 The next item of business today is the member's business debate on motion number 15116, in the name of Christian Arard on the impact of UK immigration bill on Scotland. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put. I invite those members who wish to take part in this debate. Please press the request to speak buttons now, or as soon as possible, and Mr Arard if you are I would be grateful if you would open the debate. I would further invite members who are leaving the Chamber to do so quickly and quietly, and also indeed members of the public, if they would be kind enough to also leave the Chamber quickly and quietly. Y Llywydd, mae Llyfrgell ddaeth ein gweithio. Felly, mae Llyfrgell yn cael eu cyflwyno ar gyfer y Cymru, a mae'r Llyfrgell yn ei gweithio. Mae'r Llyfrgell yn cael ei gweithio, ac yn cymhwyno gan wir i'r llunion i'r pasig o'r Llyfrgell yn y Llyfrgell. Mae'r casbyn cymaint oedd y cyffredin ateb yn cael ei wneud, ond mae'n gweithio ar gyfer y llunion cyfrifol. ar höfnir y rheswgfail cyllideb. Rhaid i'n gwrth o'r clywed o'r clywed o'r dismymu'r cysylltau. Ynch ros wrth gwrs, rhaid i'n dda i gyfnod am yr Ddeithasol a Pwylliau a duol, hynny arno'r gweithio cymdeithasol cwmysgol yn ôl o'r diffr Cotton sy'n ffordd iawn i'r shares ac yn gael ffaint achimdiad? Os i gydag yn y cyfle tannid sy'n gwneud y drefnid, will take us from the spirit and the letter of the Smith's commission report. I will tell you, Presiding Officer, back to the 1950s, there's changes on employment extending powers to immigration officers, along with the changes on housing and an asylum decision appeals, all reflect the intention of Westminster to further discriminate people like me, the people who choose to come to live here. The implementation of this bill will truly bring back institutionalized racism. When I first drafted this motion, I did think that the bill was in danger of driving people further into the hands of unscrupulous employers, risking deepening exploitation. Let me amend this part of the motion, Presiding Officer. I know the employers in the northeast and across Scotland, the number of unscrupulous employers will not increase. What will increase is the number of employers who will become reluctant to employ anyone who are appearing to be foreign, foreign, bringing institutionalized racism to the place of work. From the Law Society of Scotland briefing for this debate, and I'd like to thank them for the information, Clos9, offence of employing illegal worker. Clos9 appears to empower immigration officers to arrest persons we vote warrant, who are not subject to immigration control, and who may be British citizen, and they have reasonable grounds for suspecting they are committing the offence of employing illegal workers. I agree with the Law Society of Scotland and the Immigration Law Practitioners Association. Employers will be reluctant to employ anyone who does not own a British passport. A British passport, I can remind the chamber, can cost 70 to 50, to 85 pounds 50, and it can take up to six weeks to be delivered. So it will really make employers reluctant to employ all these people with or without British papers, and they will regard them as not looking or sounding British, or even having a British name. As for the new powers to allow immigration officers to search license premises, without any need for a subscription for an immigration offence is being committed, this is about license's law, a devolved matter. This Parliament, this Scottish Government and this Minister today have to be clear, the UK government must not be allowed to legislate in devolved matters without our consent. While this Parliament's equal opportunities committee is connecting an inquiry into race, ethnicity and employment, to see what measures can be taken to achieve positive outcomes in employment in today's 21st century Scotland. While we do this here, Westminster is attempting to take back all of the UK to the 1950s years of discrimination and institutionalised racism. Just like employers, landlords will be put in a very difficult position too when asked to do the work of immigration officers. Knowing that landlords can face fines of up to £3,000 if they fail to inspect tenants' passports and other identity documents to establish that we are not legally here, will only have one consequence, a consequence presenting officer that this bill will deter landlords to let accommodation to anyone happening to be foreign, bringing institutionalised racism to housing. The Scottish Government Minister for Housing said that this legislation risks driving vulnerable migrants to rent from landlords who are happy to flow the law. I think landlords and Scotland will just choose not to rent to anyone looking or sounding foreign. I agree with our Minister Margaret Burgess when she said private individuals or businesses should not take on the role of the Home Office and Border Agency. Let me quote as well Shelter Scotland on that matter, and I thank them for their support and briefing. We share the very serious concern of the Scottish Refugee Council they said and others about the legislative approach the UK Government are taking with the immigration bill. And what they say particularly is the concern of the implication for Scotland though on both tenancy and on homelessness. Shelter Scotland had it that they strongly believe lack of us by the Scottish Parliament should be accorded legislative consent and the time to scrutinise the aspects of this bill that relate to devolved powers. Consultation, committee scrutiny and a full debate with a vote at the end, nothing less presenting officer. On asylum