refugee council research, asylum seekers do not come to the UK to claim benefits. In fact, most know nothing about our welfare system and have no expectation that they could receive any financial support when they arrive. I worked with asylum seekers before coming to the Parliament. I helped them to get into training once their applications had been granted and they were able to look for work. They weren't scroungers, they weren't chancers, they weren't here to take advantage or abuse our hospitality. They were child soldiers who escaped African warlords, they were people looking for a home because the home they had was taken from them, they were grateful for what assistance they had received here and they were thankful for the opportunities they had found in a country where they were safe, where they could make a new life for themselves and where they could put destitution and persecution behind them. Those are the stories that the public needs to hear and those are the facts that the official report must record. Before concluding, I also want to draw the chamber's attention to the position of LGBT refugees and asylum seekers. The Clydescope Trust's recent report reminded us that homosexuality is illegal in 41 of the Commonwealth's 53 member states and it documented how just pernicious and malign the inequalities in some of those countries really are. Next month, athletes and visitors from around the world, including those 41 countries, will come to Glasgow to celebrate the Commonwealth Games. We can send out a powerful message of hope by showing that gay athletes and LGBT people are welcome here in Scotland and we can also make a practical defence by ensuring that our asylum system treats LGBT people with dignity and respect. The review into intrusive questioning of gay asylum seekers is welcome, but we must also ask certain questions about a system that has seen LGBT people deported back to countries where they face persecution. The aspiration that the Scottish Government has set out in its motion is that the desire for a more humane asylum system is one that my Labour colleagues and I share. However, let's be clear that to build support for a humane and dignified asylum system, we will have to take on all two common misconceptions. Let people hear the facts and make the case for a more tolerant, welcoming and understanding society. I am delighted to be following what I thought was an excellent speech, and it is in terms of common misconceptions that I was going to start my contribution. I think that society is a lot more tolerant towards immigrants to these shores than shows up when we do attitude surveys. I would like to explain what I mean by that. When people use generic terms to describe floods of immigrants coming to the country, they break it down and engage with people on the basics. They talk about international students, quite frankly, keeping our higher education system afloat by paying huge fees to come to this country. People tend to say, well, of course, that's okay when you explain to them that there's many Scottish people in those across the UK taking benefits in other European countries in terms of staying there and making a life for themselves there. When you look at those going to other European countries and those coming to Scotland and you deal with the facts, people tend to say, well, actually, that seems to be okay. When you explain to them about asylum seekers and fleeing war-torn countries, as has been outlined in our direct experience from my constituents in relation to that, then people I speak to tend to say, well, yes, that's okay. However, that's not what you tend to get in the mainstream press. I actually think that when the narrative is correct and deals with the facts and terms to immigration to these shores, the people of Scotland—I believe the people of the United Kingdom as well—are far more tolerant and inclusive than certain attitude surveys let on. I think that we've all got a responsibility as politicians to show leadership and put some of the factual situation on to the record. I want to share a very brief story with you in relation to the constituent of mine just now. As one of those people, people would just see and go, oh, there's another immigrant coming to our country. A young man called Akle was in my office the other day. I don't want to get into the details of his story. That's personal to him, but he was looking to be returned to Mosul. I don't think that he will be going there any time soon. I've got a sweth of constituents that I'm representing in relation to a number of asylum and refugee cases. Quite many of them are Kurds because of the connection that I've got with the Kurdish community in Glasgow. They are dependent on a court ruling. I apologise to Kurds and to the legal profession called Bacta Rashid, which I believe is in relation to, well, when did you come to the UK? Did you come to the UK from the Kurdish regional area or did you come from the rest of Iraq? At what position was sedam in power before you came to the UK? All of that is determining whether or not someone will be allowed to stay or not. The people I meet have been here for a long time, and this is just at home quite frankly, and they're making an incredible contribution to our country. That's a flavour of the kind of people I meet when we talk about refugees and asylum seekers, but actually immigrants to our shores more generally. I also want to put on record the time that I have in relation to the work that various other people do. Politicians talk about the good work that other people do rather than the good work that we necessarily do ourselves from time to time, so I want to put on record the work that the police do in relation to that. I remember a man I first met when I became an MSP in 2007, Constable Harry Fawkes, who has since retired, who was a community police officer on site at Hull Glasgow, and the good work that he did bringing communities together. It was exceptional, and an organisation, my colleague Patricia Ferguson, will know very well when the Maryhill integration network and the fine job that they do in terms of inclusiveness and integration in Glasgow, the area that I represent. I want to say a little bit about the Scottish Government strategy and use Scotland's integrating refugees in Scotland's communities. I think that you could pick up that strategy and speak to that irrespective of your constitutional situation in relation to an independent Scotland or not, so there's no attempt to raise independence here. I think that it's a set of principles that we'd all like to see in society in terms of integrating people into our communities, and it's in that tone that I would like to address my mark. In terms of the needs of dispersed asylum seekers, I have to say that I hate the expression dispersed, but there we are. It talks about the long-term strategic planning of the dispersal of asylum seekers in Scotland that is informed by