PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Rural Depopulation - 11 September 2024 (Commons/Westminster Hall)

I call Torcuil Crichton to move the motion.

I beg to move,

That this House has considered depopulation in rural areas.

Tapadh leibh, Ms Vaz; thank you. It is an honour to have you in the Chair. I thank all colleagues for their attendance and support in what I am sure will be an illuminating 90-minute debate. Staging your first Westminster Hall debate is a bit like throwing a birthday party and wondering whether anyone will turn up—at least we know there is not a depopulation crisis in Westminster. I also thank the Minister for taking this debate. It may not seem obvious at first what the demographics of the Western Isles have to do with the Home Office, but if she bears with me, I will explain and expand on why this issue, which now affects the periphery of the UK, influences the entire economy and should inform the decisions that we make at national level on immigration.

First, let me give some context. In Na h-Eileanan an Iar, the Western Isles, we are in the middle of a depopulation crisis, and I am here to sound that alarm. We are painfully aware of what is a rapidly changing population. An older, strongly Gaelic-speaking demographic is passing on, and we see the rapid out-migration of younger, economically active families. They sometimes face insurmountable challenges: being priced out of housing and facing failing transport connections, stuttering health provision and childcare and a host of other issues, which weigh heavily in the scales of deciding whether to stay or go. And while we sound the warnings at home, the lights should be flashing on the dashboard in this place, too, and in offices across Whitehall. That is why I am staging this debate—to highlight the fact that we are simply running out of people to take up key public sector and private sector posts to keep our islands going. That affects the viability of vital services and it ill serves the local economy and the national one, too.

Just to give some further context, the estimated population of the Western Isles is 26,200. That represents a 5.5% decrease since the 2011 census and the highest percentage decrease in Scotland. According to estimates from the Western Isles health board, which has an obvious interest in this issue from a staffing and care point of view, the working-age population of the islands is set to decrease by 6% by 2028, while the over-75 population with the highest levels of comorbidity—people who have more than one illness—is set to rise by 25%. The situation is frightening. According to the board, these population changes will result in a year-on-year reduction in the available workforce—nurses and care staff—to attend the most important, most vulnerable people, and ultimately undermine the ability to sustain services.

I say we have to address this with local responses, Scottish responses and action at UK level to prevent the situation from entering that downward spiral. We know that an ageing-population pattern is part of a Europe-wide trend, and somehow we kid ourselves that this is an over-the-horizon event that we will deal with later, but for us in the islands, it is an urgent reality, and our breakfast will become everyone else’s lunch; if we do not address these issues on the edge of Europe, they will become structural problems for the rest of the country and the rest of the continent.

More than worrying about an ageing population, I worry about the exodus of a working population, particularly the female population. Since 2007, the number of women aged between 25 and 44 on the islands has dropped by 15%, from 3,289 down to 2,787. There are many reasons for that rapid decline but, for most parents, they can be encapsulated in one word—childcare. Of course that is a challenge for parents everywhere, but the lack of a working-age population, as well as the burdensome regulation, has strangled childcare in the islands. I am sure that is the experience of colleagues across the board. Working parents and primarily working mothers, of course, find it hard to return to work—to balance childcare and careers—and despite the many strong family connections and networks they have on the islands, ultimately they give up in frustration, and ultimately they speak to me, as they spoke to me during the election campaign, about giving up and moving to the mainland. And when we lose families, we lose the working-age population.

During the successful election campaign, I was joined by the then shadow Business Secretary, now the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, on a visit around some of the key ports in Stornoway. We went to a shellfish export company that was successful, with a £4 million turnover and rising, which was a great investment by the port and the parent company in the local fishing fleet. But the actual processing of the product in the chill of the packing room could not operate were it not for the Ukraine war. Most of the staff that packed the products were refugees from that conflict. They are a welcome and valuable addition to the workforce and the islands, but we cannot have our economic growth dependent on a conflict on the other side of Europe.

At a seafood processor on another island, a £3 million business at the end of a single-track road, there were sustainable stocks and work for perhaps 30 employees, but only 15 workers were available because there are simply no workers to be found locally. This was an operation that, pre-Brexit, had a large and well-integrated European workforce. Now it cannot find a local workforce, and the regulatory and bureaucratic challenge of sourcing staff is almost overwhelming.

In the fishing industry offshore, the present immigration requirements as I understand them require staff employed under the sponsored visa scheme to pass stage 4 English language tests. That is quite a high academic bar for an industry that seeks crewmen who are primarily experienced in working in noisy and challenging conditions where hand signals are often as useful as linguistic ones.

The hon. Member will be aware that this is a matter on which a number of us have campaigned over the years. Essentially, the problem is that the definition of what constitutes a skilled migrant worker is narrow and brings in skills, as with the English language test, that are not central to the jobs that those people are going to do. We have safely had migrant workers in the catching sector for years without that level of English language. Will the hon. Member and others join me in encouraging the new Home Office team to have yet another look, and this time take the issues seriously?

I agree entirely with the right hon. Member. The language requirement is just one aspect of the present visa system that is unsuitable for our fishing industry, the islands, and rural economies, and which we have until now been unable to navigate around. Hopefully it will undergo a fresh review under a new Home Office team.

The new Home Office team and immigration policy are rightly the reserve of the UK Government. I do not seek to break up control of the system. I stood on a platform of a properly managed, points-based immigration system that links up the needs of the workforce, the economy and the country. But I counter the narrative, which this summer was in danger of becoming the prevailing one, that the country is somehow “full up”. There are parts of the UK and Scotland where we are crying out for skilled workers to come and be part of our workforce, and to then stay and become part of our communities.

Scotland has specific needs for our skills base, and the islands and rural areas of Scotland and the UK have some very specific asks of their own. The lesson of policy in almost every area—not just immigration—be it administered from here or Holyrood, is that one size does not fit all. What works at a UK level may need more flexibility at a Scottish level, and again at a rural and island level.