decision appeals I am appalled presenting officer that when the rest of Europe is responding to the biggest refugee crisis since World War II, the UK government wants to remove in-country rights of appeal against Home Office immigration decision, which will result in more families being split up, hiding to the crisis instead of supporting the very desperate people reaching our shores. Last October, Stuart Macdonald MP, the shadow SMP Spokesperson and Immigration Asylum and Border Control described the bill as regressive, illiberal, ill-considered and inhumane. From another briefing presenting officer from the Scottish Refugee Council, removal of this right to appeal is simply egregious not only in terms of its ceiling impact on those affected but also in terms of facilitating state sanctioned destitution in rule of law terms as it extinguishes the right to effective remedies in article six of the European Convention of Human Rights. And the Scottish Refugee Control, I've got a lot of words about the bill. I have no time to use all this word but some of them are driven by ideology based on supposition lacking any credible evidence base but you can look at it. We are not the only one, a lot of organisations are pushing very, very hard against this bill. They added that it was a quote possibly a lawful in neglecting child welfare and removal of appeal rights against destitution. And of course they agree with all the other legal briefing we received for this debate. This bill is breaching our devolved settlement. To conclude, presenting officer, we have been asked today to unite, to unite and to stop any extension or application of this legislation to Scotland without the consent of this parliament. I am an immigrant, pride to be one of the many new Scots contributing to modern Scotland. Institutionalised racism to this country of ours cannot come back to us. Thank you very much. Now Colin Ken Macintosh will be followed by Jamie McGregor. Presiding Officer, can I begin by thanking Christian Allard for bringing forward today's debate? I would like to echo many of the sentiments that he has expressed this afternoon. The Conservative Government's proposed immigration bill is an important and unhelpfully controversial measure. I am pretty sure that the vast majority of MSPs in the Scottish parliament will have no hesitation in recording our opposition to this bill and certainly I would do similarly and pledge the opposition of my Labour colleagues at Westminster. In fact, I do not think that I could put it better than the forceful and powerful statement of concern issued today by a number of organisations and individuals, including the Scottish Refugee Council, Shelter and Homeless Action Scotland, in which they described provisions in the bill as self-defeating, deeply harmful and provisions that will facilitate great suffering on already vulnerable women, children and men. The bill will be damaging to our communities, damaging to immigrants themselves, damaging to the way in which we support children and families and damaging to those of us who want to live in an inclusive, tolerant and compassionate country. Those are the substantive reasons why we should resist the bill and we will be doing so both here and Westminster. However, I want to focus on the impact that the bill will have on several areas of devolved responsibility and yet the worrying lack of clarity around its scrutiny, accountability or governance arrangements. At the heart of my concerns is the proposal to effectively outsource the enforcement of immigration policy and to involve others, a series of private individuals from driving instructors and bank staff to landlords. As you might imagine, I believe that most public services are best delivered by public servants with the appropriate mechanisms in place for democratic accountability and scrutiny. In this case, looking at the proposals for landlords in particular, they place a duty on private citizens or private businesses, as well as local authorities and housing association landlords, to inspect citizenship and immigration documents for new tenants and require them to conduct checks on existing residents. Many of us as MSPs will have dealt with immigration cases and we know that the process is already a highly complicated and bureaucratically complex process and there must be a huge risk to all those involved in going down such a path, not least of which is the potential harm done to people already in a highly vulnerable situation. There are, I believe, around 380 families living here who would face an immediate challenge, but there are around 330,000 people living in private rented accommodation in Scotland who could also potentially be affected. The bill introduces a new right of eviction, not accessed or overseen by our courts in the Scottish legal system, but with authorities stemming directly from the Home Office. It is not just the confident sapping fact that around 30 per cent of Home Office decisions on asylum claims are overturned on appeal that worries me. It is the introduction of new procedures to our private rented sector just as we are debating this very afternoon how to make private tenure more stable and more secure. The regulations governing those procedures will be drawn up under what is often termed Henry VIII powers by the UK Government, in other words, wide-ranging executive powers, not subject to scrutiny by the Delegated Powers Committee or, for that matter, any other committee in this Parliament, powers that could include repealing existing provisions within acts of the Scottish Parliament. There is so much to worry about here and why the