 I remind members of the Covid-related measures that are in place and that face coverings should be worn when moving around the chamber and across the Holyrood campus. The next item of business is a debate on motion 2740 in the name of Kate Forbes on addressing the impact of Labour shortages on Scotland's economy. I would invite those members who wish to speak in this debate to please press the request to speak buttons now. I call on Kate Forbes' cabinet secretary to speak to and to move the motion. I am asking Parliament to agree to urgent and joint action to address the labour market challenges that we are facing as a result of Covid and Brexit. The Scottish Government has been actively working to resolve those challenges over a matter of months, but we need the help and support of this Parliament and of the UK Government. That is why I am calling on the Parliament to support the Government's work to protect the provision of services and the delivery of goods through our supply chains and calling on the UK Government to commit to establishing a joint task force on labour market shortages with the Scottish Government. We need action, we need engagement from the UK Government, we need a migration system that works for Scotland and yet it is clear that the UK immigration system is not meeting Scottish businesses and the wider Scottish economy's needs. Instead of engaging constructively with us on how to develop a system that works, we have had to make 19 requests before the immigration minister was even willing to attend a meeting. Immigration impacts on our economy, on our public services and on our communities and we need a commitment to genuine, on-going engagement and we need a migration policy that is tailored to Scotland's distinct needs. Employers across many sectors and regions of the economy are facing continued workforce challenges and I cannot imagine that there is a single MSP in this chamber who has not been confronted by those issues directly from businesses in their constituencies. I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving me in and while I quite agree that Brexit has had an impact on migration, does she not agree with me that in order to address these issues fully you have to look at the underlying issues which include workforce participation and long-term productivity, both of which are factors which predate Covid and predate Brexit? The member makes some really important points about the structural challenges but he cannot ignore the fact that those issues have come to a head in the last few months in particular and we have seen over the course of the last year probably in every part of the United Kingdom are significant challenge-facing businesses. Just before this debate I was meeting with the Scottish Tourism Alliance council members and they were citing data that pre-Omicron and probably after Omicron one of the biggest challenges they have is being able to recruit and being able to ensure that they can trade fully as a result of having a full workforce and I will, Presiding Officer, come on to specific sectoral examples. In the latest published data, which is, yes, I will— I am very grateful to the cabinet secretary for giving way. In November, Sebastian Bazin, who is the head of the Accor hotel group, was quoted in the French press as saying that the French hotel industry was on its knees due to staff shortages. Why does the Scottish Government persist in blaming these issues on Brexit when they are happening right across Europe and right across the western world? What I think is absolutely remarkable is that notwithstanding the fact that I accept that there are challenges across the world as a result of Covid, what I do not understand is why the Conservatives want to make it worse by removing freedom of movement and ensuring that the solutions to some of those problems are denied to Scottish businesses. That is the problem at the heart of the motion that we have today and this debate. In the latest published data, which is from November 2021, over one-third of Scottish businesses reported experience as shortage of workers. Candidates' supply for permanent jobs also reached an all-time low in the same month. Almost half of businesses in the accommodation and food sector reported difficulties filling vacancies during the period, as did more than half of construction, health and social care, transport and storage businesses. Instead of wishing away those figures and the acute impact on businesses, I come to the chamber today to try and find solutions, and one of those solutions is ensuring that we have freedom of movement and a migration system that works for Scottish businesses. While some of those issues are not new, they have been severely exacerbated over— Excuse me, cabinet secretary. I do not know if you wish to seek another intervention, rather than from a sedentary position intervening— I have not granted it. I would be up to the cabinet secretary, not me. Thank you. I will continue being two pages in and four minutes in. While some of those issues are not new, they have been severely exacerbated by the situation over the last year. Time and again, this Government has argued that Brexit would be a disruptive force to Scotland's society and economy. Two years on, that has clearly been the case, and there are very few who would argue that it has not been. The ending of freedom of movement has made it more difficult for those sectors who have traditionally relied on EU citizens. For many EU citizens, Brexit, together with the narrative from the UK Government, has changed their relationship with the UK. We want to support EU citizens and help them stay here, so we are providing information, advice and support through the Stay in Scotland campaign. However, EU citizens should never have been forced to apply to retain the rights that they already had. We have explored the option of providing physical proof of status for EU citizens, but it is not within devolved powers, so we will continue to press the UK Government to provide physical proof and to safeguard the rights of EU citizens. I would love to, so little progress in my speech that perhaps later on. While there remains a strong business demand for staff across the economy, businesses continue to suffer from a low number of applicants overall, and that has further exacerbated existing pressures around shortages of materials and workers and amplified mismatches between supply and demand caused by the pandemic. What are we doing about it? In June, the Minister for Justice, Transition and Employment at Fair Work, outlined how employers across a variety of sectors were struggling to recruit workers into business critical roles. At the time, employers in food and drink manufacturing reported an unprecedented drop in the availability of workers over the first six months of 2021. While a shortage of around 76,000 HGV drivers across the UK meant that many supermarkets were struggling to keep their shelves well stocked, many businesses in the accommodation and food sector also entered the busy holiday period without the number of staff that they needed to meet customer demand. One in five small businesses reported that they could close or have to radically change their business model due to the increased difficulty in recruiting EU workers at the time. We have been working with businesses over that time and employers to develop and implement metagation measures in response to those shortages. We have developed a working with business action plan that identifies new and existing actions that can be taken forward alongside business and partners such as skills agencies. The plan aims to mitigate the impact of those shortages and help to stimulate economic recovery through a range of employability, skills and sector-specific interventions. That approach aligns with the national strategy for economic transformation, which will set out the Government's plans for strengthening Scotland's economy through national and regional action over the next 10 years. We will work with business, education providers and enterprise and skills agencies to address sector-specific recruitment and retention challenges, including current and emerging skills and labour shortages. As part of those measures, the Government and Skills Development Scotland are working with a range of sectors to support future workforce planning. Skills Development Scotland is working in conjunction with appointed childcare training providers to develop and deliver a taster programme in childcare for those over 25 who have been made redundant or faced the risk of redundancy and for returners to the labour market. That enables those individuals to apply for entry-level positions in the childcare sector while addressing the retention and recruitment challenges in which private and third sector providers are facing. SDS is also working with Quality Meet Scotland on a project to encourage young people into the sector. The project aims to future-proof the red meat industry by ensuring that there is a pipeline of employees who have the skills and the knowledge to provide a workforce for the industry. To pick on another sector, through our manufacturing recovery plan, we are working in collaboration with the industry, academia, business organisations and trade unions to deliver a set of targeted actions against four key priorities, one of those being skills and workforce. The national transition training funding of £1.98 million for the national manufacturing institute Scotland also directly supports that priority. That is in addition to the earlier establishment of the Manufacturing Skills Academy as a key element of our £75 million investment in the institute. We recognise how vital the manufacturing sector is, as well as the childcare sector and the red meat industry, how vital they all are to Scotland's recovery and just transition, and we look forward to the opening of the institute's headquarters in the autumn. We need to identify how to support people into key jobs. We are committed to supporting young people from all backgrounds into the labour market to ensure that they have the right skills to succeed. The construction recovery plan recognises that a particular focus is needed on the younger workforce and on getting apprentices back into work and learning. Our work to align the young person's guarantee with sector and employer needs will also open the door to more career opportunities for young people, including in sectors with current or emerging shortages. Through the summer marketing campaign, we have highlighted the diverse job opportunities that are available within the tourism sector, promoting tourism as a career of choice for young people and attracting new talent. We have also mirrored that approach with our recent national marketing campaign. There is more to care than caring, which ran from mid-November to December and showed the benefits of a career in adult social care to a younger audience. I touch on the examples in specific sectors of the importance of understanding the particular issues that they face and putting in place tangible and meaningful interventions that try to help to resolve the issue. Staff shortages pose significant challenges to businesses, requiring them to become competitive in their offer to employees. Also, by adopting fair work principles and investing in upskilling and training, employers are developing a more sustainable and more competitive approach to recruiting and retaining workers. The Scottish Government is supporting those very employers to create fairer workplaces and promoting a sectoral approach through the fair work conventions inquiries into social care and construction and the planned inquiry into hospitality. Fair work will be central to our national strategy. Despite all that work—I wanted to start by outlining all the work that we are doing to tackle skills and labour shortages—many businesses and employers are still struggling due to the reduction in freedom of movement and the impact on labour mobility, supply and pandemic-related disruption. The emergence of Omicron has also brought further challenges and insecurity for many industries, exacerbating existing staff shortages. Although staff shortages and recruitment challenges are being recorded across all sectors, it is particularly pronounced in certain industries and sectors. Cabinet Secretary, could you bring your remarks? I will bring that to a close. As I draw this debate to a close, the call, as I said at the outset, is to work across Parliament and hopefully across Governments to try and bring a meaningful resolution to the challenges that businesses face. As we emerge from Covid and as we move into living with Covid, the issue of staff shortages will still be an issue that we need to resolve. Cabinet Secretary, could you move the motion, please? Motion is my name. Thank you very much. I now call on Liz Smith to speak to and to move amendment 2740.1. Up to seven minutes, please, Liz Smith. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. May I move the amendment in my name? Can I acknowledge at the start of this debate that Brexit has undoubtedly been responsible for some of the current issues in the labour market? Some of them are serious. I do not think that anyone should try to deny that or make light of the problems that have been encountered. We all have constituents in rural and farming communities who have been expressing very grave concerns about key aspects of that, including the shortages of migrant labour. I particularly cite fruit and vegetable and berry picking in my own regional area as examples. Those people are absolutely right to state those concerns. However, if you looked at the motion and listened to the SNP over many debates in that place, you would think that Brexit is responsible for all the labour market issues, and that is simply untrue. Indeed, my colleague Murdo Fraser, I think, was asking the cabinet secretary about the French situation, because clearly that is not something that is a Brexit issue. Indeed—I will not just say if you do not mind—I think that there is plenty evidence to demonstrate that several of the current problems existed long before Brexit, long before Covid, because one needs to take a cursory look at the evidence that is supplied to the finance committee of this Parliament, from bodies such as the Scottish Fiscal Commission, mentioned by the Labour motion amendment, or the Fraser of Allander Institute, to recognise that there are far more, much more deep-seated problems at stake here. Let me outline just some of them. First, there are inherent structural weaknesses in the Scottish labour market, which have created skills shortages and insecure employment in some key sectors, and which, together with a higher-than-average ageing population, are creating very serious challenges, impacting on the potential for stronger economic growth and long-term investment. Those are not issues that have been created by Brexit but by SNP ministers refusing sometimes to listen to the business community and failing to put in place policies that will address those problems. I know that some of my colleagues will talk more about the detail of those failures, for example, to close the skills gap, to widen the apprenticeship opportunities, to help employers to both upskill and reskill in the workforce, but we know that Scotland is currently—yes, I will. Richard Lochhead. Will the member acknowledge that some of the deep-seated problems and structural problems in Scotland faces are the responsibility of previous Conservative Governments who have left us with intergenerational challenges in our communities? That is why we are in part of this position today. Liz Smith, if the minister cares to look at what the Scottish Fiscal Commission is saying, he will say that the greatest concern is the long-term skills gap in IT and technology companies. The Chambers of Commerce, who I think, if I'm right in saying, it was 47 per cent of employers in Scotland are saying that there is a lack of suitable talent for their businesses, which obviously has detrimental growth. That is not something that is to do with the UK. Secondly, there are serious productivity issues. If we track back to 2007, we can see that we have consistently been lagging behind other OECD nations, despite the SNP's bold pledges that it would get Scotland into the top quartile when it came to productivity. 16 out of 37 is hardly that, and we remain below the median for the OECD and for the rest of the UK. Again, that has serious implications for growth. Witnesses at the committee have flagged up that, although we have the potential to improve productivity and we do, including a generally well-educated labour force, there has neither been the right approach to innovation from the SNP Government nor the assistance that is required by employers who want to improve their business structures. I think that the Scottish Government, or perhaps more accurately its coalition partners, the Greens, should be very careful about what they say in this debate. After all, their approach to oil and gas is hardly what is helping matters when it comes to labour market issues, and I believe deep down that many of them know that. Then there is the demographic issue. Both the Scottish Fiscal Commission and the Fraser of Allander Institute demonstrate that Scotland has a population that is aging more quickly than in other parts of the UK and in EU nations with the result that there are higher rates of economic activity, as well as a greater burden for social security on taxpayers. The really big issue that results from that is the weakness in the Scottish tax take. We know that the net effect of the current tax revenue is negative to the tune of £190 million, but we also know much more worryingly that the prediction for 2026-2027 could rise to £417 million. That has worrying signs about tax elasticity as well. The decline in the percentage share of the working population and the total population is a serious issue, because the devolved tax take in Scotland, as a proportion of the total tax take, is declining, which is, together with predicted problems in social security—that spending has to increase—that paints a very unhappy long-term outlook. Brexit is by no means the root cause of that. Of course, if Brexit was the main cause of the problem, it would not be the case that those nations still inside the EU are experiencing the same shortage problems as we are, but they are. Indeed, most developed nations are experiencing labour market shortages of various sorts, for example—yes, of course. I am very grateful to Liz Smith for giving way. In some ways, I agree with the point that she just made, but would she not accept that, although Brexit may not be the whole reason, it certainly exacerbates every single one of the reasons that she has just set out in her speech? Liz Smith, if the member listened to the start of my speech, I said exactly that, that I recognise that Brexit is part of the problem. However, what I am saying very clearly is that it is not something that can be related to Scotland or the UK only. There are other countries within the EU who are having exactly the same problems as we are, so that they cannot be a Brexit problem. That is the whole point about that, that we cannot just blame it on Brexit when, clearly, people who are still inside the EU are having exactly the same problems. My colleagues will set out some of the things that we can do about this—the things that we ought to be putting in place in terms of a policy commitment. However, I will come back to this point and I will finish on that point. There are long-term structural issues within the Scottish economy that are predating Brexit and Covid many years ago, and therefore they cannot be held responsible just because of Brexit or Covid. That is a very serious message that is coming from every single economic forecaster that you care to listen to, and I think that the cabinet secretary needs to listen to them. Thank you. I now call on Paul Sweeney to speak to and move amendment 2740.2, up to six minutes please, Mr Sweeney. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer, and it's a pleasure to open today's debate for the Labour Party and to move the amendment in my name. It's impossible not to see the impact that Labour shortages have had on the Scottish economy. I think that that was clear from the cabinet secretary's speech. We see it in our supermarkets at the petrol pumps and many other scenarios that we encounter on a daily basis. I would like to start on that point of consensus. The Scottish Government refers to the impact of exiting the EU on labour supplies and calls on the UK Government to scrap their damaging migration policies. Will I wholeheartedly agree? Brexit is a causal factor of the labour shortages that we are experiencing, and they will undoubtedly be exacerbated by the, frankly, risible and harmful attitude to immigration that dominates Tory thinking. I thought that it was telling from the Conservative spokesperson that, despite the conciliatory language, the Conservative Party has still removed any mention of Brexit from its amendment to the motion, which I find troubling given that it has just admitted the fact that that is a major issue that we have to contend with. While it is undoubtedly a crucial factor, it is not the only reason in that much, I do agree. The pandemic itself has exposed the underlying vulnerability and fragility of the Scottish economy. While the pandemic may have exposed those fragilities, they are in part caused by an underlying lack of an industrial strategy, one that underpins upskilling, increases productivity and makes strategic public investments. It is also just not credible for the Scottish Government to blame this challenge on Brexit entirely. For 15 years, the Scottish Government has been in power and for 15 years we have had a slow erosion of Scottish economic sovereignty. Domestic ownership of industry has steadily decreased. Low business start-up rates, predatory foreign investment dramatically increasing at the expense of public investment and a complete overalions on imported labour that is largely low-skilled and unionised, thus generally exerting further downward pressure on wages. We have had warnings from the Scottish Fiscal Commission illustrating the scale of the challenge that faces the Scottish economy as a result of the pandemic. As a country, we have lagged behind the rest of the UK on pay, EYE employment and pay growth, labour market participation and employment has been growing more slowly in Scotland than the rest of the UK. In Scotland, the number of employees per head of population has grown by just 0.6 per cent compared to 2.3 per cent in the rest of the UK. I know that some of my colleagues will elaborate on other challenges that face the Scottish economy, particularly in relation to productivity and inequalities that are observable across many sectors of industry. I would like to focus on the scale that I have to give way. Richard Lochhead I thank the member for giving way. I think that many people in the chamber across all parties would agree with many of the symptoms that you have diagnosed with the Scottish economy over past decades. We will accept that many of the employment leavers and economic leavers are not within the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament. Therefore, we should try to get them transferred to Holyrood so that we can do something about the challenges that they outlined. I would like to focus on what is in the grasp of this Parliament to achieve, and that is what my focus in the speech will be. I want to focus particularly on my speech on the skills gap. I am sure that we can meet some degree of consensus on that. During the past 15 years of this Government, there has been a steady decline in Scottish employees receiving job-related training and persistent sector-specific skills gaps that have become increasingly prevalent, and some of them were referred to in previous speeches. It is not just my partisan assertion here. The Scottish Government's own advisory group on economic recovery stated in June 2020 that there are persistent skills shortages sitting alongside