In the past, the UK Government in other guises have worked with the Scottish Government to show flexibility. The former First Minister Jack McConnell, now Baron McConnell of Glenscorrodale, promoted the fresh talent initiative for post-study work visas for overseas students at Scottish universities, enabling them to stay on for a period. There is, and should be, interest in reviving that plan, and the idea of rural visa projects, which was advanced by the Scottish Government with the Migration Advisory Committee before the previous UK Government stamped on the idea.

There are many levers of Government that are not at the hand of the Minister, but that bear mentioning because they are part of local and Scottish solutions to rural depopulation. In the islands, we are lucky to have a system of crofting tenure, a uniquely Scottish system which has kept generations in their home community, but crofting has been hollowed out by political forces that neither understand nor value its work. Crofting tenure, properly regulated, should be a defence against the property market, but instead it has become an enabler. The sale of croft tenancies at inflated rates has become a critical factor in the housing shortage.

Crofting needs urgent reform. I commend the Shucksmith report, “The Future of Crofting”, now more than a decade old but an excellent piece of work, which sought to rebalance—or restore the balance—between crofters’ right to security of tenure and their responsibilities to keep the market at bay. It should be dusted down and re-enacted, but that is probably a subject for another debate and another place.

The lack of affordable housing, however, is an issue that many other Members here and elsewhere will recognise. I hope that it will be taken up by other speakers in the debate. In many of our areas, it is impossible for anyone with modest means to secure a house, which is a pretty basic precondition for retaining a working-age population and keeping the economy spinning.

We therefore need action on housing and on crofting regulation; we need access to land; and we need access and action on depopulation. As I said, the dashboard lights are flashing. More than anything we need focus. We need economic focus on the peripheries of the north and west of Scotland, those areas of continued depopulation. We need economic incentives, state aid, perhaps a reduction in VAT on construction, and enhanced capital allowances. I do not want the Minister to worry too much about those issues, because they are for the Treasury and other Departments, and I will take them up with them.

My time is running out, and I do not want to end on a note of despondency. There is hope. There is hope in community ownership of the many crofting estates in the Western Isles, a quiet revolution that has injected not just a new wave of development, but a growing sense of confidence and assurance that, given the tools, we can tackle the issues for ourselves. There is the vast opportunity of community ownership of, and a community share in, the wealth of wind in onshore and offshore developments, which are due offers. That change is so tantalisingly close and could be so transformative in terms of finance and confidence that it cannot be ignored as part of the UK Government’s GB Energy strategy.

There is also hope in individuals, families and communities and their resilience, which make the islands not just a great place to visit, but a precious place to stay. There are examples of local initiatives like the Uist repopulation zone, which has provided training opportunities and much-hallowed childcare provision to parents. It is led by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and has received £60,000 from the Scottish Government. I commend the work of that project and of many other individuals and communities who focus themselves on the issue of depopulation at a local level.

As I said, we have a sense of urgency about this in the islands: we are experiencing a depopulation crisis. I hope now that that can find an echo not just in the contributions to this debate, but in the UK Government’s awareness and response to the issue.

I expect to call the Lib Dem opposition spokesperson at 3.28 pm.

It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) on securing this debate. The issue is as important to me and my communities as it is to him and his.

The yardstick by which I have for many years now measured any proposal for anything to happen in the Northern Isles is to ask a simple question: will this make it more or less likely for people to want to live here? Without a healthy and growing population, we risk losing the critical mass and, within that critical mass, we do not have the mix. Every population—every community—needs to have a mix of the professional, the technical, the skilled and semi-skilled, and the unskilled. In a city, where there is mobility within the different districts, we can take that sort of thing for granted; when we live in an island community it is a different story.

In some ways, I am the living, breathing example of how depopulation happens. I was born and brought up on Islay; I left as a 17-year-old to go to university and I eventually qualified as a solicitor. Islay has a population of between 3,000 and 3,500 people. It would not have been possible for me to return to Islay to go into legal practice with a population of that sort. I have lived most of my adult life in Orkney, where we have a population of about 22,000, which is big enough to sustain that professional community. The legal and accountancy firms, the wide range of doctors and the bigger hospital are things that allow us to maintain that mix so that we can keep our community functioning properly.

The history of Orkney and Shetland is slightly different from that of the Western Isles. Our population in Shetland was down to about 16,000 in the mid-1970s, at which point the oil industry came. Since then, the population grew quite rapidly, and it rests at around 22,000 or 23,000. That tells us that the critical thing to grow a population is the availability of a good mix of well-paid and varied jobs in the local economy.

Fifty years later, as we enter a period of decline in oil and gas as part of our economy, the just transition matters to us more than anywhere else. We see opportunities for our community in the development of, for example, marine renewables, tidal power and tidal stream generation, but if we push oil and gas off a cliff before the technologies are mature enough to come on stream, people will not hang around in places such as Orkney or Shetland, waiting for something else to happen. They have a history and a legitimate expectation of working in good, well-paid jobs, and they will take their skills elsewhere.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the importance of housing, which is probably the single biggest constraint on economic growth in the Northern Isles. I had an interesting conversation recently with the chief executive of Hjaltland housing association in Shetland. He was talking about a proposal he had put to a significant contractor, which was going to employ a significant number of people for a good number of years. He said, essentially, “If they pay the rent for us in advance”—this was a big corporate so it was rich enough to do it—“we will build the houses. Then, at the end of the time, the housing stock will revert to us and be available for other use in our community.” That was a brilliant idea—absolutely fantastic, not least in its simplicity. I think that the corporate would be up for that, but it was not seen with favour by the Government in Edinburgh and has subsequently been discouraged. That sort of creativity—coming up with solutions to problems that are appropriate to the community—is critical if we are to halt the reverse in numbers.