full impact of this lot needs to be examined in greater detail. We know that some migrants to this country are trafficked here and used for forced labour or even sexual exploitation. The bill could effectively give the traffickers more control over their victims through limiting their access to accommodation. The bill amends the already horrendously complex support regime for refused asylum-seeking families and children at its forecast to leave many parents and children destitute. Leaving aside our feelings on the matter at this abhorrent proposal, this is something that is incompatible with our duty on human rights and will therefore potentially leave the legislation open to challenge in the Scottish and UK courts. In fact, there is also every reason to expect landlords to respond to this bill by simply not taking on tenants from migrant populations. This would be hugely discriminatory against an already vulnerable group of people, which by itself, of course, would again leave the legislation open to challenge on grounds of its discriminatory impact. I want the bill to be withdrawn or defeated, but, at the very least, here in the Scottish Parliament, we need to ensure clarity and good governance. This is not the only bill where legislation that is reserved to Westminster overlaps with the responsibilities that are devolved to Hollywood. We need to establish sound procedures to scrutinise such measures and to ensure proper accountability. It may be that this duty has been carried out at Westminster, but if so, I would expect to hear the UK minister's justification why that is so and why there is no need for a legislative consent motion in this case. At the very least, I suggest that the Parliament refers this bill to the devolution further powers committee to investigate further, convened by my colleague Bruce Crawford across the earth. It would be very easy to simply rail against everything coming from Westminster and pretend that everyone in Scotland was liberally minded. I do not kid myself if that is the case, but we have a duty to make sure that we carry out our duties and responsibilities as a legislator properly. I am pleased to speak in today's debate, but members will not be surprised to hear that I simply do not recognise much of the characterisation of the UK Government's immigration bill as set out in Christian Allard motion and speech today. I respect the member, but I think that he is talking nonsense. The UK Government was elected with an overall majority in last year's general election on a very strong platform of reforming our immigration laws and putting right an immigration system that was left in chaos by the previous Government. It has a clear mandate for this legislation, which is part of its efforts to get a grip of the immigration system, something that has widespread public support across the UK, including Scotland. May I say also a great deal of support across the rest of Europe? The immigration bill has three clear aims—to tackle illegal working and labour market abuses, to ensure that only migrants who are lawfully present in the UK can access services such as the ability to drive on our roads and use UK bank accounts, and to make it easier to remove illegal migrants from the UK, and all of us surely would support these objectives. No, I won't. You've had your go. I won't, and I'm going to make some progress here. All of us will, I am confident, also agree that migrant workers are particularly vulnerable to labour market exploitation and may find themselves living and working in dangerous and degrading conditions, and we need to accept that labour market exploitation is an increasingly organised criminal activity which is fuelling illegal immigration. Government regulators that enforce workers' rights need reform and better co-ordination to tackle this problem. The creation of a new statutory director of labour market enforcement to provide a central hub of intelligence and facilitate the allocation of resources across the different regulators is therefore surely welcome. It has already been welcomed by Labour's Shadow Home Secretary and Andy Burnham MP. The bill also makes it easier to bring prosecutions against employers where they knowingly employ illegal workers and to enable the earnings of illegal workers to be seized under proceeds of crime legislation. PAs will also be granted to immigration officers to close business premises for up to 48 hours or even longer in certain cases where the employer has previously been given a civil penalty or has been prosecuted for employing illegal workers. Immigration officers and police will also have the power, a new power, to search for and seize UK driving licenses which are in the possession of a person who is not lawfully in the UK, and banks and building societies will have to perform periodic checks and notify the Home Office where a person disqualified from holding a current account by reason of their immigration status is identified. In terms of private rented accommodation, the bill creates four offences to target those rogue landlords and agents who deliberately and repeatedly fail to comply with the right to rent scheme or fail to evict individuals who they know or have reasonable cause to believe are disqualified from renting as a result of their immigration status. To conclude, Presiding Officer, I recognise that getting an immigration system that is fair, efficient, fit for purpose is a big challenge not just for the UK but for every Western democracy as we face severe international disputes which are pushing up migrant numbers and as we deal with organised crime and international human