the needs of asylum seekers and local communities leading to an increase in integration. With that done well, it really benefits a community. It wasn't always the case that it was done particularly well, and I think that things have improved in relation to site Hull and Red Road from initial difficult challenging situations. I pay tribute to everyone who's been on board in relation to that. I think that because my intervention to Alice McInnes was in housing, by the time I have left, I should give a little bit of reference to housing. What I'd like to say in relation to that is in relation to the housing contract that the UKBA has in relation to asylum seekers and refugees in Glasgow, in Serco, in Orcharton, Shipman and significant concerns raised by the Scottish Refugee Council and a number of my constituents in a cross-party we've been working to deal with that. I had made representations to Margaret Burgess in relation to what the Scottish Government could do, given the housing standards and regulations. There's really almost nothing, but I'll continue to press that to see what constructive dialogue can be had in relation to that. In housing, what I wanted to say is that some of the social tensions in communities in relation to housing for asylum seekers and refugees are exactly the same as in relation to homeless people. That is that you get a series of supported tendencies across the city of Glasgow, where you get a high turnover of individuals, and that's not good for sustainable communities. What you have to do is turn some of those into permanent tendencies and embed those people into the hearts of their communities, and that's not how the system works. Presiding Officer, thank you for indulging me, as always. I'll sneak in an extra half minute into my contribution, but I thoroughly support the Government resolution here this afternoon. I'm often asked by the many young visitors to this Parliament what I think is the best thing that the Parliament has delivered for the people of Scotland. I'm sure that there are many answers from different MSPs across the chamber as to what that would be, but for me it is the 2007 decision to extend education rights enjoyed by Scotland's domicile students to the children of asylum seekers. In the press release from that time, the Government press release says that children of asylum families are to have the same access to full time, further and higher education as Scottish children under plans announced today. The then education secretary Fiona Hyslop would want to say that, from autumn, giving asylum children who had spent at least three years in Scottish schools the same access to Scottish children to full time and further higher education, and also working with councils to implement each IE recommendations for providing nursery places for three and four-year-old children of asylum families. At that time, Ms Hyslop said, the Government believes that, regardless of where they come from and why any child living in Scotland should receive care, protection and education. We recognise our responsibility for all children in Scotland and our obligations under the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. That is the legislation that I choose, because I think that it was a commitment that was so important as it established Scotland as a country of compassion, of fairness and one that takes its international obligations to asylum seekers and refugees very, very seriously. In this debate about independence, we often say that Scotland is a unique set of values, one that distinguishes from choices made elsewhere in the UK. There is no other area that is more easily demonstrates this than in the area of immigration and asylum. It is from those values that campaigns like the Glasgow Girls flourished, and this campaign against on raids was an inspiration to our country. Those young women took their protests to the door of the home office to say that this is not wanted and not expected in Scotland. As there are values that have developed policies such as the Scottish Guardian service that is so important for unaccompanied young people, many of whom have been trafficked and it is held as a model of excellence to the rest of the UK as reported by the BBC in 2013. I do believe that independence can make a huge change in that area. The evidence given to the European External Relations Committee on 15 May, when we discussed independence, citizenship and immigration, is very informative in this debate. Indeed, Gary Christie of the Scottish Refugee Council, when talking about the proposals in the white paper, said that we welcomed the proposals in the white paper to create a separate asylum agency. It is what we suggested should happen if Scotland voted yes. The national behind the proposal was about creating specialism and expertise and trying to move away from a culture of disbelief and respect of which we could criticise quite a lot of the home office decision-making to a culture of protection. What a great ambition and what a damning indictment of the current UK settlement that that is how asylum seekers are treated in our country. I was very welcome that the minister mentioned that asylum seekers could contribute so much more to our communities if some of the legislation that prevents them from working, for taking a full part in their economy, was able to be removed. I was taught by a refugee in my degree course, a very fond memories of Dr Josie Minnows, who was a Chilean refugee. He was a fantastic lecturer and a world expert on data modelling and databases. It was a great interest and pride that last year I read the reports about the Chileans giving thanks to Scotland for their welcome that they received when they came to this country. To read the stories of the Cowdenbeath miners' band piping the refugees into the town, a town that had the miners themselves fundraised to help bring those refugees from across the Atlantic to Scotland. The Chilean community was giving thanks to Scotland for that warm welcome, for the homes, for the welcome into their communities. This is the Scotland that I recognise. It is not one that is driven by daily mail or tabloid journalism, fear and some of the other really damaging opinions that are coming from elsewhere in the UK. I think that this is the Scotland that we almost aspire to. Many people have mentioned Don Gable and, again, they often sing Hamish Henderson's come freedom come all ye. I hope that Scotland will be a hoose where all the burdens of Adam will find breed, barley breed in painted room. Collon Dr Elaine Murray, to be followed by James Dorn and now up to five minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Following on from Clare Adamson's contribution, my tangential knowledge of the experience of the refugee refers to Hector Fuentes, who came to this country in 1976, having been expelled from Pinochet's Chile after three years of imprisonment during which time he was tortured both