The infrastructure available for people in island communities is also essential, including digital infrastructure such as modern broadband and the availability of mobile phone coverage, given the problems that could be faced by communities such as mine when the copper wire switch-off happens for landline technologies. Other infrastructure is essential as well, such as the physical infrastructure of a ferry service. The hon. Gentleman does not need me to tell him about the problems that come from the lack of a reliable ferry service, because his constituents have endured that. But even within Shetland, and increasingly in Orkney as well, the internal ferry services have been problematic, as fleets get older and need to be replaced. Again, we need to listen to the communities. Those in Unst, Yell, Whalsay and Bressay are all keen to say, “Actually, for the next generation, we don’t want to rely on ferries. We want the construction of fixed links and tunnels, which would offer us opportunities to build and grow businesses.”

I spoke to one woman in Yell recently who told me that she would love to go back and have her home in Yell—she was born and brought up in Unst originally—but she has two children with medical conditions, which means that she does not want to take the risk of having to rely on a ferry journey, possibly in the middle of the night, should her children need medical attention at the hospital. Therefore, somebody who would like to live in Yell or Unst is forced to live on the Shetland mainland.

The problems of population decline for Shetland as a whole—if we look at the headline figures—may not be as acute, but the smaller island communities in Shetland continue to see that decline. This is about giving every community the empowerment to come up with solutions that are appropriate to them in their communities. I know that others want to speak, but I could say a lot more about this, and I hope that we will return to it at some point in the future.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairing this afternoon, Ms Vaz. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) on securing this debate and on the eloquent way in which he introduced it. He said that it was like coming to a birthday party; the only problem is that he did not think to bring any cake for all of us attending.

Depopulation in rural areas is, of course, a live and pressing issue. The hon. Member captured most of the real issues that we constantly live with in rural areas across Scotland. We took this issue very seriously on the Scottish Affairs Committee in the last Parliament, and we produced two reports on the subject. One was about Scotland’s population and demography, and the range of issues that the hon. Gentleman presented came up regularly in our proceedings. And, just before the Dissolution of the last Parliament, we concluded a report on the cost of living crisis in rural areas, which was very gratefully received by a number of people who were looking at this as a means to address some of the issues that he raised.

We have known our problem for a while: Scotland is facing population decline. We are the only part of the United Kingdom that is projected to have a population decline. By 2033, our population will start to go down again. That is after making a bit of progress in the last 20 years, which I think everybody welcomed. Most of that was down to people coming to Scotland from eastern Europe, which boosted so many of our communities. The hon. Gentleman was right to reference the contribution that so many people made to our communities, right across Scotland, under freedom of movement. It is an absolute disaster—a tragedy—that we have lost the ability to get that type of immigration going because of the refusal to review the disastrous consequences of leaving the European Union. Particularly, the opportunities of freedom of movement have left us.

In Scotland, we have a falling birth rate and an increasingly ageing population, and the issues following Brexit have created particularly difficult issues. We have acute labour shortages in all sectors, whether that is in our NHS, our care sector, hospitality, tourism or agriculture, and that is even more pronounced in Scotland’s rural areas. The declining population makes it harder to fill the available vacancies that are available. Even if every school leaver opted to work in Scotland’s social care sector, there would still be vacancies left for people to fill, such is the scale of the difficulties that we have.

I am not sure what Labour’s new policy is on immigration. I have listened very carefully to the Home Secretary when she has spoken about this in debates, and I have followed what the Prime Minister has been saying, but I am still not sure what Labour is trying to achieve. I think that they understand, respect and get the problem, but it is just that they are not prepared to do anything about it. We still hear the same old language that immigration is a burden and asylum seekers are to be demonised. No clear and concise routes to UK citizenship are being offered and opened up to people who hope to come to our shores.

Labour really has to do better on this issue. It has to acknowledge the value of immigration. For goodness’ sake, look what it has done to our communities; look how it has driven economic growth. I was here when Tony Blair opened up the route to the UK to the accession nations. It was a massive success, and, if anything, it contributed to the economic growth that we got in the late 2000s before the economic crash, such was the vision of the previous Labour Government. Please show us some of that same vision, too.

The hon. Gentleman is quite right to reference the Fresh Talent scheme. A Labour Government delivered that fantastic innovation, in partnership with a Labour-Liberal Executive in Scotland. Fresh Talent gave us some advantages over the rest of the United Kingdom. It allowed us to retain Scottish-educated foreign national students so that they could stay and consider Scotland to be a home. If only we could see that type of imagination being deployed once again, but even introducing something like Fresh Talent would barely touch the sides of the difficulties that we have just now.

There is general consensus among all the political parties of Scotland and across Holyrood that something needs to be done and that we need to address this issue as a priority. The hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar referred to some of the welcome things that the Scottish Government have done, but the one thing that we need—I cannot for the life of me understand why this has not been seriously looked at—is a Scottish visa. We need to look at the option of a sub-national immigration system that caters for the nations and regions throughout the whole United Kingdom and allows the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and other constituencies around Scotland to get the immigrants they require. Such systems work perfectly and effectively in other nations. The Scottish Affairs Committee visited Quebec last year and saw its system working perfectly. Quebec has an arrangement with France and is able to recruit people in shortage areas. Montreal is now one of the fastest-growing cities and economies in the whole of North America—imagine having just a bit of that in Scotland.

I was immensely encouraged during the general election campaign to hear Labour talk about a Scottish visa; I listened carefully to Labour’s deputy leader, Jackie Baillie, talk about the idea glowingly. I spoke to representatives of businesses and sectors in my constituency, who really appreciated that and thought, “Maybe at last we will be able to make some sort of progress,” but that has all gone. What has happened to it? What happened to this idea? Now all that Labour talks about is tinkering with the shortage occupation list. That will help, but it will not do anything to address our real needs, so we need some serious solutions.

People tell us that we need to get more people from the United Kingdom to come to Scotland. I remember being lectured by previous Scottish Conservative Members of Parliament, who said that people will not come to Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom—apparently, they are put off by our lower council tax, free prescriptions, free childcare and lack of tuition fees. Apparently, that was also a disincentive to immigrants from eastern Europe and further afield. Those MPs said that people refused to come to Scotland because they would pay a few pounds more in tax. That was absolute and utter rubbish, and we now know that because the latest figures from the National Records of Scotland show that there is net migration to Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom. We need to do more, but let us get away from that nonsense. I hope we do not hear anything like that from the Labour Government.