graduate underemployment. It is hardly surprising that upskilling and skills development has fallen by the wayside under this Government. Just before Christmas, the budget revealed further cuts to Skills Development Scotland, more than £5 million cut from its overall budget, £10 million cut from the employability and skills budget, and a real-terms cut to the education and skills budget. We have seen similar financial pressure faced by our colleges, which should be the engine room of resilient, adaptable, high-skilled workforce. I was speaking to Glasgow Kelvin College about that only yesterday, and it is concerned that new skills training funding is tied up in bureaucratic red tape and unable to be drawn down to meet the day-to-day challenges that they face, such as redesigning their provision to provide tailored training for local businesses and industries and to get people into the workforce when reskilled. They are finding it very difficult to keep people in training programmes because of the domestic pressures that they are facing due to lockdown restrictions. In my view, it is quite straightforward. You do not build a motivated, skilled, productive workforce on the cheap, you do not build a flourishing industry through neglect and you do not build resilient economic growth through complacence. Deputy Presiding Officer, our amendment today attempts to address some of those issues. It urges the Scottish Government to provide a robust industrial strategy fit for the 21st century, something that I have personally been advocating for for nearly a decade. It recognises the need to address the gross inequalities that we see arising as a result of low pay and poor conditions, and a failure to fully utilise fair work practices that are entirely within the remit of the Scottish Government. Finally, it urges the Government to fundamentally reconsider its relationship with employers, business organisations, trade unions, colleges and universities. For far too long, we have been content with our public sector and its development agencies being passive and investing public money as a last resort. I know because I worked for Scottish Enterprise for two years, I have seen it personally and I have seen the weaknesses that that organisation has, despite the great people working for it. It has resulted in numerous failed industrial interventions, such as Ferguson Marine and Port Glasgow, the Cali Railway Works in Springburn and, most recently, Creswick Airport. Why is it that we are hesitant to use the power of the state to improve the lives of people across our country and to bolster our economy? We need a shift towards a far more entrepreneurial state that takes proactive investments, which sees that investment as an opportunity to improve people's quality of life and to further their potential to seed economic sovereignty in Scotland. I urge colleagues across the chamber to support our amendment today. It refocuses our efforts collectively on addressing that skills gap, increasing productivity and to focus our fundamental and singular economic priority on investment-led growth. I apologise. I now call Willie Rennie, who is joining us remotely, up to four minutes. Even as a bit of a Eurofanetic fanatic, I accept that the workforce shortages are not just about Brexit. I think that the Conservative Government would do well to listen to the more balanced approach of Liz Smith today, because Brexit certainly has made this situation worse. To the SNP, do not hide behind Brexit or the pandemic, as the deep-rooted problems have been mounting for years. Let me first focus on the issue of immigration policy, which I believe is stocking industries recovering from the pandemic. It is plain and simple. It deprived British businesses of the workforce that they need to rebuild the economy, the worry drivers to supplier, stocks and supermarkets, the workers for their care homes, farms and the hospitality sector. Take my favourite subject, the very fields of faith. The new growing techniques demand more workers for longer periods. The sector has tried to recruit locally, but there are just not enough people locally to recruit. For them, we need a bigger seasonal workers scheme that works. That is not just about the farms, if you look at companies such as Kettle Produce, who supply the supermarkets right across the country. The seasonal workers scheme needs to be extended to cover them as well. The hit on the fruit and veg sector in faith alone stretches to millions of pounds per year alone. The rotting berries and the veg left in the fields this year are unlikely to be repeated next year, because the farmers are just not going to invest in the crop unless they can be guaranteed that they have the workforce and they have not been. The pleas for a bigger seasonal workers scheme have been ignored by the UK Government. To limit it to 30,000 visas, half of what is required is bad enough, but for it to be tapered down from next year is utterly reckless. The Conservative Government should just be honest with businesses, being honest that they are prepared to accept casualties, business failures and for Scotland to produce and process less of its own food. They should be honest that they do not care about food security any more, but the sleek way that they are going about this shows that Conservatives are obsessed with immigration policy rather than standing up for the economy and businesses. On a wider basis, we need to get rid of the arbitrary salary threshold of £25,000, which does not recognise unskilled workers. As key workers, they should be valued. We also need to have the youth mobility scheme extended to EU citizens, a 12-month visa for the food and drink supply chain, and we must allow workers to recruit the employers and workers that they need in order to get us out of this crisis. It is positive that care workers are to be added to the Home Offices shortage occupation list, but that is too late and too timid. The Conservative Government needs to think again and offer a three-year visa for carers with immediate effect, but the Scottish Government also bears some responsibility for our current predicament in social care. Those are the problems that have been brewing for years well before Brexit, and it is in large part because the SNP Government will not fund social care sufficiently so that it can give decent wages for carers. The social care sector is on its knees. People are waiting in hospital at home without the care packages that they need. The reason for that is pure and simple. The SNP has been taking carers for granted for far too long. The Scottish Fiscal Commission has found that Scotland's economy is lagging behind the rest of the UK because of declining labour market participation, weak investment in productivity and insufficient flexibility in skills development. Those have been long-running issues, evident well before the pandemic and, of course, well before the break. It is right that we need an industrial strategy. Let's see future inequalities, low pay, poor conditions and the skills gap. That is why we are going to support cancer, because it takes out any reference to Brexit. Mr Rennie, could you bring your remarks to the closing piece? Yes, because we are also struggling to... Mr Rennie, the sound system is breaking down, so really, if you could conclude... Mr Rennie, I am afraid that we are going to have to stop you there. I apologise also because there is something going wrong with the sound system, which was present to an extent during the rest of your remarks, but, fortunately, we managed to get most of your contribution. I now move to the open debate. Before I do so, could I remind all members who wish to speak in the debate to please press the request to speak buttons and the person I am looking at is not looking at me? I now call Michelle Thomson, who is joining us remotely. Up to four minutes, please, Ms Thomson. Thank you, Presiding Officer. I will watch with interest today how the opposition parties, despite their softer stance today, vote on this motion, focusing on Scottish business, their employees, growing the jobs market and developing the wider economy. I have got some sympathy with the calls for an industrial strategy from the Labour Party in Scotland, but I look forward with interest to hearing how they will protect economic development in the light of the threats posed by the internal market act and the subsidy control bill and where their answer is always Westminster knows best. As for the Tory amendment, despite the undoubtedly well-intentioned acknowledgement from Liz Smith, it fundamentally seeks to remove the wording regarding the impact of Brexit on Scottish business and ignores the problems created by Tory policies on immigration. Can I gently warn them? The Scottish Tories will not be forgiven for sitting supine and soporific in allowing the charlatan that is their leader Boris Johnston to inflict this damage. There are two main areas today that I will focus on. The first is international competitiveness. I want Scotland to be a leading international player in a number of areas, and particularly those that support our net zero ambitions, such as developing the hydrogen economy. We want to be at the top of the food chain in selected emerging technologies with a higher wage, higher skilled economy than at the present time. I welcome the Scottish Government's commitment to invest in the additional £500 million over this parlant for new good green jobs. However, the consequences of Brexit and particularly the deliberate choice of the UK Government in restricting access to labour from Europe presents a severe threat to many businesses, not least, as mentioned by others, hospitality, construction and tourism, including those that export and those in new technologies. Surely, all cross-party MSPs can add their voice to the multiple organisations such as the FSB, COSLA, Royal Society of Edinburgh and so on that support the call from the Scottish Government for a new temporary worker roots. Brexit harms our productivity, and we can all agree that both Scottish and UK productivity needs to be better. Critically, Brexit reduces the available working age labour market pool precisely at a time of emerging skills gaps. If we are to be internationally competitive, we need to be able to attract the highly skilled to Scotland as well as train our own population to the highs of standards. My second area of concern relates to how best to serve our international class businesses across a variety of sectors. In my constituency of Falka East, businesses such as Piramala and Fujifilm are reliant on access to high-quality skills development for their staff to ensure that they maintain their competitive edge and can continually improve their productivity. I have previously spoken of the need to pursue excellence. As called for by the likes of the Cumberford little report, it is authored at the behest of the Scottish Government by the principles of Edinburgh and Glasgow city colleges and supported widely across the college sector. It invites us to move beyond competence and drive up standards in pursuit of excellence. They are not alone. The Scottish director of world skills has made similar calls and their calls we need to heed to ensure that our businesses and their employees have access to the skills needed to remain internationally competitive. In closing, I fully support the actions of the Scottish Government and I hope that they agree with me that combined action to mitigate the damage that is being done by Brexit is clear and to strive for excellence in skills are part of the way forward for Scotland. Let me start by agreeing with the cabinet secretary that the issue of labour shortages in key sectors of our economy is a serious one. It deserves a proper debate, but it is disappointing, although perhaps not unsurprising, that despite five and a half years passing since the Brexit vote, the SNP continued to pin most of the blame on Brexit rather than acknowledge their own failings on this issue and the fact that labour shortages are a global problem. We may be in a new year and looking