physically and psychologically. He was told on more than one occasion that he was to face the firing squad, and that was purely for having left him political opinions. He thought that he was coming out and is the international campaign for many of the Chilean prisoners to be released. He thought that he was going to Paris, and one grey morning found himself in Sheffield instead, with very little English. However, and Clare has just said how the miners in Scotland supported and welcomed him. His comrades were supported and welcomed by the people of Sheffield, too, and he lived there for some period of time. Eventually, he married my younger sister, and he has lived in this country in the United Kingdom for almost 40 years, contributing to our economy a success story. I think that there is one thing that he still finds difficult, and that is the British winter weather. In advance of this debate, I read through the contributions of Lord Roberts and Baroness Lister during the debate on the immigration bill in the lords on 17 March. I had much sympathy for some of the points that they were making. Baroness Lister argued, for example, that the time limit to barring asylum seekers from accessing the labour market should be reduced from 12 to six months. She did not say that she should go altogether, but she felt that that would reduce the danger of asylum seekers being forced into the illegal shadow labour market and being subject to totally unregulated exploitation and exposure to criminal elements involved in trafficking and other horrendous abuses. She also pointed out that the joint committee on human rights inquiry into the treatment of asylum seekers in 2007 considered that, in a number of cases, that reached the European Convention on Human Rights article 3 threshold for inhuman and degrading treatment. That report stated that the policy of enforced destitution should cease, that the system of asylum seekers support was a confusing mess and that a coherent, unified, simplified and accessible system of support for asylum seekers should be introduced. That ought to have happened and it hasn't. Jack McConnell yesterday argued that the UK could have a regionally flexible immigration policy that should recognise the issues that are different in different parts of the country. We know that he piloted a form of this when he was First Minister through the Fresh Talent initiative. I don't know the detail of his proposals and how he imagined that extending to asylum, but I am attracted to the idea of a flexible UK policy. I think that it would avoid some of the difficulties that could present themselves if an independent Scotland had a very different immigration policy. I accept to a point about Jack McConnell and his sincerity in trying to change this to somebody that I have a great amount of respect for. Does his example not show why the current devolution system does not work? He had a Labour Government in the UK, he had a Labour Government here of course in the Scottish Government, but yet a Labour First Minister could not stop Don Raid's, for example, from happening, or Fresh Talent? My argument, I think, is that we can achieve some of this through devolution, and I think that is actually Jack McConnell's argument. The problem for an independent Scotland, as far as I can see, is that if it had a very different asylum and immigration policy to the rest of the United Kingdom, and the rest of that in the United Kingdom is a more right-wing Government, a Government that might have UKIP involved in it, then you could have Scotland being seen to be a backdoor into the rest of the United Kingdom, and you could see the rest of the United Kingdom setting up border control, and that does worry me. I think that actually we need to look more widely at political instability, war, climate change and natural disaster across the globe are forcing people out of their own lands, and I think that we have to have some form of international response in terms of asylum seekers, rather than just looking at a small nation. I think that we actually have to tackle it on an international basis. The other issue that I wanted to touch also is public attitudes towards asylum and immigration, because I think that sometimes we are a little bit complacent about views in Scotland. I was shocked, I have to say, during the European elections when over 13 per cent of the voters in Dumfries and Galloway voted for UKIP and actually average out across the south of Scotland around 11 per cent of voters voting for UKIP, if that was replicated and it won't hopefully in 2016, that could mean that we had people from UKIP actually in this Parliament, and we also know from, and I know what Maldor said about social attitudes, but a recent social attitudes survey said that 60 per cent of Scottish residents thought immigration should be reduced. That worries me that there are still those views there. I am supportive of the Government's motion today. There is a lot more that we can do and that we must do to counter the negative stories, which, quite frankly, are perpetrating. We all know who is doing it. They are perpetrated by certain sections of the national media, they are poisonous, and we should all be doing what we can to counteract the view of asylum seekers, which is being perpetrated out there. Thank you. Glasgow, Scotland's greatest city, is a city built on immigrants, many folk from Ireland, from Italy, from the Indian subcontinent, from countries across Africa and the rest of Europe and everywhere in between, chose to call Glasgow home, and they felt to shape the city across many generations. My constituency of Cathcart is one of the most diverse, multi-faiths and multi-ethnic parts of Scotland, and it is a better place for it. We see that through the setting up of arranger networks that bring people together, such as the Greater Pollock Integration Network, based on my constituency, which helps to ensure that asylum seekers are housed adequately, represented properly, able to feed and clothe their families and to defend their inalienable human rights, as well as becoming an important part of the local community. It is also highlighted by the many voices who shared my dismay at the Home Office rhetoric in their go-home campaigns, including the poster campaigns that have been talked about earlier on, which were highlighted in UKBA centres in Glasgow and London. As Sandra White said, to use such phrases as is life here hard, going home is simple and this plane can take you home, we can book your tickets, is not the actions of a humane organisation. A central truth seems to have been forgotten by the Home Office throughout these campaigns. For many people having to visit these centres on a regular basis, going home is simply not an option, regardless of how hard life may be for them here. This lack of thought or care to the wellbeing of people who have lost everything and had to seek refuge in a safer place is, in my