Dame Meg Hillier

Dame Meg Hillier

Labour (Co-op) — Hackney South and Shoreditch

Speaking in the House of Commons on 25 April 2025

Debate

Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill

Contribution

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 two-year graduate visa. That is an extension available to those who complete their degree in the UK, allowing them to stay on and work without sponsorship for two years—or three if they are PhD graduates. The SNP Scottish Government have proposed an additional Scottish graduate visa that would be available to those on UK graduate visas. It would allow them to stay for another two years. Applicants would need to have graduated from a Scottish institution—we have already seen an interesting divide on that—to have lived in Scotland for an “appropriate amount of time”, and would have to intend to live and work in Scotland. The visa would be linked to a Scottish tax code, which we have heard a lot about today.

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