to the future, but it is clear that the SNP are looking to the past and focusing on old grievances. As Liz Smith and others have pointed out in their remarks, this is a complex issue and one that is multifactorial. It cannot be attributed to one reason alone. That is not to say that Brexit has not played some part. Yes, it has. However, I made this point in debates in the past. Labour shortages across various sectors existed long before Brexit. This morning, I spoke to workers in the maritime sector who were talking about recruitment and retention. No mention of Brexit at all. It is undoubtedly true that the pandemic has played a major role in exacerbating the problem. That is on top of the many pre-existing issues that have resulted in labour shortages in different countries and across different sectors across the world. The OECD noted in the 2021 international migration outlook that changes to Covid rules are preventing the settling of labour markets. That has resulted in a 30 per cent drop in migration to countries worldwide. We should use this debate to examine those deep-rooted problems and do what we can to resolve them. We know that this is a global crisis and that countries as diverse as America, Australia and China are all experiencing labour shortages. The EU is facing similar challenges. As Deloitte noted last year, the heightened risk of contracting Covid has made certain jobs riskier than others. Employers in those industries find it more challenging to attract workers at pre-pandemic pay rates with industries such as hospitalities that are particularly impacted. Domestically, there are fears that Scotland will experience a massive worker shortage by 2030. The think tank IPPR Scotland is estimated that we are likely to have a gap of 410,000 workers by that date. That is hugely concerning. We face a significant challenge, but the Scottish Government has to play a role in preventing the scenarios from playing out in the long term. The Scottish Chambers of Commerce made a very interesting point where they talked about firms being worried about the skills of candidates that are coming forward, not simply the lack of candidates. There is a distinction between a skills shortage and a labour shortage, and I think that that is particularly significant. According to a CIPD report, they note that apprenticeships could play a stronger role in addressing labour shortages, and improving the supply of apprentices is an urgent priority, given severe disruption to apprenticeship activity last year. The Scottish Conservatives agree with that. That is why we outlined proposals in April last year for unlimited demand-led apprenticeships that would be based on employers' needs. We also called for the creation of a £500 right to retrain account for every Scottish adult, which would give people the ability to retrain an upskill in order to be more competitive in a modern workforce. If ever there was a moment to turbocharge the skills agenda and focus on reskilling and upskilling, then that is it. In conclusion, those are some of our solutions to resolving the issue of labour shortages in our economy. We will stand ready to support any meaningful measure that will help to reduce the skills gap and create economic growth to the benefit of the people of Scotland. I want to begin by welcoming the fact that there is one part of the motion that neither of the amendments seek to delete or to alter. That is the recognition that is made of the resilience and innovation that is shown by employers and workers across the country and across many sectors of the economy in the face of the most incredible challenges as a consequence of the global pandemic. Unfortunately, the unanimity does not last long, because the Tory amendment clearly tries to airbrush the role of Brexit out. I congratulate Liz Smith for accepting that point, because she is clearly speaking to the same people that I am speaking to in my constituency of Persia, South and Kenrosia. She is hearing from hospitality industry, from the butchery business, from the soft-fruit sector. She also talked about the long-term structural challenges. I would accept that there are long-term structural challenges in Scotland, but I would say that they predate the devolution. They go right back to that years when she decimated whole communities throughout Scotland, and we are still living with the effects of that to this day. I have told the chamber before about the discussions that I have had with Glen Eagle's hotel, Keith Hydro and Simon Howey Butcher, three extremely important businesses in my constituency. They have made it very clear to me that, to operate at full capacity, they need to close a staffing shortfall of up to 25 per cent, and they have to be able to recruit beyond our borders to do so. I wrote on their behalf to the UK Government, but the reply was firmly negative. It was not that they do not get or know what the problems are or what is needed to address them. It is that they are choosing not to help, they are just choosing not to hear it and they are refusing to take the responsibility for it. The problems might be inevitable consequences of the situation in which we now find ourselves with the pandemic, but they were not unavoidable. They are the consequence of decisions knownly taken by the Conservative party in the UK Government. The choices that they made and the decisions that they took have left us where we are now. It is just not that they chose to rip Scotland out of the EU, despite the overwhelmingly expressed view of the Scottish people not to be. It is not that they chose to embark on a harder Brexit than those put in the leave case said would happen. It is what the country is carrying towards a hard Brexit cliff edge. They chose not to apply the brakes even when the totally unexpected hit. Now, nobody knew that we were going to face a global pandemic, and it has made it extremely tough for many of those sectors in the economy who then had to deal with the double whammy. However, as James Wothers wrote in Scotland's Food and Drink on Twitter in August, Brexit has been an enormous shock to the labour market, a Brexit implemented in the middle of a pandemic when supply chains were already straining. I know that all other members will have received the same briefing as I have from the National Farmers Union of Scotland, and Willie Rennie was talking about it earlier on. In advance of the debate, you do not have to have a farming background to understand the grim picture that they paint. They are simply farmers who are not going to plant this year, because they cannot guarantee a labour force for next year. The labour shortage in 2021 meant that those farmers had lost huge amounts of money. That is the start of a vicious circle if they are not going to plant for next year. It is not just farming and food in hospitality, but bus companies are cutting back on services because they simply cannot recruit enough drivers. If we look at the shortage of HGV drivers, the problem is not just the ending of freedom of movement with our leaving of the EU or the employers' aversion to the extra paperwork that is now needed. The UK Government deliberately created a toxic environment for immigration across the board, and this country needs immigration. I will do that. The member is just about to wind up, Ms White, very briefly. I will be very quick. Please address your comments to my colleagues. Would the member not agree that the issue with HGV drivers is not just for Scotland and the UK? There is an issue across Europe as a whole. Yes, I would absolutely agree that there is an issue across the whole, but why make it harder by introducing a hard Brexit? If I am going to be coming to the end of my speech, I will move on very quickly. I think that more and more people are coming to recognise that it is only through the normal powers of having a normal nation that this country of ours can take the decisions that our people need, and this debate underlines the importance of securing our independence and engaging properly with the people and countries of the world. Thank you, Mr Fairlie. I now call on Sarah Boyack to be followed by Paul McLean in four minutes, please, Ms Boyack. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Colleagues across the chamber today are rightly raising the real business concerns across Scotland, which have been made worse not only by Brexit but also by Covid-19. I want to thank the Food and Drink Federation Scotland for their very helpful briefing for today's debate, which has noted that we have now reached a crisis point with the growth and viability of businesses in danger and with knock-on impacts for consumers impacting with very high food price inflation. The briefing also highlighted that, in a survey carried out last August, 97 per cent of businesses said that they felt that they would struggle to fill vacancies in the future. That is a shocking statistic and it highlights just how dire the situation is. However, as several colleagues have mentioned today, the labour shortages are a result of multiple causes and we cannot just blame Covid or Brexit. They are key, but that is not the whole story. Many of the factors driving failures in the Scottish economy predate the pandemic and have gone unaddressed during the entire time of the SNP's time-in-office. We are also lagging behind the rest of the UK. Before Covid, as Paul Sweeney eloquently noted, Scotland's economy had been suffering from low investment and productivity, limited local and community ownership and increased inequalities in our labour market for over a decade. That is why Scottish Labour has previously called on the Scottish Government to work with the UK Government to create a flexible visa scheme. We are not asking to reinvent the wheel. It is time to look at the steps that we have taken in the past and look at the experience from the fresh talent scheme that was introduced under First Minister Jack McConnell's regime, but it is also clear that, while we need flexibility, we also cannot rely totally on imported labour. We have to look at the home-grown crisis that we have in Scotland. I want in particular to raise the issue of fair work and childcare, and our Labour amendment highlights the need for an industrial strategy that addresses regional inequalities, low pay, poor conditions and the skills gaps that we have right across Scotland. We would have steady declining employees in Scotland receiving job-related training over the past 15 years, and slow wage rises are also reflected in poverty data. If you look at data for 2015-18, it showed that 60 per cent of working-age adults in Scotland living in relative poverty after housing costs lived in working households. The highest on record, in-work poverty, is also a major driver of child poverty for the proportion of children in Scotland living in relative poverty also rising. That is before we take into account recent food and fuel cost rises. If you look at the gender inequalities in 2018, the gap between the employment rates of women and men in the workforce was nearly 8 per cent. Between disabled and non-disabled people, it was nearly 36 per cent. Between white people and people from ethnic minority groups, it was nearly 20 per cent, the largest gap on record. We have deep-seated inequalities in our labour market and in our communities that must be addressed with targeted action, not with headline grabbing or empty statements. It means making training available, not cutting skills development budgets. It means making childcare accessible and affordable to parents, particularly women in the community, so that they can actually access those jobs, so that they know that they will be able to turn up to work and that they will get paid enough to support their family and to pay their bills. We need to tackle those deep-seated inequalities and make sure that adjustments and support for disabled people are made right across the workforce. Tackling those inequalities in our communities means using Government investment in jobs and training, whether at the national or the local level, working with businesses and