view, the worst part of this campaign. I do not think that the impact that using the word home for people who equate home with unimaginable pain and suffering was ever a concern for the Home Office, who appeared to know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. Thankfully, the weight of public opinion forced them into not extending the pilot. We should all be grateful for that. Do you think that, listening to the rhetoric of the Westminster parties that the system is creaking under the vast weight of asylum seekers? That is just not so. The UK receives 8.4 of asylum applicants in the EU. The highest in Germany gets 23.2, followed by France at 18.3 per cent, and Sweden, with the same population of Scotland, gets 13.1 per cent, followed by Belgium, with one sixth of the UK population at 8.5 per cent and then the UK. Asylum seekers make up less than 0.5 per cent of the population of Glasgow, where the vast majority of asylum seekers in Scotland live. Before the refugees in asylum seekers in Scotland gathered at Hamden stadium, in my constituency, it would be less than 40 per cent full. One of the few motions that the SNP group and Labour group at Glasgow City Council have ever agreed on was the one that was put forward by my predecessor as group leader and councillor for Langside, councillor Susan Aitken, who is condemning the forced destitution of asylum seekers in Glasgow through changes to the provision of housing, mentioned earlier by Bob Dorris, and noted the restrictions that have been placed on local authorities hampering their ability to provide help and assistance to failed asylum seekers. It called on the UK BA to change their policy to allow Glasgow to assist refugees in danger of destitution. To date, the cross-party call has not been heeded. That perfectly encapsulates all that is wrong with the UK BA and our asylum system, even when they are given the opportunity to make life better for people. When local authorities want the power and responsibility to help, they refuse to delegate those powers. The UK system would rather keep asylum seekers and refugees in a state of destitution than to give the power to where it could be. It would help because this does not fit into the narrative that they are creating where we need to be strong in asylum and immigration, whatever the human cost. I suspect that I speak for the majority of people in Scotland when I say that I do not want to encourage people to go home without any thought for the consequences. I do not want any truck with such a xenophobic, regressive campaign. I want to see an asylum system that is fair and just and humane, and which takes individual cases on its own merits. I want a system that works for people, and it says that for as long as you are here, we will treat you with respect and dignity. Given the record and rhetoric of both Labour and coalition over the last few generations, it is not going to happen under Westminster Government. When the people of Scotland vote yes in three months, we can work to ensure that Scottish asylum agency that we will create to oversee asylum applications will be robust, fair and socially responsible, and will clearly adhere to human rights, equality, principles and the right of law. I greatly look forward to the day when our hopes for the Scottish asylum system fit for Scotland's needs and the needs of those who need our support comes to fruition. Thank you very much. Dennis Robertson, up to five minutes please, Mr Robertson. Presiding Officer, can I first of all begin by associating myself, I think, with Margaret McColloch's contribution this afternoon? I think that it is a contribution that did stick to the facts, did put, I think, in context the problem that is sometimes overstated, not just maybe in this chamber but certainly in the press and in the wider context of Scottish society. The minister in his opening remarks, Presiding Officer, said, welcome, and we should be a country that is opening our doors, opening our hearts to the asylum seekers and people seeking refugee status in our country. I come from a constituency in Aberdeenshire West in the northeast of Scotland, Presiding Officer, that probably does not see the number of people seeking asylum or refugee status than anywhere else in Scotland. That was not always the case, of course, and certainly in the past, with Aberdeen and with a harbour port, there were many people in the Merchant Seaman used to jump ship seeking asylum, certainly back in the 80s and 90s. Aberdeen in the northeast has always been, I believe, a place that welcomes people from all nations and all migrants from all parts of the world, Presiding Officer. I remember my very first encounter of someone from a different country. My aunt's husband, he came from Nigeria. She married someone from Lagos and when he returned to Nigeria, unfortunately, he died as a reporter in the wars in Nigeria at that time. My nephews at that time were deemed as different, but it was not from a sense of annoyance or a sense of hatred or anything like that, just different, because in the early 60s, there were very few people of a black ethnic minority within the very small area where I lived. Presiding Officer, prior to this debate, I thought, I wonder what the process is. What is the actual process for someone that has undergone horrendous, perhaps horrendous, difficulties in getting to those shores? When they get here, who do they turn to? What is their first thought? Where do they go? When do they want to seek asylum? What is the process? We have a wonderful strategy. I applaud the strategy put forward by the Scottish Government, COSLA and the third sector, but I wondered what that initial process was. I thought, if I was an asylum seeker coming here and I was fleeing, fleeing a country where I was in fear, not just of the military but of the police, would I want to turn to the police and go to a police station and ask for asylum? I thought perhaps not. I thought, well, do I use modern technology? Do I maybe try and find out I've just arrived in an area where it'd be Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, and I think I've got access to the internet perhaps? I thought, I'll look at the council websites, and I did that within Aberdeen City and Aberdeenshire. There's absolutely no reference to asylum seekers or people seeking refuge. Nothing. I contacted the council and asked, there's nothing on your website, and we asked them to investigate and they came back and said, you're right, there's nothing on our website. So, if I was someone coming to this country and thinking, well, in fear of maybe going to the police because of past experience, who do I turn to? I asked the minister, in all sincerity, how we thought about that first step, that first step that people seeking asylum and refuge in this country, how do they embark on that first step? If it is something as simple as putting something into the internet system, Google or whatever, we