 I ask those members who are leaving the chamber to please do so quickly and quietly. As we will now move on to the final item of business, which is a member's business debate on motion 10392, in the name of Kate Forbes, on rural visa pilot scheme. This debate will be concluded without any questions being put, and I would ask those members who would wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons, and I call on Kate Forbes to open the debate to Ms Forbes. Thank you, Presiding Officer. Well, it's a year to the day since the Scottish Government published a groundbreaking proposal for a pilot for a rural visa in Scotland. In that time, the need for the initiative has only increased, and yet the silence from the UK Government on the matter has been deafening. I asked Marie Gougeon this morning when she gave evidence to the Rural Economy Committee if she had her reply yet from the UK Government. She said that she hadn't. It's rare to find an issue that unites businesses across rural Scotland, unites political parties in the Parliament and unites organisations across the public, the private and the third sectors. The proposal for a rural visa pilot does exactly that. Such is the pressure on the labour market right now, and such are the stark warnings about rural depopulation. It's hardly a surprise that this proposal commands widespread support. This would allow for bespoke immigration, meeting the needs of particular sectors and geographies, enriching our communities and our society. It's modelled on the successful Canadian Atlantic immigration programme, which proves that it could work even in a devolved context and could be transformational for local economies. Despite that widespread support, despite the obvious benefits for rural Scotland and despite the comprehensive work that has gone on in developing the proposal, it hasn't progressed for only one reason, which is that the UK Government is blocking it. Today, I reissue the call to the UK Government to change their stance and think again. We need a rural visa pilot. Our businesses, our communities, our public sector services need a rural visa pilot. It's the only sensible solution, and yet what do we see, not least yesterday? We see the Tories pursue an increasingly damaging, ruthless, despicable immigration policy that pulls up the drawbridge and inflicts devastation on our rural communities. For rural Scotland, the imperative for a visa pilot is based on three reasons. One, we need immigration after decades of immigration. Two, the population forecast for rural Scotland is stark. Three, the impact will be deeply felt across all rural communities. Scotland is a country of immigrants, with a long history of people leaving our shores. That's perhaps most stark in rural areas. For decades and centuries, we've hemorrhaged people who sought new opportunities across the world, and that memory is in our national DNA. We, of all people, should have compassion for people who want to make Scotland their home and recognise the unique economic and social opportunities that it affords those of us here in Scotland already. So many businesses in Scotland have great ambitions and aspirations, yet they cite the lack of skilled staff as the primary reason why they don't grow and develop. Farms and fishing boats trying to meet the ever-growing demand for sustainably caught and grown food are unable to meet that demand for lack of people. At a time when costs are increasing, inflation has eaten into margins, the economy is stagnating. The last thing that organisations need is a staffing shortage. The magnitude of the impact is difficult to quantify, but just this week, the National Farmers Union of Scotland said that in 2022, as much as £60 million worth of food was wasted on farms because of labour shortages, especially impacting fruit and vegetable produce. 60 million pounds worth of food was wasted at a time when our children are hungry, our economy is stagnating and key sectors, such as agriculture, have so much to offer. When I talk about population, we need only to look at last week's initial findings from the census to see confirmation of research that we previously knew about from the Scottish Fiscal Commission on the National Records of Scotland. They demonstrated that rural Scotland is facing a sustained and substantial depopulation. The Western Isles, Argyll and Bute, Dumfries and Galloway, Shetland Islands, Angus, Murray, the Orkney Islands and the Highlands—all of them—could see depopulation declines of up to 16 per cent between 2018 and 2043. Those figures are, in stark contrast, to some of the growth that we see in urban areas demonstrating why that should initially be bespoke. Population decline is not just a question of numbers and percentages. It will directly increase poverty. It will shrink the economy and hamstring public services because of the rural population decreases and gets older, as forecasts suggest. There will be fewer workers in our NHS, in our care homes, in our grocery stores. There will be fewer children in our schools, enriching our communities. Our older people will struggle to get basic services. I come back to the fact that tonight we are not just complaining about the situation that our people face. We are proposing a workable, groundbreaking proposal that will reverse that depopulation and ensure that there is a viable