trade unions, using procurement policies as we recover from Covid to provide more attractive employment that pays people enough to live on and with training and career development opportunities. When we bang our desks relentlessly about care, we just need to look at the number of people who are not getting care support at the moment because care is so unattractive, it does not pay well and people cannot support their families on the poor wages that are paid. Those deep-seated inequalities need to be tackled and we need to find a process coming out of Covid that gets people into work and enables them to live and that has got to be the priority to tackle our labour inequalities. Thank you, Ms Boyack. I now call on Paul MacLennan to be followed by Maggie Chapman, four minutes, please. Thank you for the opportunity to speak in this debate. The last few years have been difficult for businesses with the on-going pandemic and, of course, departure from the EU. My one background is 20 years in the banking sector, five years in the development sector and also I've been a councillor for 15 years and I've spoken to hundreds of businesses all over the county in the last year or so. All my time engagement with business, the very clear feedback is that this is the most difficult period in terms of recruiting staff they've ever faced. I want to focus on a few key areas of the economy in Eastwooden and the impact labour shortages are having on them. In Food and Drink, Eastwooden led the way with the first ever sector-based business improvement district in Scotland. Queen Margaret University, along with Eastwooden Council, have announced a Food and Drink Innovation Centre, funded in partnership through the Edinburgh city region deal. Food and Drink are Scotland's largest manufacturing sector, employing 44,000 people, contributing £3.6 billion cross-value added to the economy and with a turnover of over £10 billion. Skills Development Scotland forecast predicted that the Scottish Food and Drink manufacturing will need 8,700 new recruits between now and 2031. We've got some fabulous names in Eastwooden such as William Brewery, Glenkinshire Distillery, Luca Ice Creams, Winston Brewery and Thistley Cross-Sider. If you have not tried any of them, please try them. They are all struggling in terms of trying to recruit staff at the moment. Eastwooden Food and Drink, in recent discussions I had with them, have been impacted by withdrawal from the EU in terms of its supply chain, its export opportunities and, of course, labour shortages. On in farming, there are in about 200 farms in Eastwooden. Labour shortages have been a major issue in 2021 and we are in discussions with the NFU talking of us with new skills strategy that they are looking at at the moment. That has meant that farmers have lost their harvests. Farmers that I know are now making decisions and there is a danger that many farmers may move away from sectors such as fruit picking that are important to the economy if labour shortages remain. Previously, farmers had the ability to employ as many EU workers as possible. Research has now shown that, in a briefing from the NFU, that the labour shortage, on average, has increased by about 22 per cent this year. The key thing is that the retention rate for EU workers at that period of time was over 80 per cent, and Molly Rennie was quite right in mentioning about visa numbers being restricted this year, I think that it was 30,000. NFU predicted that it needs to be around about 60,000. Changes are required to the immigration system to address the acute labour market shortages being faced across multiple sectors of our economy and in the public sector. The Scottish Government warned about this at that particular period in time. There are changes that the UK Government could make. I think that we mentioned at the end of the CIPD, and it is calling on the UK Government to establish a temporary job and mobility scheme for young EU nationals to act as a safety valve to ease immediate acute labour shortages right across the UK, Scotland and across Europe. The Scottish Government, as has been mentioned by a few speakers this afternoon, is calling on the UK Government to immediately introduce a new temporary worker route to address acute labour shortages. We also have issues in terms of recruitment in East Lothian, in terms of hospitality and social care that Sarah Boyack mentioned, in construction, food production, agriculture and tourism, which is a really important sector in East Lothian. Changes could be implemented immediately, with the opportunity for workers to switch on to other visa routes once they are in the country and have employment. That is really important. The Scottish ministers and the Scottish Parliament are best placed to decide how to accommodate our distinct labour market needs. We also need to be cognisant of the opportunities and the growth of renewables in Scotland, and we need proper prepared workforce planning strategies working with the sector. The impact of the UK's immigration policy confirms the need for a tailored approach to immigration in Scotland. The Scottish Government posers are widely supported among key stakeholders and refer to a few of them in the FSB, COSLA, SCDI, Scottish Tourism Alliance. The Scottish Government is working, as the cabinet secretary said, with business organisations that develop a working with businesses action plan. It will also engage with education providers and enterprise and skills agencies, as well as local authorities, to address sector-specific recruitment and retention challenges. Closing, the best way to tackle us in Scotland's future in our own hands is the only way to have immigration policy fit for purpose. I now call Maggie Chapman to be followed by Collette Stevenson. The last 21 months have taught us much about resilience. Our resilience, or otherwise, as human beings, and the resilience, or otherwise, are the systems and structures that support us. We have had some uncomfortable truths laid bare, too. Our economy currently does not support everyone the way it should. Our politics often fails to provide security and safety to everyone, and our society is profoundly unequal. As we plan and develop an economy that needs to be robust in the face of future shocks, while supporting individuals and communities equitably and fairly, we must address at least two significant issues that both speak directly to addressing the problem of labour shortages in different parts of our economy. First, we must make work fair. I do not disagree with the calls from labour for a focus on fair work. We must all work with employers and trade unions to secure genuine improvements in pay and conditions. We must address low pay, in-work poverty, poor flexibility and inequalities in the workplace. No worker should suffer precarious contracts. We need better sick pay—Covid has made that very clear. We need strong trade unions with real bargaining power. I remain so disappointed that it was labour back in 2014 during the Smith commission who vetoed the devolution of employment law. However, there are things we can do and have started to do in Scotland. I believe that our social security system will support people better. I just wish we had the powers to introduce things like a universal basic income, but we will one day. We need to ensure that all workers have access to the training and development opportunities that they want and need to deal with issues like the much-needed just transition to renewable energy, but also to allow workers to adapt and be flexible as technological innovations and automation remove some aspects of their roles. Secondly, we must have the right data and information about the things we need to understand and use that to plan effectively. We must better understand the differences and intersections between skills shortages and labour gaps. We must better understand workers' expectations about their employment. We must better understand how things vary geographically and regionally and what impacts demographic changes will have and so on. We need institutions and organisations that understand those data and can turn them into effective planning and actions. We have known for many years, for instance, about the challenges that we face in social care due to demographic shifts, yet we have not always effectively planned for these changes and challenges. Similarly, we know that our future economy will be reliant on jobs in green industries, so now we must ensure that we provide the right education, training and skills development for people to fill those jobs. However, it is not just about having people with the right skills. Our planning must take account of other issues, too. Where will people live? Where will their children go to school? Where will they be able to access healthcare and so on? We hear time and time again across different sectors that the limiting factor for recruitment is affordable housing, and there are going to be shifts and shocks in the future that we still need to properly identify. That is why I think that we should explore the creation of a foreciting centre, one of the recommendations of the Royal Society of Edinburgh's Post-Covid-19 Futures Commission, to provide an important contribution to the industrial strategies of the future. In closing, there are many more issues that I would want to address in this debate, but I will make my final point about immigration. It seems to me that, for many Conservatives, Brexit was about stopping the world so that it could get off, but it dragged us off, too. With the other awful immigration changes that we see coming at us from Westminster, I urge all those in the chamber, with any influence in the UK Government, to press this point wherever possible. Scotland deserves so much better than Westminster is currently providing. We all know the impact of the pandemic on the economy. In recent months, however, the labour shortage has become more and more obvious. Understaffed hotels and restaurants, empty supermarket shelves and fuel tankers with no one to drive them. As we recover, it is important that we recognise the labour and skills shortages that we are seeing and understand the causes. Government must take the right action to resolve those challenges. First, we are seeing just how reckless it was for the UK Government to press ahead with a hard Brexit in the middle of a pandemic. Long before Covid, the Scottish Government, businesses and trade unions were telling the UK Government that a hard Brexit would have a major impact on the economy, including labour shortages. When Covid struck, it was clear that the only reasonable thing would be—at the very least—to delay a hard Brexit. Instead, the UK Government carried on. By adding another 500 million people to its hostile environment policy on migration, the Tories surely should have seen or foreseen the consequences. The UK Government's point-based approach to migration does not value the right things. It has not considered the needs of public services and private businesses. It has fixated on high salaries rather than the skills and social value of workers. The short-term visa for HVVV and poultry workers was not only embarrassingly but more seriously a symptom of a broken immigration system. If the Tories cannot create an immigration system that works for Scotland and key business sectors, they should devolve the powers now so that this Parliament can take those important decisions. With the powers that it has, the Scottish Government is working with businesses to develop action plans, promote fair work and address sector-specific recruitment challenges. SNP policies, such as the young person's guarantee, will support the next generation by creating more opportunities to work, study or undertake training. Through its Covid recovery strategy, the Scottish Government will also deliver an additional 500 million to support new green jobs and to equip people with the skills to work and progress in them. That combination of working to improve things now and to lay the groundwork for a better future is so crucial. It is a tale of two Governments