Yes, there are problems; yes, there are real difficulties. Rural Scotland is suffering, but it is now in the hands of a Labour Government. It is not the Conservatives any more, with their cultural resistance to things like immigration. Labour has the opportunity to respond with its values. Please, for goodness’ sake—for the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and for all of us who represent rural constituencies—do something about it. Get it fixed. Help us. Bring forward the solutions.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Vaz. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) for securing this important debate. I associate myself with his comments about the challenges his constituents face.

I want to address an issue that deeply affects rural communities across the United Kingdom, one specific aspect of which particularly affects my constituency of Morecambe and Lunesdale. This is a matter that strikes at the heart of our villages and rural areas, where we are seeing an alarming trend: young people, the lifeblood of our communities, are being forced to move away. One of the key reasons for that is a lack of affordable housing. Today I will speak about building homes, and tomorrow I hope to speak in this Chamber about the impact of short-term lets on my constituency.

In Morecambe and Lunesdale, rising house prices and a chronic shortage of affordable homes are pushing young people to relocate to urban areas in search of housing they can afford. They want to stay and contribute to the communities they grew up in, but many simply cannot, and the result is a steady drain of talent and energy from our villages. That has serious consequences. We see it most clearly in our local economy, particularly in key sectors such as agriculture and hospitality—industries that have been the backbone of our rural life for generations. Farms, restaurants, hotels and pubs across Morecambe and Lunesdale are struggling to find the workers they need. Without young people staying in these areas or moving in, the workforce shrinks and businesses are unable to expand or even survive.

Let us be clear: rural depopulation is not just a social issue, but an economic one. The lack of workers drives economic stagnation and, as businesses falter, fewer opportunities remain, fuelling further depopulation. It is a vicious cycle that we must break. The solution lies in providing more affordable, energy-efficient housing. By building homes that young people and families can actually afford, we can keep our communities vibrant and growing. Affordable housing does not just keep people in our rural areas; it attracts new investment, brings vitality back to our villages and strengthens the local economy.

We must ensure that these homes are energy efficient. In the face of both the climate crisis and soaring energy costs, it is imperative that any new housing meets high environmental standards. By doing that, we are not only addressing housing affordability, but preparing our rural areas for a sustainable future.

I must mention the Lune Valley Community Land Trust, which, in collaboration with South Lakes Housing, has built beautiful, affordable, energy-efficient homes in the village of Halton in my constituency. I believe they are looking to build more in the area. I welcome this approach and urge the Government to support it.

If we are serious about tackling rural depopulation, we must take decisive action. That means working closely with local authorities, developers and communities to ensure that we have the right mix of affordable and social housing built to the highest standards. It means creating jobs, fostering economic growth and ensuring that young people want, and can afford, to live and work in rural areas such as Morecambe and Lunesdale.

I urge the Government to prioritise affordable and energy-efficient rural housing as part of their broader strategy to tackle rural depopulation and enable economic growth. Our villages and rural areas deserve nothing less.

What a pleasure it is to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz, for what I believe is the first time during this Session. I am sure it will be the first of many, and I look forward to working alongside you.

It is also a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge). She is here in Westminster Hall almost as much as I am! I look forward to many more contributions from her.

I say to the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton)—that is my Northern Ireland pronunciation of the name of his constituency; I hope it was somewhere near to what it really should be—that it is a real pleasure to see him in this debate, and I am here to make a contribution to support him.

As one who is thankful to live in a rural community and to feel part of it, I speak with some personal knowledge. I come over here on a Monday, and I leave on a Thursday. London will never be my home, because there is too much concrete. I need green fields, grass and fresh air. That is just a personal opinion; I have nothing against the people of London. I am sure they are very happy here, but I know I certainly could not be here any longer than I have to be. But that is by the way.

The Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs—I always give a Northern Ireland perspective to these things—publishes an annual “Key Rural Issues” publication. According to the 2023 edition, 36% of Northern Ireland’s population lived in a rural area in 2020. The population of rural areas grew by 20% between 2001 and 2020, while the population of urban areas grew by 7%. Perhaps what we are seeing in Northern Ireland is a reverse of what the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar referred to; more people seem to be moving to rural areas for whatever reason.

I can see this happening. Although I still see the people I went to school with and their children in Kircubbin and Greyabbey, the two nearest villages to my home, I also see many, many new faces on my constituency door knocks throughout the year. I do not just knock doors at the election; I will be doing it next week in recess, and I did it the whole month of August. I do it because it is a good way to hear what constituents are saying. In August, when everybody goes out, it was also a good way for people to know I was back again after the 4 July election. It shows an interest. It is how we know what people want, so that is why I do it.

I also see that the footprint has expanded. That is due not simply to children having children and moving to their own places, but to historical family connections no longer being in place. In my opinion, that adds to the character and abilities in the community.

I will quickly refer to the community and what it means to me and the people I live alongside. I have lived in the Ards peninsula since I was four, over 65 years ago—now hon. Members know my age—and yet there are those who still consider me, and label me, a blow-in. How many times have we rural people heard that? There is a joke that if someone’s great-grandparents are not buried in Ballywalter graveyard, they are a blow-in. That would take them back before their birth, but that is by the way. That has not stopped me from being an integral part of the local community and from being proud to be known as the wee boy from Ballywalter.

This is a message that people need to understand: although someone may not be born in a rural community, they will be made a part of that community if they understand and embrace all that that entails. That means farmers ploughing or spraying fields at 1.30 am, because that is the best time—perhaps the only time—they can do so. It means being delayed behind a tractor or by a farmer moving cattle across the road. It means being woken up by the sound of a bird scarer, which is how the farmer protects his field. Those are the things of the countryside, but we embrace them. They are parts of daily life for people who move to a home in the country.