future for rural Scotland. The proposal outlined by the Government, with support from Shetland Isles Council and the Scottish Rural Action, is a community-based approach. It allows rural communities to attract workers in line with their distinct needs. In agricultural areas, the demand might be farm workers. In urban centres, there might be more interests in attracting bespoke skills. Employers then advertise the vacancies within designated geographic areas and then assess prospective candidates before recommending those chosen candidates to the Home Office for final approval and security checks. Critically, and perhaps most interestingly, there would then be a package of support to allow newcomers to settle. As I now draw to a close, I hope that the Parliament can once again unite irrespective of party or constitutional lines or sectoral boundaries and call for the UK Government to grant this opportunity for rural Scotland to reverse the depopulation decline and ensure that there is a viable future that enriches our communities and ensures that our economy can grow. I begin by thanking Kate Forbes for bringing to the chamber a debate that has a striking relevance to my constituency. As she mentioned, the census figures show a population drop of 5.5 per cent for the Western Isles in the space of a decade. That is before we even consider the future figures that she was referring to. Those figures might be stark, but they are not surprising. We are now at a crossroads, the very existence of some communities as places where children grow up and where people work is now in question. If we take Harris as an example, last week saw the phenomenal and much-awaited launch of the Heroch, the first whisky from the Isle of Harris distillery. I want to say in passing that that work and vision that has gone into this island enterprise is now quite rightly being celebrated. Of course, all businesses need a workforce and nearly every business that I speak to locally is struggling to find staff. The local authority is having real difficulty providing care for elderly residents. Harris, whose population has halft since the 1960s, simply needs more people. As I mentioned in this chamber before, the on-going challenge across the Western Isles to the traditional concept of a house as a year-round dwelling place is a major part of that problem. There is no single answer, but with less than one birth for every two deaths in my constituency, there is no solution that does not involve bringing more people to live and work in the islands. To illustrate the scale of the challenge, the Outer Hebrides community planning partnership identified the need for inward migration of 1,000 working-age and childbearing families to keep the island's workforce anything like sustainable. In such a situation, we should not shy away from using every available avenue. Immigration has the power to keep public services, industries and communities sustainable. I can think of local businesses that successfully attracted workers from Eastern Europe. They put down routes, and their children, in many cases, have grown up speaking three languages. Since Brexit, the UK Government's approach to immigration is simply not working for Scotland and certainly not for rural Scotland. We know from the Migration Advisory Committee that rates of international inward migration to islands and remote rural areas are less than a fifth of what they are to our larger cities. A bespoke rural visa scheme to encourage inward migration to those areas is something that communities themselves are crying out for, and we know that that works successfully in other countries such as in Canada's Atlantic immigration programme. The proposal has been endorsed by Scotland's local authorities, business groups and this Parliament. It is a proposal that I remember putting to the UK Government when I was Europe minister. If the UK Government had any appreciation of Scotland's distinctive demographic needs at that time, it did a good job of being undemonstrative about it. Unfortunately, the powers do not lie with this Parliament, but with another one—one with an obsession with net migration and hostile rhetoric. However, if we are going to create a wealthier Scotland, a Scotland that can meet the needs of its industry and public services and properly tackle depopulation, we need a tailored migration system. Communities in the highlands and islands need one sooner rather than later, so I hope that all parties will either commit themselves to providing rural visas for Scotland or to devolving the necessary powers so that Scotland can provide them herself. I genuinely thank Kate Forbes for bringing this debate to the chamber. I know that we always say that, but I think that this is an extremely important debate to be had. I bring it under the auspices of a member's business because, hopefully, in a usually less heated forum, we can be open and have a pragmatic discussion around solutions to a rural economy issue that she quite rightly highlights needs a solution. However, I think that in Kate Forbes' motion she only focuses on a solution based around seasonal and migrant workers without delving into the more complex issues around the rural economy. Here is a fact, Deputy Presiding Officer. Last year, we had record migration into the United Kingdom. The question has to be, why can Scotland not attract