trafficking gangs. The immigration bill is part of the UK Government's work towards this and its proportionate and practical measures do have my support. I would urge the Scottish Government to continue to engage fully with the UK Government on this subject as many of the fundamental aims are shared by both Governments and by people across Scotland and the rest of the UK. I congratulate Christian Allard on securing this very important and also timely debate. Presiding Officer, I will probably reiterate what Christian Allard said when he mentioned the word appalling. When you look at what is happening in the world, I experience the refugee crisis of great magnitude, men, women and children fleeing violence, particularly in the Middle East, sub-Sahara and north Africa, risking their lives to escape war-torn countries. As we know very well and have seen unfortunate reports, we are dying in the process of getting out of these war-torn countries. Westminster Government's answer to this is to introduce the Immigration Act 2014 and legislation that will have a direct impact on Scotland's laws and powers of this Parliament. That is where I differ from. I will point that out shortly. The powers of this Parliament are very important to us and to Scotland, and in this particular aspect, to refugees and asylum seekers who come to Scotland, who are welcomed in Scotland to our country. If I can mention the Scottish Refugee Council, it says in its briefing, and I thank them very much for that. Legislation and the refugee crisis should be there to protect not harm migrants and refugees. I think that that says it all and certainly not what the Westminster Government has put forward. I want to, if Jamie McGregor will listen to this, Jamie McGregor mentioned the Westminster Government having a mandate. The Scottish Parliament has a mandate from the Scottish people, and the legislation that it has put down is absolutely going to be wiped out by the immigration bill that is coming from Westminster, which does not have a mandate in this Parliament and in this country, in particular the impact that the bill will have on licencing, housing, tenancy law, evictions and the safeguarding of the wellbeing of children, including those who are looked after. That is very important to us, and I am sure that it is to you as well, Jamie. It does not have a mandate to interfere in this legislative competence that we in the Scottish Parliament have. Another issue that I want to raise and have an experience of that particular issue is, as Christian Allard mentioned, the bill's removal of the first-tier appeal. Destitution is guaranteed by the bill's removal of the right appeal to the first-tier asylum support. Individuals and family children, as well, who have their support refuse, are discontinued at the Home Secretary's Deams. There is no barrier to returning them home. How many times have I heard that when I have been in a long-term appeals and helping to represent people? It really is a vital safeguard against extremely high levels of incorrect, and I have found that, as have others as well, incorrect Home Office decisions on asylum support. Two-thirds of appeals lodged at the tribunal's lease of support continuing or being reinstated. The reason that the appeal is lodged is that, half the time, they do not have the proper information to protect those asylum seekers. With the help of a good lawyer and the institutions and the groups that we work with—I can only speak for Glasgow, I am sure that it is throughout Scotland as well—we can put in that appeal. Have I got time, Presiding Officer? I thank the member for taking the intervention. I think that it might be worth it. I agree with all that she is saying. I wonder if, in some of the cases that you have dealt with, it is important to recognise that not always, in every instance, is it an immigrant, but often immigrants have married local people. We are in danger in this bill of asking somebody to make up their mind whether they are going to leave the country with their immigrant partner or break up a marriage and often a family. I am absolutely right. We have had experience of this. In one case in which we were represented, the person actually went to Ireland because he discovered that their maternal grandparent was Irish and they went over with their partner to be Irish. They were allowed to marry and become Irish citizens. That is the double law over there. I absolutely agree with you on that particular part of it. Many of the appeals that I have appeared at and represented—I must thank all the organisations, individuals and the lawyers, Fraser Latter's lawyer, in particular, who give a great deal of their time to represent the work that they do for those people. Many of them now work and live in Scotland. They have small businesses that work in the area and they are great citizens and a great asset to Scotland. They have not been lost or sent back. In many areas, they would probably have been dead by now if they had not fought that appeal. I am really concerned about that first stage appeal. In conclusion, I think that I saw last night when the TV and others might have seen it as well, the two young sitting girls in Clydebank who were skating along the corridor. Those scooters were denated by neighbours. They were so happy. I do not know if I have got this analogy correct, but I think that they said that Clydebank was paradise. I do not know if I go as far as saying that, but they certainly said that it was paradise. The one thing that you can see in their faces was sheer happiness and relief. They were here, they were safe and there was no more bombs dropping on them. Surely that is what you see here in Scotland, not this terrible bill. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. I would like to thank Christian Allard for bringing this matter for debate. The UK Government's immigration is a very problematic piece of legislation on many levels. One part, the right to rent scheme requires landlords to check immigration status documents. In addition, the bill gives landlords powers to evict tenants whose right to rent has expired without need to go for a court order. If extended to Scotland, this would undermine the current Scottish tenancy laws. At the moment, I believe that the implications for Scotland are unclear and the Scottish Government needs to get clarity in terms of the immigration bill. Landlords are not immigration officers. As for the UK immigration bill, the Conservative Government wants to make landlords and lighting agents to be administrators. That should be done by Home Office officials, but due to massive reduction in staff numbers, they want to shift the responsibility to somebody else. Landlords could face prison sentences if they get it wrong, and these people are no experts in immigration and should not be expected to carry out such responsibilities and be answerable to the Government legislation. Even if you pass the buck on checking people's immigration documents, you will still need staff to enforce the new laws. Without enforcement, passing laws is pretty pointless. In fact, bad legislation and poor enforcement can be more harmful than good. I have been asking for a sensible discussion about immigration for a long time now. There has been a lot of noise made about calls for fresh talent post study work visas to be brought back in order to supply support Scottish University sector to attract students from overseas. As I have said in this chamber before, the immigration system is not meant to only help one sector of the economy or one part of the country. We need an immigration system that will help us to manage skills shortages in the UK. Personally, I am in favour of the point-based system, where separate regions of a country can set their own parameters similar to Canada, for example. But, Presiding Officer, what is very clear is that whilst we are part of the UK and whilst the UK Government has the right to legislate for the UK, there are some powers that have been given to this Parliament and this Government, and the UK Government needs to respect that. The UK Government also needs to understand that there are local needs in terms of the student portfolio that I have already mentioned, that we desperately need support and help in that area, and the British Government has consistently denied us that opportunity. Perhaps they have done it because they feel that it needs to be done UK-wide, but nevertheless this is something that needs to be done. I think we have across the chamber support for that type of thinking, so this bill needs to be defeated, first of all, in the UK Parliament, I believe, but more importantly we also need to see how it implicates the Scottish legislation, and I am sure that the Scottish law system will advise the Government in how best to tackle that issue. Finally, Presiding Officer, what I will say is that no law is a good law which hurts the country's economy and it infringes on people's rights. We cannot expect unprofessionals, untrained people to do a professional job. We cannot expect households, managers, agents, carry out owners and restaurant owners to do the immigration job for them. I think it is very unreasonable and it is hurting a lot of people throughout the country. Thank you. I now move the closing speech from the minister. Are whoms are yous? I have seven minutes. Are there by please, minister? Thank you, Presiding Officer. I thank Christian Allard for this very important debate to the Scottish Parliament. Thank you to the chamber for some very thoughtful and very forceful and robust contributions as well. Before I go into the substance of the bill and where I think it touches upon areas that are devolved to the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Government, I want to just look at the bill as a whole for just a second and also make and reiterate the points that some of my colleagues have made. There seems to be by this UK Government, and I would say by successive UK Governments, but certainly by this current UK Government, an undue focus on irregular migration. The increased criminalisation of migrants completely ignores the contributions that migrants make to our economy, to our demography, to our society, to our communities and to our culture. I would use that word purposefully. There seems to be an obsession with immigrants by the current UK Government. Everything seems to be the fault of migration and sometimes immigrants can be too easy, a lightning rod to accuse for all the faults that we have in our society. The economic faults that we have because we have not been careful enough with the economy, let us blame the immigrants. Because we have not brought forward the correct housing legislation, let us blame it on immigrants, because perhaps the problems with education, with the health service, wherever it is, it seems to be, let us blame the immigrant for that. That is completely the incorrect approach to take. Of course, it ignores the important point that immigrants have made an incredible contribution to this country. A report by UCL showed that between 2001 and 2011 the contribution by EU migrants alone was £21 billion over that decade. The report is also showing that non-EU migrants have made a considerable economic