By the same token, living in a rural community means a farmer may drop off a bag of groceries when someone is snowed in. It means that when someone has a new baby, they will receive at least 10 ready-made meals from the local community, and possibly many more. That is the community that I live in. It is probably the community we all live in—I know that it is certainly the community that the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) lives in. Living in a rural community means that if someone is delayed in getting to the school, people will wait with their child. It means that people are part of that community. For me, community means all those things. If someone new comes in, welcome them; if someone needs help, reach out.

We need to do better at some things if we are to encourage more people to take up rural living and to bring their skills and qualities to rural life. We need to ensure that there is adequate broadband for home working and small businesses. We have to move with the times: when people want to work from home, and have businesses in their homes, we need to encourage them and make that happen. We need to ensure that there are places in small rural schools. We need to enhance public transport connectivity.

We also need to encourage, by any means, our banks to realise that their face-to-face obligations to rural customers come first. I do not think that there are any hon. Members who have not spoken about bank closures. It sickens me that when banks make more money than they did the year before, they close branches in rural areas. I am not a socialist, but I cannot comprehend how banks can close branches in rural areas and then produce more dividends for the chief executives. That is seriously morally wrong. If any banks are listening, please note my words, because they are not just my words—they are the words of many others.

We need to ensure that rural medical practices have adequate facilities for physios, nutritionists, sexual health clinicians and dentists, so there is adequate provision for rural communities. Those are all things that people who come to live in the countryside wish to have.

A lot of people want to speak, so I will finish with this. Living in a rural community offers so much and, with sensible planning and forethought, there is space for more. There is nothing quite like country life. I say that not just because I am a shooting man, but because I just love the country. We need to protect our country life while encouraging people to reap the health benefits of living in the country, such as fresher, cleaner air. My goodness, who could say there is anything wrong with that?

I thank the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) for securing a debate on this very important subject. We were previously on opposite sides of the great newspaper divide. I was on the true blue Tory side supporting the Daily Mail, and he was on a red rag called the Daily Record, but we will not dwell on that.

Depopulation is the curse of rural areas—a blight that creeps up and strangles the lifeblood. It can precipitate a crisis, after which shops and schools close, and so communities wither and die. It is a multiheaded hydra of a problem, and we are hearing that today. There is no one cause; therefore, there is no one solution. There is no magic wand here. Bright lights and big cities will always have their charms. As a proud country boy myself, I think all that is overrated, but we need to make moving away from a rural area a choice, not a necessity.

Some of the issues are common to rural areas across the UK and the whole globe. First among them is jobs. If someone cannot find work, their choices are stark: move, if they can, or linger where they are. That can be a miserable existence, for rural deprivation is real. Issues with connectivity, especially public transport, can add genuine isolation to the burden. Scenery in rural areas such as my Dumfries and Galloway constituency is lovely. It is a delight for locals and tourists alike, but you cannot eat the scenery.

Another layer of difficulty, peculiar to Scotland, lies in the fact that we have two Governments: one here in Westminster and one at Holyrood. The arrival of the devolved Parliament was designed to shorten the distance between the people and the Government and deliver a light-on-its-feet legislature able to deliver Scottish solutions to Scottish problems, such as depopulation. The theory was marvellous, but the reality perhaps less successful. Much great work has been done by MSP colleagues, but problems persist, not least when one side of the equation is not the willing partner it ought to be.

From previous experience as a special adviser in the Scotland Office, I found that the SNP Scottish Government were capable of foot-dragging, with little interest in making joint projects with the UK Government a success. Take the A75 road—critical to connectivity between Northern Ireland, Scotland and the rest of the UK. Carrying perhaps as much as 60% of Northern Ireland’s trade, it is a sorry cattle track of a road, very often dubbed “the road to hell”. The UK Government earmarked money for improvements, but the Scottish Government cried foul because transport is devolved. The result? No action on the road that is the very spine of my rural constituency.

How can we attract young families to rural Scotland when the quality of schools is such a lottery? Why, with one so-called “Curriculum for Excellence” in Scotland, are 32 local authority heads of education delivering that in 32 different ways? Why is there a postcode lottery, where one school may offer nine exams while one 25 miles down the road may offer 10? Regardless of pupils’ ability, some are at an instant disadvantage.

Housing is a problem. Someone may find a job, but can they find a rural home within affordable commuting distance? Probably not. Housing sits with the Scottish Government. We are told that there will be a reset in relations between the new Administration here and the one in Edinburgh.

I will take the chance to add to his list. He knows that immigration is a matter exclusively reserved to the UK Government. When he was special adviser, what did he recommend to one of his Secretaries of State about how immigration routes to Scotland could be improved?

Our advice was that things like Scottish visa projects have a fundamental problem, in that if someone arrives in Scotland with a bit of paper that says they can be there, there is nothing to keep them there. We have found difficulties with the black economy. People disappear rapidly, and again, it’s bright lights and big cities, so there is a fundamental problem. We on our side think that the UK should have one immigration policy and not break it up piecemeal. As we say in Scotland, the proof is in the preein. We will see what this new relationship brings and whether it is fruitful. Perhaps we could all be friends between Westminster and Edinburgh. I certainly hope so but, again, as we say in Scotland, I hae ma doots.

Housing is worthy of debate entirely on its own; it is a sprawling subject and we simply do not have the time to dwell on it today. Having touched on many of the difficulties, I will turn briefly to some of the solutions. If depopulation is one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse for rural Britain, then indifference is coming up on the rail, and that is something that we as politicians can tackle. We can, as we are doing today, raise these issues. We need to lift the profile of rural Britain. We can rail against the urban-centric policies of those who do not understand what rural life, with all its challenges and all its benefits, is truly about. Most importantly, we can fight for the three j’s—jobs, jobs, jobs.

Order. We will start the wind-up speeches at 3.28 pm and we have three more speakers, so hon. Members can do the maths.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz; I will be brief.

I applied to contribute to this debate because I wanted to speak not just about my experiences, but about the experiences of people I grew up around, people I was at school with and people who, in many cases, were forced to leave my constituency of Hexham, which colleagues will be surprised to learn is the largest in England. As the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) spoke about the beauty of his constituency, I feel compelled to remind people of the beauty of my constituency, which is in the county of Hadrian’s Wall, and to note that we will be marking the anniversary of the loss of the Sycamore Gap tree during the conference recess later in September.