its share of that inward migration? We need to create and invest... Of course, I will, yes. As far as I am aware, Scotland has the same percentages of inward migration generally as many other regions of the UK. Specifically, it is the south-east of England where a lot of immigration is concentrated. Is not the consideration for all of us how we have a less homogenous migration system that better serves all of the UK so that those who come to the UK can work and live in different parts of the UK more easily? It is about changing the system. I think that Ben Macpherson for his intervention. The whole ethos of this is how do we attract people to Scotland? Why are we not attracting these people to Scotland already? What I would say to Ben Macpherson and to Kate Forbes is that one of the biggest issues that we have is the migration from rural to urban. That, quite frankly, is due to a lack of infrastructure, be it that road or rail links. If you want an example of that, please have a look at the south-west of Scotland as an example. We have the A77, A75 connection to the busiest port in Scotland, which is Cairnryan, which connects up with central Scotland in the case of the A77 and routes to south and England in the case of the A75. I thank the member for giving way. I do not dispute the importance of infrastructure, although, as I have also mentioned, housing is something perhaps other or less key not always to engage with in some of the other parties. Is he not overlooking something major in one of the reasons why people were coming from many European countries to live in rural Scotland? That was because we used to have freedom of movement. If we are not going to have freedom of movement across Europe in the way that we did under the EU, we are going to have to create something else that works. There is currently nothing else that is attracting people from other European countries to live in rural Scotland in the way that they once did. I thank the member for the intervention. I have to say respectfully that I disagree, because what I agree with is that you are perhaps saying that we are not looking at the whole picture. It is a whole picture that we have to look at, and I feel that in Cape Forbes' motion it is very narrow. If I go into it, I think that there is no rail link into the ports, so it has to be served by those arterial roads that are completely inadequate for this type of heavy goods vehicles. Half of all goods going in and out of Ireland pass through Cairnryan. All the communities along those routes have to deal with convoys of 44-turn lorries throughout the day, and it is hardly appealing for country living. Laying on top of that, the lack of infrastructure investment in rural Scotland, the increasing issue with things like lack of childcare, adequate schooling, especially when it comes to that specialist learning. He has already mentioned affordable housing. Where are we going to house all those workers? We would have a look at things like HPMAs. How does that encourage the rural economy? The support for rural colleges into farming communities. Then there is a cost issue around food production and recognising the need for workers in food production. I wonder whether the Scottish Government in Cape Forbes has an answer to that comparative across the world. We import food into Scotland and into the UK. We also grow here. I noted that some fruit producers in Spain, for example, use migrational seasonal workers, pay them poorly, bust them in and house them in shanty towns. It may give us cheaper food, but is that definitely not the route that we would want to associate ourselves with? The only solution in that particular issue for me is to pay properly and accept that food will cost more if we are to support our local food producers and the rural economy. Finally, there is a moral issue here. Is it right that we suck workers, migrant workers, out of countries where they need them there as well? Before we get to this point of pushing our responsibility elsewhere, the Scottish Government needs to look at what its support for our rural communities is and the lack of support that has lasted in the past 16 years. It is complex the issue that we are trying to address here, and it is not just about migration from other countries. We will have to look at that in a much more pragmatic way if we are going to find a solution. I apologise to the chamber that I will need to leave early, and I thank you for agreeing to that. I thank Kate Forbes for raising the issue and bringing forward the motion for debate. I certainly signed that motion when I saw it, because it is not an issue that we can run away from. It is an issue that, as a Parliament, we must tackle. I think that we can all agree that post Brexit there is a very real issue with the shortage of workers across most parts of the Scottish economy. I want to be clear that both the UK and Scottish Governments have a responsibility to the people of Scotland to work together to find a way forward on immigration that works for Scotland. We know that other Governments and other parts of the world have been able to achieve that. I think that Canada has mentioned that there are other examples elsewhere, so it cannot be done. In the interests of transparency, we must also be clear that, even if we can achieve a specific tailored approach to migration policy for