contribution to this country over the years and over the decades. From the Scottish Government's perspective, we support a system of sensible, managed migration that meets Scotland's need for our economy and for our society. Alongside our efforts to create more jobs in Scotland and develop the skills of our workforce, we must be able to retain and attract world-class talent to filled vacancies that cannot be filled by resident workers. We are of the opinion in the Scottish Government. Yes, of course. I thank the minister very much for taking infusion. I appreciate Sandra White's point about the two girls on television last night, and I was delighted to see them calling Cloudbank Paradise. I would agree that, compared to what they had come from, it certainly is Paradise. I would also say that Kofi Annan was on the same television and praised the UK Government for taking refugees straight from the camps surrounding Syria and flying them to this country, rather than trying to stop them from crossing Europe and the dangerous Mediterranean, where 30,000 have been drowned over the last 15 years. Would he agree that that is a good thing? I have never disagreed with the UK Government on taking any number of refugees. Of course, they had to be grudgingly forced into that position to do it from the public pressure and pressure from other stakeholders to do so. I welcomed it when it came, but I think that it would be foolish to say that you can only take migrants or refugees from the refugee camps in the neighbouring Syria, and you can turn a blind eye to all those who are crossing over the Aegean Sea. Many of them are, of course, drowning. Many of them are losing family members on that and simply ignore the fact that refugees are coming to Europe and let's just leave Europe to deal with it. I think that we have a moral obligation, so I would disagree on that point. Back to the immigration bill at hand, many of the proposals that we believe, of course, touched upon and devolved responsibilities. The Scottish Government Minister, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, Alex Neil has written to the UK Government four times to seek clarification and put on record some of our concerns around the immigration, but I think that Ken Macintosh spoke very powerfully about the housing issue, as did many other members, and just to touch upon that, it would be of great concern to us that private landlords, citizens who own property, are effectively being used to plug the gaps of Government departments doing the job that Home Office officials should be doing. I note that not only will that have a direct impact on migrants who are here, many of them, of course, most of them, I should say, a vast majority of them who are here legally, but it will also have some effect on UK citizens as well. I have heard Labour MPs speak powerfully about that, and I have heard some third sector organisations speak about it, that even those who have what you might consider a foreign sounding name may well be discriminated against by landlords who may just think, well actually, I just don't want the half, so even though those people may well be UK citizens. In terms of our own concerns as a Scottish Government, we will continue to make those forcefully. We believe that anything that the UK Government does on the immigration bill should be with the consultation, not just of the Scottish Government, as important as that is, but also with Scottish stakeholders right across the board. In terms of asylum, many of my colleagues across the chamber spoke about the asylum. I noted Jamie McGregor's statement. He said that everybody wants an immigration system and an asylum system that is fair, and I would agree with that, of course we do, but I would say that the current asylum system is not fair. I would say that having pre-Don raids is not fair. I would say that the detention of not only adults but also of children down south is not fair. I would say that making asylum seekers, giving them a plastic card with £35 a week and dehumanising them in that regard, is not fair. I would say that not allowing asylum seekers the right to work is not fair. Therefore, I do not think that we have a fair system. If anything, the immigration bill will make the situation more difficult and will make it more unfair for asylum seekers. I do not think that the purpose of the bill is to improve the lives of immigrants. I do not see that as being the case. I agree with what Sandra White said and others have said about destitution. I think that the bill will make destitution more likely. I was at the Scottish refugee council AGM last week, along with Kezia Dugdale. Many of the third sector organisations spoke to me about what the Scottish Government can do to help those who will be made destitute because of the bill, and I gave an open commitment to meet them to discuss that. However, in conclusion, it is clear to me and it has been confirmed by members' contributions today that the immigration bill does not meet the needs of Scotland. There is nothing to protect vulnerable individuals who need that help. In fact, the bill will create a more hostile environment for the vulnerable and those without legal status. Many British citizens will be subject to the wide-ranging powers of the bill. We will continue to make the case to the United Kingdom Government that the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament must be consulted in many areas of devolved responsibilities. I thank the members for their insightful contributions today and assure them that the Scottish Government will continue to oppose the damaging measures in the bill.