with very different visions. It is not just me and my colleagues that are sick of the UK Government. Industry is fed up with it, too, and perhaps the Tories have just given up on pretending that everything is good in Brexit Britain. The Food and Drink Federation Scotland said that it contacted the UK and the Scottish Government with its demands to support that vital sector. Today, only the Scottish Government has responded with Mary Gougeon reaffirming her commitment to promote and support the sector. The labour and skills shortages that we are all experiencing demonstrates the recklessness of a hard Brexit in the middle of a pandemic. The Scottish Government is working hard within its powers to support business recovery, promote fair work and boost skills. The upcoming 10-year national strategy will drive Scotland's economic transformation as we recover from the pandemic. The young person's guarantee will equip our young people with new skills that they can flourish. Migration is also part of the solution. You need to wind up now, Ms Stevenson. The UK Government must face reality and take a rational approach before the damage to our economy and communities increases. If not, devolve the powers now so that this Parliament can. Presiding Officer, can I start off with a point of order, Presiding Officer? At the start of the cabinet secretary's debate, she said that I am drawing the debate to a close. Hopefully, that was a mistake rather than the Parliament not working and there is no debate today, so I just wanted to put that on record. That is certainly not a point of order. I would be grateful if you could continue with your speech, Ms White. Presiding Officer, as we continue to navigate our way through the Covid-19 pandemic, the blunt truth is that most developed economies are grappling with labour shortages. The pandemic and associated public health responses have had a profound impact on workforces and on working practices. That is not unique to Scotland or the UK. Business leaders and policy makers around the world are assessing which levers to pull to remedy the situation as best they can. Those in the sectors that are worst affected by labour shortages recognise the problems that they are experiencing have multiple causes. The Road Haulage Association, for example, told the Scottish Affairs Committee in November last year that the driver shortage that we face is nothing new. It existed before Brexit. It added that there is not one single lever that could have been pulled to sort this. The SNP Green Government predictably is focusing its energy on blaming Brexit and the UK Government's migration policies for Scotland's reduced workforce availability, and, as usual, this is about constitutional grievance. However, the pandemic has brought into sharp relief the pre-existing tensions and weaknesses that prevent economies from reaching optimum performance. As my colleague Liz Smith identified earlier, there are serious structural issues with the Scottish economy that long predate the pandemic and Brexit. The message that we repeatedly hear from the business community is that Scotland is being hampered by a significant and persistent skills gap. The gap goes back years between 2015 and 2017. We know from the employer skills survey that the number of businesses in Scotland reporting skills gaps increased while there was a decline at the UK level. More recently, the SNP failed to meet its commitment to deliver 30,000 new apprenticeships by 2020, impacting the pipeline of talent Scotland needs as its ageing population becomes economically inactive. Not to mention the dramatic fall in apprenticeship starts in the early months of the pandemic, which the CIPD says fell more sharply in Scotland than England. I have spent the last 30 years of my career matching people and skills with organisational demand. Our top priority should be on full employment. It requires the creation of good, sustainable jobs across all regions of the country. We need to give people the opportunity to reskill and upskill, and that needs to be demand-led. Take, for example, Scotland's digital sector. It creates around 13,000 new roles annually. Only around 5,000 new recruits are being produced each year through universities and apprenticeships. A massive shortfall. As the CBI argued in last month's budget announcements, we need to see greater ambition from the Scottish Government on upskilling and retraining, and it needs to start delivering. The world order changed profoundly as a result of the pandemic. The resilience demonstrated by businesses and workers over the past two years has been extraordinary. As we seek to recover from the pandemic, we need to focus on ways to help as many people as possible, and we need to see action. Scotland's economic growth and productivity depend on it. I want to acknowledge the devastating impact of Brexit on the Scottish and UK economies. I know that the Conservative amendment removes any acknowledgement of the impact of the end-to-free movement on the Scottish economy, and I would only say that burying your head in the sand and completely disregarding the impact of Brexit is as great a betrayal of the Scottish people today as was the entirety of the disingenuous Brexit campaign. While beyond the scope of today's debate, it seems clear to me that there is a need for a wider discussion on immigration in general and the potential pros and cons for a separate Scottish immigration system brought under the control of this Parliament. Today, I want to focus on a key sector where there is no doubt that Brexit has had an impact, but where the main underlying cause of recruitment and retention issues is poor pay and crucially unequal terms and conditions depending on the employer. I am speaking about the social care sector and the terms of employment for those care workers employed by agencies to deliver health and social care through public sector contracts issued to private companies by public authorities and paid for by this Government. I have talked with a number of contractors who have outlined the difficulties that they have in recruiting staff and the even greater difficulties in being able to retain those staff. Is it any wonder that the rate of pay for the job £10 to an hour does not come anywhere near to recognising the complexities and challenges of being a care worker? However, it is about much more than the rate for the job. It is the fact that many of those carers are only paid for the time they are in the client's house, so if they are allocated a half hour for a client, they clock on when they enter the house and clock off when they leave and do not clock on again until they are in the next client's house. I talked with one carer recently and she told me that she has to travel up to 20 minutes between clients and is not paid for any of the travelling time that she does. She can find herself working eight hours a day and only being paid for five or six of those hours and is out of the house ten hours as she is required to take two hours of unpaid breaks within the day. Would this be acceptable to any worker and is it any wonder that we have a recruitment and retention problem in this key sector of our economy? For those carers who have to use their cars to get between clients whilst not paid for travelling time, they do get a mileage allowance and the care workers that I have spoken to tell me that is £25 per mile. MSPs are paid £45 per mile as is much of the public sector, yet those care workers, key workers in our economy, are paid much less with very poor terms and conditions. Can anyone justify that or can anyone seriously tell potential recruits that care is a valid and valued career option? I think not. Whilst the finance secretary points to the figures at the UK Government and rightly so, she surely must accept that the Scottish Government must first put their own house in order and ensure that workers being hired directly or indirectly to deliver key public services are treated with dignity and respect and are paid the rate for the job. The discrimination of care workers must stop if we have to tackle the underlying issues in care. Thank you very much, Mr Rowley, and I call the final speaker in the open debate for McGregor around four minutes, please. Thank you, Presiding Officer, and it is a privilege to speak in this debate on an issue that affects every part of our country. As others have said before me, we are approaching a crisis of labour and skill shortages. Although there are many factors playing a role in this, I believe that the biggest one is the reckless choice to pursue a hard Brexit, especially during a global pandemic. Although, if we have seen just last night in over recent weeks, I do not think that there is much that this Tory Government has not done during a global pandemic. Many of our amazing sectors within the Scottish economy are reporting issues with the supply of labour and skills, and this has been exasperated by both Brexit and the pandemic. This double attack on our economy is difficult to navigate, but the frustrating thing is that one of those factors could have been avoided. We asked in this chamber several times, even when the pandemic started, all parties, apart from the Conservatives, asked that Brexit was at least, at the very least put on hold, but Brexit was pushed on us by our Tory Westminster Government in full knowledge of the effects it would have coupled with the pandemic, and I believe, as others have said, that this was a grave mistake. In Scotland, our food and drink sector is something that we can be really proud of. However, it is suffering greatly from labour shortages. I recognise that encouraging migration, while very important, is not the sole solution to this widespread problem, and the Scottish Government is working productively with business and is acting in those areas within its responsibilities. However, this is a worrying time with farming and seafood industries reporting extreme labour shortages. In August 21, FDF Scotland carried out a survey of Scottish food and drink businesses to find out more about the scale of the labour shortage crisis. 93 per cent of respondents currently had job vacancies. 90 per cent described their job vacancies as hard to fill and 97 per cent of respondents felt that they would struggle to fill vacancies in the future. Those figures are stark and incredibly worrying. Like others, I know that Alex Rowley is done likewise, but I also spoke to a local recruitment business owner, Gary Robinson, who runs talent 365 in the town. I will quote directly from him, because he is working on the front line. He said, We are witnessing acute labour shortages across multiple sectors in Scotland. As businesses seek to rebuild from the pandemic and deal with the implications of Brexit—notably higher energy costs and cost of purchases or raw materials—this internment is creating significant wage inflation, leaving many businesses with no option but to pass these costs on to their customers at a time when we are already seeing considerable inflationary pressures on the economy. Of a particular concern are labour shortages in the agricultural logistics, hospitality, technology and manufacturing sectors, with employers reporting significant difficulties in recruiting staff that they need to operate their businesses successfully. That is my constituent and a business owner in my constituency who has done a lot of good work in this area, and that is how he is feeling right now. The truth is that industries do not want to just see blame or talk about the reasons why we are seeing these shortages. They want to see action now. The Scottish Government's Covid recovery strategy includes investment from an additional £500 million over this Parliament to support new good, fair and green jobs and to equip people with the skills to enter into and progress in them. We need to recognise that Scotland's current population growth is due to migration, and the UK Government must end its destructive policies that limit it. As you know, we have made repeated representations to the UK Government to put in place emergency