Scotland that addresses some of the restrictions within the current policy, on its own, that will not fix the problems of labour shortages and de-population. Writing in the report on Scotland's migrations, futures, challenges, opportunities, options healthier, Rolf and Sonder state that, despite its restrictions, the new system offers opportunities for Scottish migration and for our Scottish migration strategy. Scotland has been a shrinking population and sees migration as a means to ensure future stability and growth. It cannot wait until it has control over immigration policy to replace the restrictive points-based system, but there are ways in which the current immigration system can be used to help to ensure that Scotland can attract and retain the new citizens that it needs. Those could include encouraging EU migrants concentrated in lower-skilled work to stay in Scotland through opportunities to move into skilled roles, attracting skilled migrants to growth sectors, including by reducing the cost of migrants, by paying visa and health surcharge fees, building on the existing success and attracting students by raising awareness of the graduate visa, which gives permission to stay for at least two years, supporting progression so that graduate visa holders work at or progress to skilled levels so that they can score points required for a work visa. My point is that I believe that there are things that we can be doing now and we should not be doing those things simply sticking out for this one tool, which I accept we need, but that and itself will not solve all the problems. I would add to those actions addressing Scotland's housing shortage, which for me is the greatest problem leading to depopulation in much of rural Scotland. Add to that the lack of public infrastructure and public services and good-paid quality jobs. Is it any wonder that we have this problem? If we are to encourage more people to make Scotland our home, then we need to be able to offer them a home. Given the house and waiting lists across Scotland, we are not able right now to offer people born here a home. Never mind telling people to come here and make Scotland their home. That is the reality of the here and now. I would also say that migrant labour cannot be seen as cheap labour. I welcome that in the proposals set out by Scottish ministers it would be a requirement that all employers comply with the relevant employment legislation and the Scottish Government's fair work framework. In conclusion, if the current UK immigration policy is not delivered for Scotland, then the UK Government must listen and work with this Parliament and Government to find better ways forward. At the same time, there is much that we must address that sits within our powers and our remit within this Parliament, so it is not good enough to simply point the finger at Westminster when many of the solutions sit here with us in this Parliament and with the Scottish Government. Our rural communities recognise the need for migration to address the economic challenges that they face, but migration is much more than work. Research that was released earlier this month showed that 74 per cent of people in Scotland believe that diversity is good for Scotland, and 61 per cent believe that a mix of different people makes an area more enjoyable to live in. That makes the continued Westminster blocking of rural visa proposals put forward by the Scottish Government all the more frustrating. The positive contributions that migrant workers make to a local economy has been highlighted across the chamber tonight, but I want to speak about the advocacy and support that we must offer migrant workers. Workers who come to the UK on the current seasonal worker visa are almost all housed in employer-provided accommodation on farm sites in caravans or port of cabins. More than half of workers on a seasonal worker visa do not consider their accommodation to be clean and comfortable, and it can be expensive. Six workers sharing a caravan could collectively have £1,600 a month deducted from their wages to pay for the roof over their heads. If workers are to come to contribute to Scotland, we must treat them with dignity and respect. Far too often, their housing pay and conditions are overlooked. A review of regulations and powers carried out by the Worker Support Centre indicates how unclear it is where responsibility for this sits in legislation. David Neill, independent chief inspector of borders and immigration, stated that the Home Office has not demonstrated that it has the mechanisms or capabilities in place to assure itself that scheme operators are meeting compliance requirements. When serious concerns have been raised by workers themselves, it did not act promptly or seriously. That is damning criticism for an official report and further strengthening the Scottish Greens position that the Home Office is not fit for purpose and control of our immigration must be devolved to Scotland. Rural and island areas have been quick to recognise the positive impact and influx of young, often skilled and motivated families can have on their communities boosting school roles, establishing new businesses and filling staff shortages. Migrants also face specific challenges when settling in the countryside. They speak of loneliness and social isolation, poor and expensive rural public