When I go through so many towns and villages in my constituency, I see that they are marked by exactly what Members have spoken about today: a lack of younger people, who have been forced—they have not chosen—to move away. They have been forced, by a lack of jobs and opportunities, to seek to make their lives elsewhere, often leaving behind families and caring responsibilities, which means large amounts of travel back home to meet those obligations. The last Government failed to grapple with this issue, which we know is a huge, inherited, generational and demographic challenge, and one that I urge our Government to take on fully.

I spoke to some of the businesses in my constituency on the campaign trail. They want to take on more people, but they simply cannot find the skills they need or people who want to work and can afford to live in such an overheated and over-inflated housing market. That leads to a decline for those businesses and, for some of them, a slow death. One of the larger employers told me during the election that if they take on someone and train them up, but then they cannot afford to live in my constituency and move somewhere else, they bear all the training costs, only to see that individual go and work in a far more urban part of the country. We have spoken a lot about the rural premium and the rural cost of living, but there is a rural cost of doing business as well, which we should note very carefully.

As the representative for the Hexham constituency—the first Labour representative for the constituency—and as someone who was privileged to be out knocking on doors with my school friends and my schoolteachers, I know that we are not just letting our young people down, but letting our older generations down. I am privileged to be able to go back to visit my grandma every week when I am back in the constituency, but I have friends who now live three or four hours away and are unable to do the same. This is having a genuinely devastating impact on a lot of families, particularly given the acute social care crisis that this Government have inherited.

Ultimately, only by addressing this issue and the really biting crisis of rural depopulation can we turn our communities around and ensure that they can become the thriving engines of growth that the economy needs them to be.

I thank the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) very much indeed for securing a debate on such an important subject. He consistently hits the nail on the head by bringing forward subjects that really matter to us.

We have talked about accommodation, and the Highland council, on which I was a councillor, has £1.2 billion of borrowing, yet 40% of our housing budget is spent on interest payments. That is a catastrophe. Basically, we cannot borrow any more money to build more housing. The utility companies that are building renewable energy projects across the whole of the highlands need to build properties that will remain there for generations rather than modular housing for the extent of the jobs or projects, and the same should go for the owners of fish farms. It would make a big difference if the private and public sectors worked together, because I fear that public sector housing will not be able to fill the gap.

Scotland has a £3.4 billion transport budget, but it is not coming to the highlands. The A82 up Loch Lomond must be one of the worst roads in the world; trucks cannot get past there. Mowi, the fish farm company, and BSW Timber just cannot operate safely, and it is extremely bad for the area. The railway from Glasgow to Mallaig has an average speed of just over 40 mph. This HS2 thing is a joke, and the ferries make Scotland a laughing stock.

The Scottish Government have done no favours to the highlands and Scotland on connectivity over the last 17 years, and the same can be said for schools in the highlands. Schools such as Mallaig high school and Gairloch high school are less than 50% full—there is a complete collapse. As the numbers drop, we are losing the breadth of subjects taught by the teachers, so we are desperate for computing, mathematics and engineering teachers—they are the jobs of the future. The attainment gap in Scotland is a great shame for our country. Again, the Scottish Government’s management of our educational system has been catastrophic.

Broadband coverage in Scotland is 96.8%, but in the highlands it is 86.6%. That is a disparity of almost 15%. Of course, we cannot have the jobs of the future if we do not have the connectivity. Places lose their population if the public sector pulls out, and that is what we are seeing. Eight care homes closed in the highlands in the two years that I was a highland councillor. People are getting shipped from the west coast of Skye up to Thurso or Inverness. There is a collapse in the care home sector. Care workers are being paid £12 an hour, which is less than they would get in the hospitality sector, and that is an increase on what it was before April. No wonder we have an absolute catastrophe in our care sector. Of course, we all know that the availability of dentists in the highlands is also a disaster.

We have heard about the importance of allowing immigrants to come to Scotland. We are losing more than 50% of our young. They choose not to work in the highlands; they want to leave home. We need to keep these guys. We need to offer them well-paid jobs and good accommodation, and cherish them, otherwise they will leave. At the moment, they cannot get accommodation and they are not being taught for the jobs of the future. We are not helped by the Scottish Government, and we all have a big job to do together.

Thank you, Ms Vaz, for the unexpected pleasure of contributing to this important debate; I congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) on bringing it to this Chamber. I thought I would offer a Welsh perspective, to ensure that all the nations of these islands are spoken about in this debate, although I fear that much of what we have heard rings true in Wales, too.

I represent Ceredigion Preseli. At the last census, Ceredigion—the majority of my constituency—recorded a 5.9% decrease in its overall population, and the communities in Preseli or Pembrokeshire that I now represent saw their population flatline. This is a problem that we are very much living with today. What does it mean? In practice, it means that we are having very difficult discussions about, for example, the provision of public services and whether the school estate is sustainable for the future. We are talking about the lack of GPs and the fact that we do not have an NHS dentist any more in much of the constituency. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned bank closures. I shall not name them now, but there are three well-known banks in the UK that no longer have a single branch in the two counties that I represent. This is the real consequence of depopulation.

I very much align myself with the comments made by all colleagues on what needs to happen to try to reverse this trend. However, I will add that a Labour predecessor of mine in what was then the constituency of Cardiganshire, the great—and sadly late—Baron Elystan-Morgan, talked in his maiden speech about how the outmigration of young people sapped the vitality of rural communities. He was speaking in the 1960s, but I fear that that is as true today as it was then. As well as sapping the vitality from private enterprise and having a detrimental impact on the provision of staff for key public services, this outmigration is also sapping and undermining the viability of our rural communities.

This is something that the UK Government can help with, and it should be on their radar. When the Cabinet Office looks at the range of risks it must monitor as part of its remit—something that the Public Accounts Committee discussed in the previous Parliament—it should look at how the discrepancies in demographic trends across these islands might have an impact on key public services, because in certain areas of rural Wales we will, I am afraid, see a collapse of public services. That will have a knock-on impact on more urban areas, which are themselves struggling with different demographic pressures.