need to ensure that people actually have access to that first step, that very first process. In finishing, Presiding Officer, can I say that I condemn the car system? The Azure system is absolutely dreadful. We moved away from the voucher system because it removed people's dignity, given it stigmatised people. The car system does exactly that. It doesn't do anything else other than stigmatise the people that have the cars. It doesn't give them the freedom to go into a shop and buy what they need when they need it. It doesn't give them the freedom to maybe use public transport because it isn't accepted within public transport. Presiding Officer, I believe that the strategy that has been put forward by the Scottish Government in collaboration with the HOSLA and the third sector is the right way to go, and I commend the motion of the Government. Thank you. Many thanks. We now move to closing speeches and I call on Alison McInnes up to five minutes to remind members of taking part in the debate that might wish to return to the chamber. It is clear that everyone who contributed to the debate this afternoon is driven by a strong desire to see a more compassionate, sensitive and fair system. We have all acknowledged the terrible events that drive people to flee their country and seek sanctuary here in Scotland. We have to condemn the increasingly negative and hostile attitudes displayed by some, particularly some of the media towards asylum seekers and refugees. Some members have referred to the Home Office's pilot go home campaign and I don't blame them. I share the view that it was an offensive and discriminatory scheme and I'm glad that voices around the United Kingdom, not only in Scotland, including those of my senior colleagues Nick Clegg and Vince Cable, halted that utterly disgraceful episode. What we've also heard today is a broad agreement on the kind of system that we want to see in Scotland and, indeed, across the UK. It's one that's focused on individuals, one that is characterised by empathy and compassion. However, some speakers this afternoon would have us believe that this can be achieved in one swift, decisive move—a yes vote on the 18th of September—and I wholeheartedly reject that. The solutions are not as simple as constitutional change. Building a system that is transparent and accessible to those in genuine need, while ensuring that it is robust enough to deter abuse, is not simple. However, I believe that the UK Government has made progress towards building the kind of system that we want to see over the last four years. We have ended child detention at Dangevo. We have ensured that there is more support for families seeking asylum and we have tried to reassure communities and the public that the system is compassionate to genuine cases but that those who seek to abuse the system will be detected. Meeting the needs of those who are seeking a fresh start is not as simple. It has consequences for all different policy areas—health, education, housing, culture and the economy. We need to recognise that that means that systems need to constantly evolve and that support services need to be ready and flexible enough to meet the ever-shifting needs and demands. The new Scots report is a welcome step in the right direction—advocating multi-agency working and the need for on-going evaluation of what works to help to integrate refugees into Scotland. Its focus on housing, education, employment and welfare will help to ensure the integration of the broad range of services that are necessary for those who want to build a new life in Scotland. The theme for refugee week Scotland this year is welcome and we should not underestimate the significance of local communities and the importance of a warm welcome. I know that communities across Scotland recognise the benefits that those seeking refugees bring and others have spoken about that today—new skills, new cultural norms, customs that we adopt and practices that we welcome as part of our multicultural society. We should be proud of our willingness to welcome refugees and continue to celebrate our joint future, but that is true of communities across the United Kingdom. Together we have a proud history of accepting friends from countries where they would face persecution on the grounds of race, religion, political beliefs or sexuality. We have a proud history of supporting refugees seeking safety from countries ravaged by war, famine and drought. There is no doubt that we can and should do more to ensure that those seeking safety and protection have a warm welcome and the opportunity to get on in life. I believe that the best chance of achieving progress is as part of something bigger, as part of the United Kingdom. That does not mean that we should not celebrate and recognise some of the achievements and the challenges in Scotland that we have here today, but that, as part of the United Kingdom, we can seek solutions to the challenges together and build a system of which we can all be proud—a system built on fairness, openness, compassion, mutual trust and respect. Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. This has been a debate that at times has been simplistic and polarised, and at other times has shed some light on a difficult situation that we all want to concern ourselves about. The truth is, however, that for many this debate has simply been an opportunity to campaign once again for an independent Scotland, often put forward by speakers who, as ever they do, have confused the opinions of the Scottish National Party with those of the Scottish people. Let's try not to do that during the course of the debate. It is the case that we in the United Kingdom have an enormous successful record of providing asylum for those who require it. Over much of the last century, there have been examples of where this country has provided asylum for those fleeing from regimes in Central Europe and from other parts of the world. We should be proud of that record and we should consider our future engagement with the asylum system with that history being taken into regard. However, we do no service to anyone who relies on the system if we seek to confuse the process of seeking asylum with that of economic migration. Too many confuse the two, not least those who seek to exploit the asylum system to achieve the economic migration goal. It is the case, of course, that the system that we have in place is one that is an evolution of previous systems. It is ironic that some of the strongest speeches that have been given in this debate were given by speakers on the Labour-backed benches. Nevertheless, the record of the Labour Government on Asylum was not one of which it can be proud. A process that contained delays so long that people were essentially growing up in this country awaiting decisions only to be faced with that knock on the door and deportation after having received the hospitality of this country for so long is not a system