transport and a lack of community spaces to meet. Migrant workers must have access to effective worker voice under the Scottish Government's fair work commitments. We must provide suitable and flexible English as a second language provision with embedded support for building social relationships, learning about the local area and sharing customs and practices. Rural visas in the pilot scheme should set the language requirement at an appropriate level, recognising the views of groups such as the Shetland Fishermen's Association that hands-on skills and experience that are used for fishing and in other sectors farming or horticulture may be more important than advanced English. Rural Scotland urgently needs tailored migration solutions, but we must not forget that people who are at the heart of driving our rural economies. There is much more that the Government and sector can do to attract Scottish residents to seasonal farm worker roles and sectors in which many jobs are highly skilled and a core part of our green transition. In conclusion, wherever they come from, all workers should be confident that in Scotland they can expect fair pay, good housing and a warm welcome. I congratulate my colleague Kate Forbes on securing this important debate. Ms Forbes has outlined the issues really well in support of a rural visa pilot scheme for Scotland. As an MSP covering a vast rural area in the south-west of Scotland, I am acutely aware of the very real challenges that our agriculture sector faces when it comes to recruitment. Although those challenges are seen across many parts of Scotland, like the Highlands and Islands, as described by Kate Forbes, they are also seen in the south-west, and that is what I want to focus my contribution on. The Scottish Government is clear that inward migration enriches our society and migrants make a net contribution to our economy, our public services and our public finances. Scotland's demography, our region population and depopulation of some remote and rural areas means that inward migration is crucial to Scotland's future prosperity. Over the past decade, an estimated 45 per cent of migrants to Scotland from overseas have come from the EU. However, analysis has shown that there is a reduction of around 30 to 50 per cent in net overseas migration into Scotland as a result of ending the free movement of people. That is significant in the context of the latest national records of Scotland projections, published in January 2022, which shows that inward migration is the only factor that maintains Scotland's current population growth. The decline in EU labour is particularly acute in Scotland's agriculture sector, and it is important to say why that is concerning. It concerns me because our farmers producers are the ones who put the food on our table. They are the custodians of our land and they are the future of our food security. Indeed, agriculture is the linchpin of rural Scotland directly employing 65,000 people in agricultural production, while it is also indirectly supporting Scotland becoming a food and drink industry, which employs 360,000 people already. The Scottish will, but please be quick. I appreciate the member giving way to me, but would she recognise that one of the issues we have, as Arianne Burgess says, is that we have to pay people properly, we have to house people properly, we have to make sure that we have services. There is a cost associated with that that will inevitably have to be paid by the consumer and we have to accept that our food prices will have to go up if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. I realise that our food prices have gone up because of decisions made by Tory Governments, and I would like to respond by saying that, when he was the Home Secretary in 2019, he agreed with the recommendations of the Migration Advisory Committee in that we should have a rural pilot scheme in Scotland. I would like to respond to him by saying what is the reason for that dither and delay from the UK Government. What I would like to focus on is to make the point that what I hear from the South West Scotland dairy farmers is that dairy farming is not seasonal, it has all year-round working that is required, and South West Scotland has 48 per cent of Scotland's dairy herd. I have focused previously on encouraging our own young people to consider rural and agricultural careers. In fact, last week I was at the Royal Highland Education Trust event in Parliament, which is looking at supporting young people into agriculture, but we do require migrant workers and it is essential for farm operations, for the supply of dairy produce and for animal welfare. Many types of agricultural tasks do not have viable or in many cases affordable mechanical alternatives, and the availability and capability of local people is limited. I would like to reiterate that the UK Government needs to help to support Scotland with allowing the implementation of the rural pilot scheme so that we can have the workforce in Scotland so that we can encourage immigration to our area and support our own rural economies. I now call Ben Macpherson to be followed by Christine Grahame. I also pay tribute to my colleague Kate Forbes for her motion and for bringing this debate to the chamber. Some of you may be wondering why the constituency MSP for the most densely populated urban part of