This is an important debate, and I would ask the Home Office Minister to consider, as part of her important work in this new Parliament, the lessons to be drawn from experiences across the world. My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) mentioned the experience of Quebec. As west Walians, we often turn on the radio to hear adverts from the Government of Western Australia trying to attract many of our young doctors and nurses to migrate to that part of the world. Are there incentives we could use to persuade more of our young people to stay or to attract those from other parts of the world? There are many benefits to rural living, as all hon. Members have outlined today. Perhaps we could be more creative in grasping this problem by the scruff of the neck, because I fear we do not have much time left to deal with it.

I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate my neighbour from across the Minch, the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton), on bringing this important subject to the attention of this place.

I am old enough to remember a time, when I was at school in Tain, when my father said to me, “Your future will lie in the south. Go south, young boy, because that’s where the jobs are.” Then, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) so wisely said, the oil came—and come it did. In my case, that meant working in the Nigg yard, as so many others did—at its height, there were 5,000 people employed there.

I married and brought up my children in my home town of Tain. I was one of the lucky ones. Indeed, it could be said that, in Caithness, the advent of Dounreay was equally important in not just halting but reversing depopulation. Even today, Dounreay keeps the lights on in Strath Halladale and Bettyhill, because many people have a croft, but they also have an income from Dounreay. To be plain with colleagues, I come to this from the issue of high-quality employment above all else. As my neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire (Mr MacDonald) just said, that is crucial, because without jobs, depopulation will continue.

I congratulate all speakers; all the important points have been touched on. My neighbour across the Minch made an important point. He said that there is a perception that the highlands and islands, and indeed many other parts of the UK, are full up. That is absolutely not the case. One only needs to travel on what we call the Causeymire—or the Causewaymire—across Caithness from Latheron to Thurso to see the myriad empty ruined croft houses either side of the road. Those once upon a time supported families but that is not the case now. It will be exactly the same across the Minch.

My neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire mentioned schools. Just north of his constituency, we have a problem with recruiting and retaining staff for some of our primary and secondary schools. That is becoming a big issue. Such problems are a disincentive for people to come or employers to move to the highlands and offer employment.

I am very taken by what my Welsh friend, the hon. Member for Ceredigion Preseli (Ben Lake), said about Western Australia. If incentives can be put together that will encourage qualified staff—dentists, doctors, teachers —to come to these areas, that would help so much. As my hon. Friend from across the Minch mentioned, there is a carers’ crisis. We see that in west Sutherland. We have an ever dropping number of carers, so who will look after the old people? People are giving up. The Government could tweak the rules governing the taxation of mileage that carers are burdened with. It is a very big disincentive indeed.

The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) talked about the loss of the migrant workers, as did the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris). The fact that we do not have those people—they have gone—makes a huge difference. I can remember Polish people in Easter Ross asking me, “Do they hate us? Why do they want us to leave?” That was very sad. Also, when I travel in Wester Ross and west Sutherland I see the old European signs with the stars on them saying, “This stretch of road was paid for with the help of EC money.” That was a huge loss to us all. Whatever we might think of the EC, the structural funding or something like objective 1, which was designed to reach the most disadvantaged areas including those that face depopulation, was a great loss to us all. I hope that His Majesty’s Government will look at the issues.

Time is short. There is a massive problem that matters hugely to my constituents. I could talk about health, which has been mentioned already in this debate. The fact that Caithness mothers have to travel more than a 200-mile return trip to give birth in Inverness is a piece of nonsense. That is one of the reasons that people are leaving Caithness and heading south. It is as simple as that.

Good Government treats the different parts of the UK fairly, whether they are remote, depopulated, or what the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who has left us now, referred to as the concrete of London. The point is that a good and fair Government will give people an equal chance in life to prosper and do well. It is not all doom and gloom, as the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) said. There are hopes for the future. We could look at other models of recruitment, imaginative ways of providing housing and incentives to get employers to come to remote areas. I very much hope that this will be the start of a constructive dialogue with the Government, and between the Scottish and UK Governments, on how we can, as has been said, grip the issue, shake it out and sort it once and for all.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Vaz. I congratulate the hon. Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Torcuil Crichton) on securing this important debate. I am pleased to have this opportunity to respond on behalf of the Opposition. The hon. Member told us about his deeply rural and very special part of the world and the unique challenges that it faces in terms of childcare and labour shortages.

I echo right hon. and hon. Members’ comments highlighting just how important our countryside is to the United Kingdom. We heard about the challenges of ensuring that young people are not forced out but can afford to live locally with access to jobs and housing, and about the challenges of access to schools, doctors, banks and other public services when there is no longer a critical mass.

Not only does the countryside make up 90% of the UK’s land, as well as being home to millions of people, it contributes over £270 billion to our economy in England alone. As many speakers have observed, our labour market in rural areas has for a long time been constrained by a lack of supply, particularly with regard to certain skills. The supply of financial capital has also been limited by the structure and regulation of financial services. Historically, poor connectivity—both physical transport links and digital infrastructure—have added to the challenges in rural areas. That is why the last Government made it their core mission to level up parts of our country that had been traditionally overlooked, and I was proud to support the previous Administration’s investment in rural communities.

In government, we introduced local skills improvement plans and a new local skills improvement fund to counter rural depopulation. We delivered the £3.6 billion towns fund, boosting investment to create jobs and opportunities across the country and grow the economy. We committed £110 million in extra investment to rural areas as part of the rural England prosperity fund to create jobs across the country. We invested in rural economies by helping farmers with an investment of £2.4 billion a year while EU land-based subsidies were phased out and new schemes were introduced that aimed to work for farmers, food producers and the environment. The farming investment fund will help to improve productivity and efficiency within farming businesses and animal health and welfare in the years to come, and bring forward more environmental benefits.