that we should be proud of. In fact, it would be described by many as cruel and unusual treatment. It is therefore the case that the asylum system in this country must pass some key tests. It must be able to distinguish between those who are entitled and those who are not. After all, we have recent experience of those who are guilty of persecution in their own countries, changing their identity, losing their identity and attempting to hide as asylum seekers in this and other countries. We have a duty to root them out and make sure that they are not allowed to do that. We have a duty to ensure that those who seek asylum in this country are given our support while the decision is made. If the decision is made that they shall be entitled to refugee status here in Britain, they should be given the full support of our Government, our economy and our people. If, however, they are not, I think that they are entitled to a quick decision and a quick return from whence they came. I think that that is reasonable treatment. However, during the course of this debate, we have deteriorated into some of the usual mudslinging that goes on. Although it was contradictory, we heard Sandra White ask for us to foster a relationship of trust and respect, but we also heard comparisons drawn with Nazi Germany. At other times during the course of this debate, we saw opportunities taken to throw in the usual digs at the current Government. The suggestion that somehow the system of universal credit was disadvantaging asylum seekers is one that I suspect is well ahead of any evidence to support that conclusion. There has also been the usual attempt by many but especially the Government's back benchers to cast suspicions on the motives of anyone who questions or disagrees with the Scottish Government's position. We have also heard some concern about the press. Yes, there is a serious problem with the expression of opinion in relation to asylum seekers and other immigration in certain parts of the press. It is unfortunate that that action is taken as often as it is, but to suggest that the press are wrong and the Scottish National Party is right is to fail to understand the critical and desperately important balance that we must achieve in terms of asylum seekers. I support the amendment in the name of Jamie McGregor. In the week when we celebrate Refugee Week Scotland 2014 with its theme of welcome, I am pleased to have the opportunity to close on behalf of the Scottish Labour Party in this important debate. Labour acknowledges from the outset the positive contribution made by the Scottish Refugee Council to the lives of asylum seekers and refugees, as well as the important support afforded by local authorities and other third sector organisations to those who have fled violence and oppression. My party also recognises the significant work carried out in this policy area by Governments of all political complexions at Holyrood. The particular focus of today's debate is signalled in its title, the need to fashion the most humane system possible that has, of course, as its aim, the swift integration of refugees as productive members of our society. As colleagues are well aware, I am a native of the city of Glasgow and I am immensely privileged to represent the constituency of Maryhill and Springburn, where so many asylum seekers have lived and have settled. I am extremely proud of the fact that, at the turn of the last century, Glasgow City Council's Labour Administration took the decision to welcome asylum-seeker families and to offer them refuge in my home city. I am privileged to have been part of the Labour-led executive in the first two parliamentary diets that had, in co-operation with council colleagues, a good record in accommodating asylum seekers, assisting them in the process of integration, investing money in integration projects and language classes, and ensuring expert legal advice and representation was available to them. Again, practical measures such as the establishment of the Scottish Refugee Integration Forum, the introduction of measures to integrate asylum seekers' children into schools and the core funding of the Scottish Refugee Council are policy decisions in which I think that we can all take a measure of pride. I also readily acknowledge that the Scottish Government, since 2007, has followed the fundamentally progressive direction of travel. While I mention the Scottish Refugee Council, I want to put on record my regret that it no longer has the contract for offering advice to asylum seekers and refugees. I think that that is a retrograde step. It had a great deal of expertise and trust, which is fundamental in this whole debate, and I regret that very much. Just as I regret the decision to take the contract from Yw PEOPOL for accommodating many of those certainly within my constituency. As I have said, within my constituency, asylum seekers have played a very important role and are involved in much of the activity that goes on. I would single out particularly the Maryhill integration network, established in 2001 and led so abily by Rema Shirefi herself, once a refugee, and someone whose determination and compassion shine through. The amount of work that the network does is truly astounding, from gardening to dance and photography to food preparation, an organisation that is a joy to be involved with, and even more importantly, an organisation that makes a tremendous difference to the lives of all it touches, whether they are new Scots or old Scots. For those who have perhaps had to leave their families behind, it offers them a surrogate family with support, assistance and entertainment too. It is typical of the work done by so many other organisations too. However, none of us can be proud of the manner in which a number of families were forcibly evicted from their homes by immigration snatch Scots in the so-called Don Raids. That caused justifiable public revulsion and led to the then minister, Malcolm Chisholm, in a debate in September 2005, condemning the practice as absolutely appalling. My colleague Malcolm Chisholm was right to characterise that unacceptable practice in that way, and the protocol agreed in March 2006 between the then First Minister Jack McConnell and the UK Government showed the direction of travel that needed to be taken in this sensitive area where devolved and reserved responsibilities overlap and where constructive co-operation between Holyrood and Westminster is paramount. However, there still remains much to be done. I am happy to, Mr Robertson. I thank the member for taking the brief intervention. I welcome the whole process of asylum seekers being carried out in Glasgow for people in Scotland, rather than people having to go down to Croydon. It certainly would, and it was a source of great regret to many of us that no other local authority stepped up to the plate and offered to take part in that particular scheme, but perhaps if it were to be