Scotland is speaking in a debate on a rural visa pilot scheme. However, the issues within Kate Forbes's motion and the issues more widely are something that I had the privilege of engaging in as a minister for some time, first of all working with Fiona Hyslop and then with Kate Forbes as Minister for Migration. What I think is really important about the motion that we are debating today, first of all, is that it is fact-based. Those are start warnings about the position that we are in just now. There are other facts that are important, many of which are in the population strategy of the Scottish Government, which is an extremely important document, arguably the most important document in terms of our collective concerns about the future of our country, because our people are what matter most. However, what is a fact is that Scotland has been, contrary to what has been said earlier, a very attractive place, both from the rest of the UK, where, as far as I am aware, net migration is still positive and international migrants. However, we have seen a dip since the Brexit scenario in recent years, and we face very, very real population challenges across Scotland, but particularly in rural Scotland, which are due to a number of factors. That is the position that we are in. When I was migration minister through the Brexit process, the situation that we find ourselves in now has been exacerbated by the pandemic, but it has also been predicted through various engagements. There was a collective concern, and that concern remains today, among all the different types of stakeholders across the business community, across the third sector and the public sector about the impact that a tightening of the immigration system as a result of Brexit would have. However, what I was keen to do and what we should be keen to do in this motion about proposing a rural visa pilot scheme is all about is looking for solutions. If we think back to February 2020, when the Scottish Government published its migration helping Scotland prosper paper, there was real determination across again the whole of Scotland with stakeholders to look for solutions and to work with the UK Government and to work collaboratively to achieve tailored policy for Scotland. When that paper and those proposals were compiled and analysed and then proposed, there was a focus to look at different options about what could be devolved, how it would work with the Home Office and what the practicalities would be, and there were a suite of proposals put on the table. Those were not just Scottish Government proposals, but they were backed by a huge amount of stakeholders with huge credibility here in Scotland. I thank Ben Macpherson for taking the intervention. I think that again trying to be pragmatic and trying to have a proper debate around this is about tailored solutions. Then what would you say to the parents in Dynlop who, 17 or 18 of them came to me and have now had to organise a meeting with the local council who are leaving Dynlop because there is no childcare? We have to widen this debate and understand exactly what is happening in the rural communities around services. Ben Macpherson. Considerations around the population strategy, which relates to the issue that Mr Whittle has raised, are absolutely important and we need to be focused on those challenges too, and the Government is. Immigration is not the panacea to our population challenge, but it is part of it. Everyone understands that, not everyone, but a huge amount of people and stakeholders understand that and have been put into those solutions. The rural visa pilot scheme is one of an important solution and proposal, but we should look again collectively at the wider considerations around how we could have a less homogenous immigration system in the UK and particularly what could be done using this institution to make a meaningful difference. We should build momentum from today on those matters again and be solution focused in how we apply ourselves. I was not going to speak in the debate, but I am here, so I will. Can I just say to Brian Whittle that, first of all, my understanding of the rural pilot scheme is that it is tailored. It is community employer third sector addressed because one size does not fit all across Scotland. I also say to Arianna Burgess that I quite agree with her that there is exploitation of some migrant workers without spilling the beans. I am already working on something within my constituency where I know that people are crowded in somewhere where their employer is also charging them at least for the rent, if not their board, so they are really trapped in it. They may not think they are, but from us, our perspective, they are. With your leave, I will move beyond the seasonal to the all-year-round impact of Brexit in my constituency. There are three sectors. There is a care sector, hospitality and commercial drivers, bus drivers and lorry drivers. There is no doubt that the care sector in the borders has been substantial. People left never to return. In rural areas, generally speaking, I cannot say all the time, but they are made welcome. They become part of the community. In hospitality, I say that it is even more so. I can again know hotels that I have known very well, where, quite frankly, they have cut their services because they do not have enough people to work there. Those