Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [Lords]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ynys Môn (Albert Owen). Occasionally, I have used the ferry from his constituency across to Ireland—I always enjoy a little excursion across the Irish sea. From these Benches, may we pay tribute to the Home Secretary, who is expected to depart from the Home Office? She has always been fair and courteous to members of the minority parties. Her predecessor went on to become chair of Celtic football club in Glasgow—I do not know whether there is a vacancy in the other half of the old firm or whether it is something in which she is interested, but I am sure that she will have a fine career ahead of her when she steps down. These debates have a depressing familiarity to them. We hear, primarily from Conservative Members, about all the problems and issues to do with the overheated south-east of England and why there is a need for further immigration controls and a cap on numbers. On the other side, we hear about half-hearted measures to frustrate and thwart migrants to the UK and occasionally, from me, there is a little voice trying to say, "Well, let's think about the other nations of the United Kingdom, because they never get a look in at all." England may indeed be overheating in terms of immigration, but Scotland is suffering structural depopulation. We are being served by a UK immigration policy that goes nowhere near meeting our specific requirements and needs. Our population will fall below the iconic 5 million mark by 2017. By 2041, the population of Scotland may in fact fall to 4.5 million. At the same time, the population of England is expected to grow by about 10 million, but we will lose 0.5 million people. We are not the only country to suffer from structural depopulation, as many European nations are facing the same issues and challenges. The only difference between those nations and us is the fact that they can do something about it: they can design immigration policies to try to counter those problems and put in place a system that will see them through. We cannot do that. Doubly worse is the fact that we have an immigration policy designed for another nation that faces exactly the opposite range of problems and challenges. We have to try to make our way through that—no wonder that we do not have a chance of trying to address our particular challenges. If there is one thing that separates Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom, it is immigration, and if there is one thing that we cannot fix, it is the demographic challenge facing our population. If we do not do so, however, we will face severe challenges and problems, which will impact on our entire society. There will be an impact on our economy, because there will be fewer people to do the vital jobs; depopulation will impact on our social services, because there will be fewer people working for them; and it will impact all the way through Scottish society and our community. We need Scottish solutions to a distinct Scottish problem, but we just cannot provide them because we do not have the powers, the instruments or the means at our disposal to try to address that problem. The Bill falls within a range of measures designed to address UK immigration issues. None of them has served Scotland. The latest wheeze is the points-based system, which will make matters worse in Scotland. As the Minister and Members who have taken part in the debate know, the proposed system is almost identical to the Australian points-based system, save in one key regard—the Australian system allows for the devolution of immigration powers to individual state Governments. They can set their own criteria for allowing immigrants to come into those specific states if they fail the general Australian criteria. States such as Tasmania, South Australia and Victoria, which face the same sort of challenges as Scotland, can allow people in and have their needs met. Prospective immigrants who fail to meet the criteria elsewhere in Australia have the opportunity to go to those states, helping them significantly with their demographic challenges. What we would do to have that in Scotland! What we could achieve if we were able to do that! We would be able to address some of our problems with even limited devolution of immigration power. We could try and turn things around, address our structural population decline and start to deal with some of the serious problems that we will face down the line, which will impact on our economy and our community. Why, oh why, when we copy the Australian system, can we not copy that key facet and allow Scotland and the other nations of the United Kingdom to try and make some sense of the difficulties confronting them? I do not get it at all. The Australian system is a fine system. Why not go the whole hog, make sure that we copy every facet of it, and give us a break? We need a break because we have severe problems. The points-based system gets in the way of the little bit of competitive advantage that we had with skilled migrants. We had a Fresh Talent initiative which gave us a slight advantage over the rest of the UK, because we were able to attract some skilled migrants to Scotland, but that has gone. Tier 4 has subsumed all that. The whole of the UK now has the same sort of structure as we had under Fresh Talent, so the slight advantage that we had in attracting skilled migrants is gone. Scotland now has no advantage whatever. The points-based system is also getting in the way of retaining skilled migrants in Scotland. I cite the example of my constituent, Swarthwick Salins. The Minister might remember the case—it was all over the Scottish newspapers—which arose in my constituency of Perth. A respected academic, with a PhD from St. Andrews university, and a pillar of the community, he was going to get booted out for the sake of £80. For the lack of a measly £80, he was to be separated from his three Perth-born children and booted out. Swarthwick Salins was on tier 4 and he satisfied all the other points-based criteria when it came to assessing whether he could remain in Scotland, other than the financial criterion. When the UK Border Agency got round to looking at his bank account, he had only £721 for two weeks, whereas he required £800. On that basis, he was to be booted out. Swarthwick Salins is exactly the type of person we want to come to Scotland. He is the type of person that we need. Instead of booting him out and harassing him, we should be attracting him to Scotland. We should be saying, "We need you here," and we should be doing all we can to retain him, but instead we try and boot the man out. What a shambles. It took a community campaign and the intervention of the First Minister of Scotland, working in my office, to have that ridiculous decision reversed. Thank goodness it was. I am beginning to wonder how many other Swarthwick Salins are being harassed like that in Scotland. It is not good enough. We need to make sure that we do something about it. We are supposed to have some sort of advantage as a result of the Migration Advisory Committee's list of professions that are allowed to come to Scotland, over and above those allowed into the rest of the United Kingdom. Which professions has the council selected for us? Fish processors and fish filleters. Those are all we get selected as preferred professions, and that is supposed to address some of the massive issues facing us. It is as pathetic as putting a finger in a dam. It gives us no competitive advantage.