recreated, which unfortunately does not look lightly, others might join in. However, there still remains a great deal more to be done. For instance, as the minister himself said, we still have the unacceptable situation where asylum seekers who are awaiting a decision on their claim for asylum are deprived of the ability to work. There is no evidence to suggest that granting asylum seekers permission to work during that period leads to more asylum applications. Additionally, there is evidence to suggest that there is public support for allowing that to happen. In my view, it would surely better aid the smooth integration of those who are allowed to stay. I believe that there is an unanswerable case to be made in favour of such a development, particularly if you look at the skillsets of many of the refugees who come to our country. They could make a productive contribution, as they so desperately want to, to the country that they have come to be involved with. Intergovernmental co-operation must be the approach adopted if we are to be able to build, as the motion states, a more humane, fair and holistic system. I have to say that I thought that Margaret McCulloch was absolutely right to identify the kind of intrusive and appalling investigation of LGBT people coming to our country. It shows at best a lack of understanding, but perhaps at worst outright hostility to their concerns and their problems. I am very pleased that Labour is committed to treat immigration and asylum separately and is calling on the UK Government to remove refugees from the net migration target. I very much welcome the fact that a Labour Government would make that policy pledge a reality in parallel with its commitments to combat exploitation in the field of immigration policy, and I look forward to seeing that come to fruition. It would be remiss of me in a debate about asylum seekers and refugees, not to mention Syria at this time. Margaret McCulloch rightly identified that many other countries do much, much more than we do. Can she draw to her clothes, please? Thank you, Presiding Officer. Syria is a case in point. The Lebanon has seen a 25 per cent increase in its population because of asylum seekers from that country, and we could surely do more. Asylum seekers and refugees have proved themselves an asset, not a liability, and Scottish Labour believes with members across the chamber that they are our friends, not enemies. They are our brothers and our sisters, and they are welcome here. Many thanks. I now call on Minister Whom is at yourself to wind up the debate on behalf of the Government Minister. You have until five o'clock, please. I think that the tone of the debate from mostly across the chamber has been fantastic, has been exemplary, and there is exactly the type of debate and dignified tone that we would want in such an important area of concern. All of us have rightly started by saying how proud we are of Scotland's history of protecting those and giving sanctuary to those who have been seeking asylum from, as I said, even from the days back of the great hunger on Ireland right through to the modern day and age, and even to those difficult conflicts that are on-going, such as the one that Patricia Ferguson mentioned in relation to Syria. It is an issue that is close clearly to many member's hearts. It is one that is very close to my own heart. My mother came here as an Asian who was living in East Africa and Kenya at the time of the rise of nationalism and narrow ethnic nationalism through Idi Amin, through Uganda and through Kenya at the time of Joe McKinneyata, and she had to leave when she came here as many Asians from East Africa did, and so it is close to my heart, close to many other member's hearts, too. On some of the points that were raised during the debate, we cannot accept Jamie MacGregor's motion, because the system, and while it was inherited, was a bit of a shambles to be polite. The system is not becoming any more efficient, the Home Affairs Committee suggests that, up to 2011, there is still a backlog of 32,000 cases, and Jamie MacGregor's motion suggests that the system is becoming fairer. That is a point that I will also return to later on. I will also pay tribute to the many third sector organisations that all members of the chamber have mentioned. Scottish Refugee Council is again an exemplary organisation, but many others, too. Uniting Nations in Scotland is a new organisation, the International Women's Strategy Group, the Glasgow Girls, who have been mentioned, and Police Scotland, which Bob Dorris mentioned as well. Many of you may have seen the article featuring Police Officer Dario Dandrea, who got a well-deserved award yesterday at the launch of Refugee Council for the work that he has done. Many members here also mentioned the media and the role that the media plays in stigmatising refugees and stigmatising asylum seekers. I associate myself with all those remarks of those who reject such practices. We have to speak up about the good stories in our communities of the contribution that asylum seekers and refugees have made. I did an interview just a couple of days ago with STV on the positive impact of refugees and asylum seekers, so there are some good media and some bad. Politicians, too, have an important responsibility to ensure that the tone is dignified and responsible, but it is also positive—much like it has been today. That is a challenge to my colleagues, particularly those who have members of Parliament in the House of Commons. All of us need to speak positively and challenge those misconceptions. James Dornan said that, if all the asylum seekers in Scotland were put into the national stadium of his constituency, it would not even be 40 per cent full. If you put those who are claiming asylum currently in Hamden stadium, it would not even be a tenth full. Yet we have to be frank, as Graham Pearson rightly said in his contribution, that there are tensions in the doorstep. We knock enough doors to know that there are tensions. There is racism in Scotland, but that is not how you are away from that. I have been at the brunt end of it, as many others may well have been. However, I have to say that I am awfully proud of this country and for Scotland and for the Scottish people. Whenever there is one idiot or one bigot who says that this is not your home to an asylum seeker or to a refugee, there are 1,000 more who say that this is your home. We are very proud of that fact indeed. It is not a huge vote winner—we are absolutely correct to say that. Those proposals that we put forward in terms of asylum and refugees and how we would treat asylum seekers positively and humanely more compassionately are not a huge vote winner. People do not necessarily vote on Governments because they are progressive towards asylum seekers. We do it because we believe that it is the right thing to do. I am very proud of the proposals that I have in closing in the last five minutes that I