Immigration and asylum: Letter to UK Government

To:  Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood 

From:  Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice Shirley-Anne Somerville 

26 September 2025

Dear Shabana,

I am writing to congratulate you on your appointment as Home Secretary.

I look forward to working with you on areas of shared interest, including asylum, as well as the immigration system, which is of vital importance to Scotland’s future.

The Immigration System

Scotland faces long-term demographic challenges, including an ageing population and declining birth rates. All of Scotland’s projected population growth is expected to come from sustained inward migration.

I am concerned that the Home Office’s policy approach, focusing solely on reducing net migration to the UK as a whole, without recognising the distinct geographic and sectoral requirements facing Scotland, will be damaging to our shared ambition to promote growth.

Ensuring that our immigration system is aligned to the needs of our economy, public services and communities suggests a need for carefully tailored routes that are tightly focused on addressing need. A system that is not delivering for Scotland is unlikely to be meeting the UK Government’s ambitions to drive growth and raise living standards.

During the development of the Immigration White Paper, the Scottish Government submitted a set of evidence-based proposals, deliverable within the existing immigration system, which reflected our reasonable and proportionate asks to ensure that the immigration system worked for Scotland. However, these proposals were not reflected in the final publication, and current engagement mechanisms, such as the Labour Market Evidence Group, offer no scope for meaningful policy engagement between our Governments.

We remain in a position where we are briefed on policy changes, rather than invited to develop them or to explore delivering proposals of our own which would provide significant benefit to Scotland.

Recent changes to the Skilled Worker visa route, including the increase to the skills and salary thresholds, are already having a damaging impact. For example, the exclusion of key dental occupations from eligibility is a serious concern, given the existing pressures on NHS dental services in Scotland.

Even more significantly, the closure of the Social Care Worker visa route risks further deepening workforce shortages and compromising the delivery of essential care, especially in our rural and island communities.

I will continue to make the case for deliverable proposals such as the Scottish Graduate Visa and the Rural Visa Pilot. These targeted, small-scale routes would support communities and employers across Scotland without significantly affecting the UK Government’s overall net migration targets.

The Asylum System

The Scottish Government firmly believes it is possible to deliver a more effective and humane asylum system that treats people fleeing conflict and persecution with dignity and respect and my colleague the Cabinet Secretary for Housing wrote to you on 16 September to flag several concerns. I won’t repeat the calls she made in her letter but wanted to add a few additional points which are relevant to my portfolio.

The Scottish Government believes that people seeking asylum should have the right to work after six months in the UK and I was disappointed that the Home Office failed to engage with us on the Asylum Right to Work Pilot Proposal which we submitted in November 2024. Right to work would enable people to use and develop their skills, make connections in a work environment, help to support themselves and their families, contribute to our economy and restore people’s dignity.

Furthermore, I am deeply concerned at the immediate pause to the Refugee Family Reunion scheme. It seems unfair that this change should apply to people who have been in the UK for some time already and whose asylum claims have been delayed through no fault of their own. In many cases, these are people who have been forcibly separated from their families for years and this suspension will only increase their anxiety and inhibit them from building new and productive lives here.

We have seen what can be achieved when we have worked together over the last year on the basis of trust, mutual respect, and shared purpose, such as on the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, the review of Community Sponsorship routes, and most recently, efforts to support students with scholarships from Gaza to travel to the UK. These examples show the value of a collaborative approach, and I am determined that this becomes the norm for our working relationship, rather than the exception.

This leads me to raise the recent meeting between our officials regarding the possible use of Cameron Barracks in Inverness for asylum accommodation. I understand the UK Government intends to write formally to the Scottish Government once decisions have been taken. However, given the potential negative impacts this may have on the local community I am writing now to request an urgent meeting, to which COSLA and Highland Council should also be invited.

As you are aware, there are significant concerns regarding the potential use of large-scale sites and the lack of engagement with the relevant local authority on these. A recent example was the student accommodation in Aberdeen. Scotland has a long history of welcoming refugees and people seeking asylum and we are committed to supporting integration. However, this is challenging when reserved policy decisions impact Scottish local authorities, public services and communities.

To mitigate negative impacts it is essential that the UK Government engages early and fully with Scottish and Local Government. The approach taken to accommodating Afghans in Cameron Barracks is an example of the benefits of engaging early and deep, and I encourage you to replicate this.

I hope we are able to work collaboratively, and at pace, to introduce changes to the asylum and immigration system which specifically work for Scotland.

To conclude, I would welcome the opportunity for an urgent meeting to discuss the possible use of Cameron Barracks as asylum accommodation, and in slower time to meet with you at your earliest convenience to discuss the issues set out in this letter. I would be grateful if your officials could liaise with my office to arrange a suitable date.

Shirley-Anne Somerville