were people who were skilled, but of course they are not on the shortage of skills list. The same happened with the bus services across the borders. They did not have enough drivers, so they lost services and timetables went all askew and you are going to intervene in me, Mr Whittle. I can tell you that you are an athlete because it is always as if you are at the starting block. You sort of have raised yourself. I will take you. Brian Whithle. Thank you very much, Christine Grahame, for that fulsome introduction. You are right that we have a shortage of HGV drivers, and a friend of mine, Hacksley, wins a hollage company. One of the things that he said was that there were a lot of Polish drivers, we brought a lot of Polish drivers across, but what has actually happened is that because there is a shortage of drivers in Poland now, they are paying them more locally in their own country now, so they are now struggling to bring them across, which means that we have to try and pay even more to bring them over here. It is the morality around that that worries me. Christine Grahame, I am so good to hear a Conservative wanting to give people decent pay. I wish you would move to have employment law here in Scotland if we could work together, Mr Whittle. It is a bit of both, but there is no doubt that there are people who left here because they could not return. It was exacerbated by Covid, and we have had people who used to work in this Parliament in hospitality from Poland, and they left and have not come back. Brexit had a big impact, and they were very skilled in hospitality. Finally, we go back to your commercial drivers. Yes, there was a big impact. It is easing off a little, but not enough. Finally, I want to say this about immigration. One of my sons has done the other thing in migrating to Canada, where he is very welcome, but we have lost a family. The good thing about migrants coming here is that they generally are young—they are not my age—they are young, they come here, they have the family. I do not think that that is what we have to rely on, but they help the demographics as well as contributing to the economy. It is a two-way migration. It is not just that we are receiving and we are losing at the same time, but Brexit had a substantial impact on the mobility of employment in this country, and it has hit those areas in particular, and that has not been sorted as of yet. Thank you very much for your tolerance, and thank you, Mr Whittle, for your interesting intervention. I always used to feel quite bad for the folk who had to follow Christine Grahame, but I will start by thanking my Highland colleague Kate Forbes for raising what is a very important issue today with a motion that I can wholeheartedly agree with. I warmly welcome the opportunity to once again state how the UK Government needs to do more to enable these vital sectors to be supported to thrive within our communities. The sustainability of rural and island communities is vital to Scotland's future. It is no coincidence that many of the speakers tonight represent parts or all of the Highlands and Islands region. We all want to see a Scotland in which everyone can play a full part in society with empowered communities able to shape their individual and collective futures. I was very surprised to hear that Brian Whittle does not feel able to be open and honest in normal parliamentary debate, but I am grateful for his bigger picture comment tonight, because it allows me to talk about one of my favourite areas of policy. I am genuinely excited by the engagement that we continue to carry out across Scotland as part of designing our forthcoming addressing depopulation action plan. We know that there is no quick fix for the challenges that lead to depopulation and that those challenges vary substantially from one area to another. That is why we have engaged with a wide range of local, regional and national stakeholders to ensure that the final plan will be place-based and best support communities to thrive. Over the summer, I have heard from the Western Isles about how Syrian refugees are learning Gaelic. I have heard from Inverness about how migrants are keeping businesses and schools going. Along with Emma Harper, I have heard in Dumfries about how business owners are begging for more migrants to come and work with them and from Bute about how experienced and knowledgeable matching within various resettlement schemes, including from Ukraine and Syria, have brought home caring, economically active and loved members of their communities. I am very grateful for the minister to give me a let me tell that. I will always tell the truth. Would she accept though that there is a lot of really good speeches in here today? I am just talking about we need to make sure that we people are recompensed properly. I think that we all recognise the importance of vulnerable migration, but in doing that we have to recognise or at least try and understand why we cannot get our own indigenous population to work in those areas as well. That is something that we need to really have a hone in on. As I said before, if we pay people properly, if we house them properly, if we give them proper services, there is a cost associated with that and that inevitably is going to have to be paid somewhere, whether we increase the put with the prices or whether the Government intervenes