changes to the UK immigration system to combat acute post-Brexit shortages. That has gone unaddressed, and as usual, the UK Government has just buried their heads in the sand, hoping that that goes away. It will not, and action is needed now. That is why I am voting for the Government motion today, and I would ask that members across the chamber take that opportunity—a unique opportunity, if you like—to do the same and demonstrate a united front in our resolve to deal with the crisis that is affecting every constituency in every corner of our country. We now move into calling speeches, and I call Daniel Johnson in six minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I am picking up perhaps from where Fulton MacGregor just left off. I think that, in a sense, there has been more unity in the chamber today than you might believe by looking at both the motion and the amendments that are written down. Indeed, in some ways, there is a stark contrast listening to what were clearly the pre-written parts of members' contributions and the bits where they were responding to the debate. I think that there is an acknowledgement that there are a number of issues that businesses are having to face because of Covid, because of other changes in the economy, and not least because of Brexit. The most important point of consensus that Jim Fairlie highlighted is that one bit that we all agree on in the text is that the businesses out there, the people working in the workforce, have shown incredible resilience over the last two years. We need to pay tribute to them and perhaps listen to them a little bit more when we are addressing the solutions, rather pretending that we have all those solutions. Unfortunately, when it comes down to what has been written down, we have seen an all-too-familiar approach from the two parties of government that we have in here, one trying to claim that all the issues are to do with Brexit. Indeed, many of the issues are, but not all of them, and the other party is saying that none of them are to do with Brexit in terms of what they have written just in a moment, if I could finish that point, because while I agree with much of what Liz Smith said, I was barely aware that she said, unfortunately, when we look at the terms of their amendment and what it does to the government motion, it completely obliterates in terms of Brexit. You cannot look at the labour shortages that we see across this country, whether in Scotland or the rest of the UK, and not conclude that those shortages are that much worse here than they are in any other part of the world. I will give way to Fulton MacGregor. Fulton MacGregor. I thank the member for giving way, but we will not accept that it is not about saying, it is not about SNP members saying that it is all about Brexit and not recognising that Covid has been an issue. Would you not accept that one was avoidable, Brexit was avoidable? That has been a political decision, whereas Covid is a worldwide pandemic. Daniel Johnson. I would not disagree with that, but I would ask the member to acknowledge that there are other political decisions made over the last 10 years that have impacted our productivity, that have impacted our labour participation rate, that have impacted our skill shortages and, ultimately, that have impacted on the fact that our income tax receipts are growing more slowly than not just the UK average but pretty much every single Scottish region is lagging pretty much every single other region of the UK. Those are the consequences of other political decisions, so our amendment does not remove Brexit. The member, I am afraid, I would just like to make a little bit of progress. If he acknowledges that point, he should vote for our amendment, which makes exactly those points. Quite simply, it is not credible to claim that Brexit is the sole reason that we have labour shortages, because otherwise it is not just the rest of Europe, but America has shortages in truck drivers. Likewise, we have global supply chain problems, so we have to look much more broadly if we are going to seriously address those issues. The Scottish Fiscal Commission's report, which has been alluded to by a number of members, is a critical intervention at an important time, highlighting the points that I have just raised in response to Fulton MacGregor. We need a broad-based approach, but I would also like to highlight critically on the points raised by my colleagues Sarah Boyack and Alex Rowley, because there is an issue here, I think, by over-reliance on immigration. I think that it ignores the fact that, fundamentally, we have had a situation where inequality and insecurity have been a feature of our jobs market for far too long. Simply seeking to replace the lost migration workers as the sole solution completely ignores that point, because, fundamentally, we have two ways of approaching the shortages in the labour market. One can seek to bring more people into the labour market, or one can seek to invest in skills, invest in productivity, to boost the productivity and thereby the wages of the people that are already in that labour market. I think that that is best exemplified, or at least the worst and most egregious example that is in social care, as is highlighted by Willie Rennie and others. Just on the example that Alex Rowley gave of the mileage rate that social care works allowed, 26 pence, an MSP can claim 20 pence if they commute by bicycle. We are barely paying social care workers more to travel by car than we are paying MSPs to travel by bike. That shows the inequality that we have in the Scottish labour market. On top of that, we have huge regional inequalities. The differences between the hourly output between Edinburgh and the lowest productive region in Scotland is 50 per cent. If you look at regions between Edinburgh and Dundee, a distance of 30 miles, you see a third drop in terms of productivity. Those are things that the Scottish Government has the ability to tackle. It has the levers in its competence to deal with skills, to support enterprise, to drive investment in infrastructure that can link our cities and places of work. However, it chooses not to use them. It has consistently cut enterprise support and has cut the skills budget. Absolutely, a number of members have highlighted the fact that those are political choices—political choices about pursuing Brexit as opposed to a more rational approach or choices about improving support for businesses and investing in infrastructure and enterprise support, which, frankly, this Government has failed to do today. I would like to start my contribution today in agreeing with the first part of the Government's motion today that the resilience and innovation that employers and workers have shown through the pandemic and keeping much of our economy open should be recognised. I also thank everyone who has played their part. Labour markets across the world, as we have heard today, are undergoing significant pressures and changes. The United Kingdom is no different to what we are seeing in the United States, Europe, China and beyond. However, there are differences in the UK. There are differences right here at home, thanks to 14 years of SNP inaction and failed economic policy. Our tax intake per person is lower than the rest of the UK, our welfare bill is rising, our working population is falling compared to the rest of the UK, and economic growth is lower than the rest of the UK. Our recovery is slower than the rest of the UK. No, I will make some progress first. As we have said in our amendment, this has been highlighted by forecast groups and must be addressed by this devolved Government as a matter of urgency. However, instead of attracting investment and higher-paid jobs, this Government seems intent to drive business away. Decisions such as turning their back on the energy industry does nothing to reverse the decline. Another opportunity lost is the Government's decision to block free ports in Scotland. We lose out while investment goes to England. The mayor of Teeside said that we have attracted investors who were originally looking at Scotland when some areas in Scotland were looking at free port status. When they decided not to move forward with the current UK free port policy, they have actually abandoned Scotland. I will take the intervention. The record, the member may know that the treasury was committed to ensuring that there was a free port or a green port in Scotland before that was changed by the Scotland office. We are engaged in discussions with them to ensure that Scotland is treated fairly, but I would remind the member that the UK Government has chosen to invest in ports in England to the detriment of Scottish ports. I hope that that is another U-term that we have seen from the SNP Government, because so far it has not engaged with the UK Government like the other regions across England. If that is now the case, I welcome that news. Jobs and investment are lost at Aberdeen, all because this devolved Government wants to pick a political fight as a disgrace. That is another motion brought by the tired Government attempting to pat itself on the back, but it does the opposite. It highlights the incompetence of this Government. Just like when Alex Salmond promised thousands of green jobs many years ago with the SNP, none of them have came to fruition. Members across the chamber have made some interesting points. We all agree that immigration does impact our economy, but so do many other factors. As Daniel Johnson on this myth points out, the economy has long-term underlying issues. They are long before Brexit or Covid. The cabinet secretary ignored the intervention by Murdo Fraser about labour shortages in Europe and the ACOR group of hotels in France who cannot get staff. Obviously, freedom of movement is not the only issue before places in France are having labour shortages. As Liz Smith points out, the SNP ministers have refused to listen to businesses and have faced to listen to the Scottish Fiscal Commission and have failed to invest in skills on productivity value. I will give way. Daniel Johnson I am very grateful to the member for giving way. We acknowledge that, yes, there may be shortages in hospitality on the continent, but they are worse here and worse because of Brexit. Douglas Lameston If there are issues in France, how can it be if they cannot employ people? How can you tell it is worse here? It is not as if there are thousands of people lined up and they are being blocked by Brexit. That simply is not the case. However, the big issue that Liz Smith pointed out again—we heard it at the finance committee today—is the weakness in tax revenue and the shortfall that is going to bring. That is the big serious issue, because of the long-term structural issues in our economy. I did agree with Michelle Thompson when she mentioned that we need to train Scottish workers to the highest possible standard. I completely agree with that, but Paul Swinney was right to highlight cuts to the skills budget just at the time when we need it, it is being taken away. Jim Fairlie says that we need independence. We will have news for him. If he does not like Brexit, the SNP's economic adviser says that independence will be like Brexit times 10. Another huge area of failure from the Scottish Government is productivity and automation. I have seen nothing from this Government that will address this issue. This is a long-term issue. Scottish Conservatives' top priority at the last election was employment. We want to create good, sustainable, well-paid jobs across all regions of Scotland. We want to give people hope and opportunity. We also promised unlimited apprenticeships for Scotland's young people. Our demand-led model for apprenticeships would ensure that funded places reflect employer need rather than unambitious SNP targets. We would expand funding for graduate apprenticeships and the choice and availability of one or two-year foundation apprenticeships for S5 and S6 pupils. We would aim to boost the number of apprenticeships taken up by women and ensure that the UK apprenticeship levy is fully used for apprenticeship funding in Scotland. The UK Government's kickstart scheme has been a great example of what a Government can achieve when it is focused on the day job. New figures show that 100,000 young people have started new jobs through the kickstart scheme, among them thousands of Scots who have been helped on to the first step of the CREA ladder. There is so much that can be done by this Government to develop the existing talent here in this country so that we can boost our currently lagging productivity levels. There must be a real focus on workforce planning, skills training and increasing the employee compensation of our essential workers. Scottish workers have had enough of warm words. I have seen other parts of the UK recover faster than us or hear in platitudes from the Scottish Government, but no action. I have seen our public services underfunded and our workers undervalued. It is time to stop playing politics with this issue and to come up with some proposals on how Scotland can grow and flourish rather than simply blaming Westminster for all its ills. It has had 14 years in power. It is time that it stepped up and took responsibility for the financial situation that Scotland is in. I now call on the minister to wind up the debate for around nine minutes. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I genuinely thank colleagues for their valuable and powerful contributions today that certainly reflect the importance of the issues that we are discussing. I would also like at the outset to reiterate what is in our motion and has been reiterated by parties across the chamber, that this Government recognises the resilience and innovation that employers across many sectors of our economy have demonstrated throughout the past year in response to what has been extremely challenging circumstances. Nevertheless, it is clear that businesses and employers need our support and the support of others to mitigate the impacts of the current shortages in the labour market. Labour shortages affect our nation's productivity, as many members have said. It affects business profitability, business growth, inflation, the country's finances, our economic success as a nation, and it can also represent opportunities to get more people into employment. In short, labour shortages hold our country back. The cabinet secretary outlined earlier the challenges that Scotland's business community and our economy and society face as a result of several factors. We know, as many have said, that the pandemic has been enormously disruptive. As a result of the cataclysmic, reckless and monumentally full-hardy decision to remove Scotland from the European Union against our will. Several SNP MSPs have said today that there was a political decision for Brexit. Would he acknowledge that the decision about Brexit—I disagree with Brexit—was a democratic decision by the British people, including many in Scotland and many in the SNP? We have to accept it. What we accept is that Scotland's Parliament and the People of Scotland in a referendum rejected Brexit and it has been foisted on us against our democratic will. This is key to this debate. It was foisted on Scotland at the worst possible time and in the worst possible way for Scotland against the backdrop of a pandemic and other on-going pressures. Like demographic trends, with an ageing population and a declining birth rate, all of which mean that the loss of freedom of movement, the erection of those barriers and the tightening of immigration are the last thing that our economy needs, given that that alone is projected to lead to a three to five per cent reduction in the working-age population in Scotland. Themes that many colleagues have eloquently explored, albeit that some members, particularly Conservative benches, seem to live in an alternative reality, who simply brush those issues under the carpet and do not want even to talk about Brexit, as Donald Cameron said during his speech, because, of course, it is such a fiasco and so damaging that we can understand why the Conservatives do not want to talk about Brexit. In the real world, across the Scottish economy, employers have been reporting a combination of skills and labour shortages, which are impacting on the provision of their goods and services. While 38.3 per cent of Scottish businesses reported experiencing a shortage of workers in November, those shortages are even more substantial in specific sectors, including accommodation, food services, transportation and storage. Although some of those issues are not new, as many members have said, Brexit and the pandemic-related disruption have severely increased their scale. Less than two years on from Brexit, it is clear that its impact on the Scottish labour market has been disastrous, particularly for industries that have traditionally relied on EU workers. Brexit has significantly reduced the ability of businesses to source non-domestic labour, which makes up around 8 per cent of Scotland's workforce and is higher in particular sectors, such as hotels and restaurants. Over the past two years, the national insurance number registration for overseas nationals in Scotland has fallen by around 75 per cent. Think about that for a second. Down by three quarters, it is preposterous to disassociate that starting statistic from Brexit or from the UK Government's hostile immigration policy. I am very grateful and I am sorry to Liz Smith. I agree that it is preposterous, but it is a fact and it is not going away anytime soon. Does the minister not acknowledge that, whether we agree on that point or not, the solution is about flexibility in skills and trying to get people out of work into those jobs as efficiently as possible? Of course, those solutions are being looked at and have to be looked at, but the damage caused by Brexit is fixed, and many of the tools for fixing the damage caused by Brexit lie with the UK Government. That is why Brexit is such an important part of this debate. It is not just Brexit. Covid's impact on further reducing migration to Scotland has worsened those issues, leaving businesses struggling to attract enough staff and skilled workers across the economy. However, again, we cannot enforce Covid from Brexit, because what we have been told by employers and the Conservative Party should listen to Scotland's employers is that people who have left to go home because of Covid are not coming back to Scotland because of Brexit. I will give way. I thank him very much for giving way. When it comes to listening to employers, would he care to remember that the business community is telling us very bluntly that many of the issues that they are facing just now are part of the issues about productivity, about growth and about investment. Those are Scottish-related problems, not to do with the UK. Of course, there are various problems facing the labour market in Scotland at the moment, in some of which we are addressing as a Government here in this country, but others require the UK Government to wake up to the damage that has been caused by Brexit and use the tools that it has available to help us to repair the damage and address the labour shortage in Scotland. One of the biggest sectors that are suffering at the moment is Scotland's food and drink industry, which is now facing crippling staff shortages. Seafood Scotland has said that around 15 per cent of jobs in larger factories are unfilled. The 63 per cent of seafood processors experiencing staff shortages and fears of situation will get worse. So much for the sea of opportunity that is promised by the Conservative Party to our fishing communities in this country. The chief executive of Scotland's food and drink, James Withers, recently reported that one business was forced to forego up to £15 million worth of contracts because it did not have the staff to fulfil orders and replicate that right across the Scottish economy and you can see the cost to our economy that Brexit is causing. Let me further reiterate the impact that Brexit has had through illustrating its effects on agriculture as well. This past year has been a particularly difficult time for agriculture, as the industry struggled to cope, as James Fairlie said, with the issues that the UK's exit from the EU has created, such as the additional paperwork and reduced labour supply for planting and harvesting crops. In the soft and fruit industry alone, businesses have reported an average of 20 per cent shortfall on seasonal agricultural workers. With the uncertainty over labour, growers have had to walk away from the industry, while others have reduced production and another economic cost to our rural communities in Scotland. In Christmas Eve, the UK Government announced an extension of the seasonal worker visa route to the end of 2024, with the statement that the industry must transition to domestic workers. Will that get a big damp squib from the National Farmers Union of Scotland? In its quotes—and, apparently, the Conservative Party says nothing through Brexit—the farmers themselves said that in Christmas Eve, the Government has given Scotland food and drink veg industry deeply disappointing news. Government plans to start tapering the scheme down from 2023 shows a complete disconnect from the industry. Plans to start dismantling the scheme are a blow and mean that some very difficult decisions will have to be made about future production. There are things that we can do as the Scottish Government, but the damage that is being imposed by the UK Government in terms of Brexit has the tools to try and fix it now. We are asking the UK Government to work with the Scottish Government and to try and fix some of that damage, otherwise more damage will be inflicted on the Scottish agricultural sector. As I have come to a close, I just want to say that in terms of what the Scottish Government is doing, we are going to develop a talent attraction programme, a migration service to attract workers with the skills that Scotland needs. We have made constructive proposals to the UK Government, including for 24 and 36-month visas and additions and structural changes to the shortage occupation list and other measures. However, we want the UK Government to work with us. That is why we are proposing a joint task force with the devolved administrations and the UK Government. That is a very serious situation for the Scottish and the UK economy. It is a very serious situation for Scotland's business community, so please, to the UK Government, our message is to work with us, help us to get this sorted and repair the damage caused by Brexit and address the staff shortages. They are undermining this country's success and support the motion. That concludes the debate on addressing the impact of labour shortages on Scotland's economy. It is now time to move on to the next item of business, which is consideration of a legislative consent motion. I ask Mary Gougeon to move motion number 2739 on Animal Welfare Kept Animals Bill UK legislation. Thank you. The question on this motion will be put at decision time. The next item of business is consideration of business motion 2755 in the name of George Adam on behalf of the parliamentary bureau on changes to this week's business. Any member who wishes to speak against the motion should press their request to speak button now, and I call on George Adam to move the motion. Thank you minister. No member has asked to speak against the motion. Therefore, the question is that motion 2755 be agreed. Are we all agreed? The motion is therefore agreed. There are four questions to be put as a result of today's business. Can I remind members that if the amendment in the name of Liz Smith is agreed to, the amendment in the name of Paul Sweeney will fall? The first question is that amendment 2740.1 in the name of Liz Smith, which seeks to amend motion 2740 in the name of Kate Forbes, on addressing the impact of labour shortages on Scotland's economy be agreed. Are we all agreed? The Parliament is not agreed, therefore we will move to a vote and there will be a short suspension to allow members to access the digital voting system.