have, that we have put forward in Scotland's future the white paper. I am very proud that we will separate asylum and immigration, something that has been welcomed from the Opposition, as well. I am very proud of the fact that we will say that housing should be provided by those who are either charity in the third sector or indeed by the local authorities. I must give credit to Glasgow City Council over the last 13 or 14 years of the work that they have done. Alison Kinnis said that we have responsibility for housing here that is devolved, but the problems that come with housing in the asylum system are because it is a private contractor—a circle that has them. That contractor does not belong to the Scottish Government to procure to tender, it belongs to the UK Government. There are some areas where we have responsibility, but, by and large, those are with the UK Government. We want to give asylum seekers the right to work. That will not encourage more economic migration. Asylum seekers could do that right now, what it will do is take asylum seekers out of the black market, but more than that it will allow them to humanise them and give them the dignity of work that they most certainly deserve. It will also tackle misconceptions that asylum seekers are scrounging off the system or taking our benefits when they are actually working and contributing towards our society. One of the proposals that I am especially proud of is that of ending Dawn Raids. The Glasgow girls who have been mentioned throughout the debate are the best of our country. Successive Governments have tried to end the practice of Dawn Raids. Jack McConnell was an example of that. I do not doubt, for a single minute, Jack McConnell's sincerity—I very much respect that sincerity—that he tried to end the practice of Dawn Raids. Surely that shows the absolute failure of devolution, that there you had a Labour First Minister appealing to a Labour UK Government and Labour Prime Minister to end Dawn Raids. Yet he was humiliated by somebody of his own party and sent back from London to Scotland saying that Dawn Raids will continue, regardless that shows an absolute failure of devolution, not a success of devolution. Closing down Dungevil is also one of the proudest proposals in the white paper that I am very proud of. I think that pride is shared by members of this part of the chamber. Alison McKinnon said that child detention should only be a last resort. In truth, I think that it should be no resort. I do not think that it should be the first or should be the last. I do not think that we can ever justify the detention of children who have committed no crime whatsoever. I will be very proud of that moment when we close down Dungevil. We have talked about the fact that this year's refugee week theme is welcome. I am very proud that that is the theme of welcoming, but I want to take issue with Jamie McGregor's motion when he talked about the system becoming fairer. I do not agree with that whatsoever. I do not think that you can say that the system is fairer when you have UK BA officers bursting down somebody's door at 4.30 in the morning in terms of a Dawn Raid. I do not think that you can say that the system is fairer when you have detained people in Dungevil or children down in Yarlswood. I do not think that you can say that the system is fairer when asylum seekers are left as destitute. I do not think that it can be said that it is fairer when they are given a plastic card, which is inhumane because they are not trusted with cash or with money. I do not think that it is fairer when you refuse asylum seekers the right to work. It will be with immense pleasure when we can treat and create a system. When we have the full powers of course of independence here in Scotland, we can create a compassionate and fairer system. Just to finally end on, many of us as MSPs have managed, through difficulty, to get a victory for those in the asylum-seeking community and get them the status that they rightly deserve. Often we get thanks for that, but I do not think that politicians often do what is right and we do not thank those who have come to make Scotland their new home. Let me take it here on behalf of the Scottish Government to thank every single refugee, thank them for the culture that they have brought to Scotland, for the art that they have brought to Scotland, for the music that they have brought to Scotland, thank them for the children who have helped to increase the educational attainment in their school, let me thank them if they are none the less for making Scotland your home. This is your home. You are the first and you are the last citizens of Scotland and you should be treated as equally as anybody else. Thank you very much. That concludes the debate on asylum seekers and refugees, the need to create a more humane system. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is decision time. There are five questions to be put as a result of today's business. The first question is that motion 10268, in the name of Kenneth Gibson, on a written agreement on the budget process, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. The next question is that motion 10312, in the name of Stuart Stevenson, on standing order rule changes, budget process be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed to. I wish to remind members that in relation to the debate on asylum seekers and refugees, if the amendment in the name of Jamie McGregor is agreed, the amendment in the name of Alison MacKinnis falls. The third question is that amendment 10347.1, in the name of Jamie McGregor, which seeks to amend motion 10347, in the name of Whomza Yousaf, on asylum seekers and refugees, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we will now move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now, please. The result of the vote in amendment 10347.1, in the name of Jamie McGregor, is yes, 13, no, 100. The amendment is therefore not agreed to. The next question is that amendment 10347.2, in the name of Alison MacKinnis, which seeks to amend motion 10347, in the name of Whomza Yousaf, on asylum seekers and refugees, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we will move to a vote. Members should cast their votes now, please. The result of the vote in amendment 10347.2, in the name of Alison MacKinnis, is yes, 50, no, 63. There were no abstentions and the amendment is therefore not agreed. The next question is that motion number 10347, in the name of Whomza Yousaf, on asylum seekers and refugees, be agreed to. Are we all agreed? We are not agreed, therefore there will be a vote. Please cast your votes now. The result of the vote on motion number 10347, in the name of Whomza Yousaf, is yes, 94, no, 55. There were 13 abstentions. The motion is therefore agreed. That concludes decision time, and we will now move on to members' business. I invite members who are leaving the chamber to do so quickly and quietly. Please.