in that to make sure that the prices do not go up. I think that core to our approach is always fair work and a wellbeing economy. It goes back to what Christine Grahame was just saying. It is a give and take. We have a very large Scottish diaspora across the world and it is about sharing skills, sharing expertise and making sure that people who want to travel around and do seasonal work have the ability to do so. Those who want to come and live and work and contribute to Scotland can do that too long term. Of course, I have also heard from people about housing, transport and connectivity solutions that are driven by the community and supported by national government, and we are committed to supporting those locally tailored solutions across all policy areas. We cannot ignore the important role of migration. We have just seen with the publication of the early census data that Scotland is in a different position to other countries in the UK. We are looking at potential decrease in the next decade. All of Scotland's future population growth is projected to come from migration, so any reduction in migration impacts on the size of the working population. We need a solution that meets Scotland's needs and allows our communities and our economy to flourish. Recently, published research from Migration Policy Scotland has found positive public attitudes towards immigration. Nearly four in 10 people want immigration to be increased, and nearly six in 10 people see the impacts of immigration as positive at a national level. While there is negative attitude towards migration, it is our job as politicians and leaders to discuss those issues responsibly and to explain clearly why migration is necessary, positive and welcome—a good thing for communities and not to join the likes of the UK Government in making the dangerous and, frankly, disgusting comments that we have seen over the past few days about asylum seekers and refugees, which only seeks to create a hostile environment that impacts not only migrants but the wider LGBTQ community and people of colour. If we cannot agree on that, we should be able to agree that the current UK Government immigration policy does not reflect the needs of Scotland's communities, including those in rural and island areas, and the UK Government continues to blatantly ignore calls from businesses to open appropriate migration routes for vital workers to come to Scotland. The UK's immigration fees are some of the most expensive in the world. Scottish ministers have called several times for those to be reduced as they create an insurmountable barrier for both workers and employers. The position is simply not sustainable. We recognise the valuable contribution provided by Scotland's soft fruit and seasonal vegetable sectors, the challenges that they face and the importance of non-UK citizens to the economy. However, the food and drink sector in Scotland and across the UK has borne the brunt of significant shocks recently, including those from Brexit, which have disrupted supply chains, created new barriers to trade and helped to drive up food prices. Labour shortages have impacted on both sexual performance and the wider economy. The cabinet secretary has written repeatedly to the UK Government to urge it to provide more support to the sector and address those cumulative impacts. On the very important point that a few members raised about long-term integration, I will point out that our rural visa pilot proposal importantly includes a route towards long-term eventual settlement for migrants. That leads me to reflect a comment earlier from Kate Forbes that we are not just complaining. The Scottish Government is going above and beyond to try to help the UK Government to be a bit more sensible on that issue. It is one year to the day since the Scottish Government published its rural visa pilot proposal, gaining overwhelming majority support for it in the Scottish Parliament. Ben Macpherson was absolutely right that inward migration to Scotland is positive and broadly similar to other areas in the UK, with the south-east of England being an exception in drawing a higher level. That is why the Welsh Government and the UK Government's own independent migration advisory committee have voiced their support for our proposal. The MAC, in fact, stated that it is in the UK Government's interest to trial the scheme. They are not alone in that. Many partners, businesses and leaders, even those who are not typically known as friends of the Scottish Government, have backed our calls and been clear that a rural visa pilot holds the potential to support their local efforts and challenges. Despite that, and despite the cabinet secretary's letter a year ago, we are yet to see substantial engagement from the Home Office on this issue. Once again today, I urge the UK Government to engage meaningfully with us and agree to deliver a pilot scheme in collaboration with the Scottish Government, key local partners and communities. Let it run, properly evaluate it and we will see if the approach works for communities and their needs. However, regardless of whether the UK Government agrees to implement this proposal, we will continue to engage with a range of stakeholders both within Scotland and across the rest of the UK in order to build the case for and widen the coalition of support around a rural visa pilot.