As well as supporting farmers, ensuring they have access to training to meet the needs of local communities and backing Britain’s farmers, the last Government also made progress in tackling challenges to living in rural areas. I represent some of the most beautiful rural communities in the country—although not as deeply rural as others—so I know the challenges of poor broadband connections, limited public transport and rural crime only too well. Poor broadband connections create huge challenges for youngsters in education, impede rural businesses and put blocks on remote working. There is a long way to go on broadband roll-out but we are making huge progress. The last Government invested £5 billion to roll out and it is expected that by 2025 85% of homes will have high-speed gigabit broadband.

Another huge concern for those I represent in rural communities is public services, particularly public transport and bus services. Limited services prevent youngsters from getting to school, adults from getting to work and elderly people from accessing health services and social activities. The obstacle to commercially sustainable services in some of those communities is obvious, but we cannot leave rural communities cut off and isolated. There is much more to do. The last Government put forward an additional £150 million to local authorities to help them to introduce new routes to unconnected areas or introduce demand-responsive transport services, such as my local Tees Flex service. We also established a new national rural crime unit, delivering our plan to crack down on crime and make our rural communities safe.

Yes, the previous Government invested and made progress in tackling the concerns and challenges facing many rural communities, but there is a lot more to do. I hope the new Administration will continue to look at how we support those communities, maintain investment, mitigate challenges and spread opportunities. The signs so far are not promising. Under the previous Labour Government, rural unemployment doubled in the last year of their Administration; at the general election, Labour’s manifesto barely mentioned rural communities; and barely two months into the new Administration, we hear that Labour is looking to claw back £100 million from the farming budget.

Given today is Back British Farming Day, will the Minister provide some clarity on the Government’s intention for the farming budget? The Government can make a substantial difference to our rural communities through protecting their distinct way of life. In the light of recent proposals to change house-building targets, will the Minister clarify how the Government will listen to rural communities with the new planning framework so those communities have a say in their future? There is much more still to do to support our rural communities. It is vital the new Government continue to work quickly to build on the work of the previous one and develop a vision for the countryside, to spread opportunities to all areas of the United Kingdom.

Under the last Conservative Government, too often we saw rampant exploitation of migrant workers in the seasonal workers scheme. Does the Minister share my concerns about such labour exploitation, and will she work with me on novel ideas to tackle it?

Will the Minister give way?

I welcome the Minister to her position. I apologise for not doing so earlier; I wish her well in her job. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and I have pursued the issue of visas for fishermen across the sea—in Northern Ireland, my villages of Portavogie, Kilkeel and Ardglass are examples —as has the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart). Along the line, we have always had verbal commitments, but we have never seen action to make visas more acceptable for skilled workers so that small fishing villages such as Portavogie, Ardglass and Kilkeel can survive. The Minister might wish to continue pursuing that, if it is agreeable.

I have said often enough that the medium to long-term structural problems in the catching sector for deckhands have to be solved by a better training programme, to make sure that we recruit from our own fishing and coastal communities. In the meantime, working together with the Scottish Government, where the responsibility lies, to bridge the gap with the availability of visas for incoming crew seems to me the perfect way in which the Governments here and in Edinburgh can work together to provide the industry with what it needs.

Will the Minister give way?

Will the Minister give way on that point?

The Minister has gone halfway to addressing the point that I wanted to raise. Australia, which has a federal system, operates a single immigration system, but the territories and states can nominate key critical shortage occupations to encourage and boost them. In her discussions with the devolved Administrations, will she bear in mind the experience of Australia and see whether its approach can be brought into the UK system?

Just before she does, will the Minister give way?

I thank the Minister, the shadow Minister and other right hon. and hon. Members who contributed to this debate. It was not bad for a birthday party—it turned out quite well.

I particularly welcome the Minister’s suggestion of a reset of the thinking on immigration and the hint she gave of a more integrated strategy across Government, involving DEFRA, Seafish and the Home Office working together on the fishing visa issues that we raised. I also welcome her suggestions about the council of the nations and regions and about more devolved and sophisticated approaches to immigration. What she says is true: the problem of depopulation is a multiheaded hydra, as the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway (John Cooper) put it, and responsibility for it does not lie at the Minister’s door, but some of the solutions can come from this place and other Governments and local authorities working together.

I thank all Members for their contributions, which were lyrically encapsulated by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). He spoke very movingly about sense of place, belonging and community, which I think is what we all want to retain when we talk about depopulation.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) and my hon. Friend the Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Lizzi Collinge) talked about the drift from villages into towns. I warn them from my own experience in Na h-Eileanan an Iar that it is then only one more step on to the ferry, on to the mainland and out of the constituency.

Housing and jobs were highlighted by the hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway and my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris), who is my Westminster Hall tag-team buddy—we seem to be in every debate together! These are the solutions. No jobs means no people. No people, in the case of my constituency, means no language, culture or sense of belonging.

The hon. Member for Dumfries and Galloway spoke about the necessity of a multi-agency solution. There was understandable tension between him and the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart), who brought a great deal of expertise and knowledge gleaned from his chairmanship of the Scottish Affairs Committee. We thank him for that, as the chairmanship passes on.

There is understandable tension over the idea of a separate Scottish visa. I think the solution lies in an integrated visa and perhaps in more sophisticated, more regional and more local visa requirements. After all, my phone knows exactly where I am, my bank knows exactly where I am and most of the time my online shopping cart knows where I am, so why cannot the Government know where skilled migrants work, onshore and offshore, most of the time as well? It will require local, national and regional solutions. It also requires a great deal of care and sensitivity because of how host communities feel about migrant communities and the importance of retaining the traditional communities, as the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) and many others spoke about.

In conclusion, Ms Vaz, I thank you for your chairmanship, I thank the Minister and shadow Minister for their responses and I thank all hon. Members who took part. I hope that we can move this debate on. We face a depopulation crisis on the edge of Europe, but here at the centre of power, the lights on the dashboard should be on as well. We should start addressing these issues now, before they become structural problems that affect the entire economy.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered depopulation in rural areas.