Harper welcomes recruitment announcement

A SOUTH Scotland politician has expressed delight at the announcement of a new Scottish Government initiative aimed at attracting social care workers to Scotland. Emma Harper MSP made the claim after speaking at the SNP’s national conference in Aberdeen this week, calling for the policy to be implemented and for Scotland to, “create an immigration policy that suits our needs and values.” Following the endorsement of that call by the party, First Minister John Swinney announced that the Scottish Government would step up to sponsor care workers who are already in the UK but have lost their social care jobs to come to Scotland. Changes in the UK visa regime for social care workers has resulted in a 81 per cent drop in health and care worker visas in a year. The changes will allow the Scottish Government to step in as sponsor of a social care worker when their former employer loses their sponsor licence. The announcement by the First Minister was welcomed by Ms Harper, who said: “Our health and social care services rely on workers coming from overseas, and while Brexit has had a devastating impact, successive UK Governments have implemented more outdated and more hostile immigration policies, harming our care sector and creating labour shortages across the board. “I was pleased the SNP Conference backed my call for Labour to put an end to Tory policies in this area, but I am absolutely delighted the first minister announced the Scottish Government will step in to ensure our social care sector is able to recruit quickly and effectively. “I want Dumfries and Galloway and the Borders to be at the forefront of putting this new initiative into effect as quickly as possible, to give our service users the highest quality support possible."