Speeches by Hillier.

“I completely agree with my hon. Friend. Of course, there is another leader in this world who has talked about building a wall.”

“Absolutely. A lot of tripe was talked at the time about having virtual borders. Even with some of the tensions between Scotland and the UK, which were evident in what SNP Members said earlier, we are not, I hope, at the point where we would have watchtowers and border guards with guns, but once we have a border, that i…”

“Indeed. My hon. Friend was not an MP when we were discussing Brexit, but oh my word, there was a lack of thought about the issues with the land border prior to that. Madam Deputy Speaker, you may recall that when the former Prime Minister, now Baroness May, was proposing her Brexit deal, only 17% of Members of Parliame…”

“I have absolute confidence and faith that my Scottish Labour colleagues will have done the maths, will know where the money will come from, and will have looked at the matter in the round, and will be more willing to work with Whitehall on these issues. We will no doubt discuss with the Secretary of State for Scotland,…”

“That is exactly the point. The hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry puts great faith in Committee stages. I have been here a long time, and they are not always as good as people say that they will be. Even if there was a Committee stage, there are so many other elements. That is one of the challenges with a Bill…”

“My hon. Friend has hit the nail on the head. I absolutely take what the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry highlighted. As I said, there are really challenging issues with the demographics in the Scottish population. We all need to put our shoulder to the wheel to deal with those things, rather than saying, “I…”

“My hon. Friend is right. We have seen the pain and challenges caused by Brexit for academic movement. Knowledge has no boundaries or borders, but there is a danger of the Bill not recognising that. Let me turn to the Scottish National party’s proposal for a Scottish graduate visa. Overseas students in the UK can get a …”

“My hon. Friend took the words out of my mouth; he says it better than I could. Let me turn for a moment to what the SNP-led Scottish Government wish to deliver. In 2020—I think this was referred to—they published a paper arguing for some devolution of immigration policy to Scotland. I remember well before then, when I …”

“My hon. Friend makes the point.”

“My right hon. Friend is making an interesting point about the challenges facing rural areas where there are shortages of people. Denmark has a rota system for doctors going into rural areas for a few months at a time, because it, like Scotland and parts of England, have these challenges. Does my right hon. Friend there…”

“The hon. Gentleman skirted over the question of the cost of doing this. The burden is not the individuals, but there is a huge cost to the UK Home Office of delivering the system and helping people through it—everything from detention centres at airports and elsewhere, to the processing of the claims, the greeting and …”

“I congratulate the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) on bringing forward this Bill. It takes me back to the halcyon days when I served as an immigration Minister. I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak about that experience and explain why I therefore disagree with the premise of hi…”

“Unbelievable as it may seem to the hon. Gentleman, I was a Minister between 2007 and 2010. I was a child Minister, of course. [Laughter.] I can understand his confusion, but that was the case at the time, and it continued for some while, because I then dealt with the local Member of Parliament—by then I was in oppositi…”

“Certainly, it would not be cost-free. It would be a big burden on taxpayers across the UK, whichever tax system they were in. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire talked about using a tax code as a marker of whether people had moved. Has he not heard of working from home, or working on holiday? That is a trend t…”

“I plan to do so later in my speech, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Modifications under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998 —that is, Orders in Council—require Scottish, as well as UK, parliamentary approval. However, modifications via primary legislation only require approval from both Houses of the UK Parliam…”

“Dare I say it, on the hon. Gentleman’s head be it. It was the Scottish Government who introduced the variation in taxation, which has left a challenge for anybody working in a UK-wide public body or UK-wide company. I repeat that personnel who are doing the same job on the same headline salary are ending up paying diff…”

“Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes the point clearly and powerfully. As he has highlighted, there are other areas that the Bill would affect; it is not simply about setting a new immigration policy. There are a raft of contradictions that could play out in the mechanics behind it, making life very chaotic. I will address…”

“My hon. Friend is right to again highlight the failures of the Scottish Government, which is one of the reasons that people are not staying. We know that this is a challenge, and not just in Scotland. Areas of England have also been left behind and have challenges in keeping their young populations. A lot of work is be…”

“I have been listening with great interest to the hon. Gentleman. We see from other countries that there are ways of dealing with the issue without having full devolution, for many of the reasons that my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley) laid out. As was highlighted earlier, the Home Secretary m…”

“As ever, my hon. Friend talks enormous sense. Let us talk through the practicalities of the proposal that I have just outlined. A person graduating from a Scottish university would be able to stay on and work in Scotland without sponsorship for four years in total. To remind the House, that means two years on a UK grad…”