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4 July 2005
Mr Jack McConnell MSP
First Minister
St Andrew's House
Regent Road
EDINBURGH
EH1 3DG
Dear First Minister
At a recent meeting of the Public Issues Advisory Group of the Baptist Union of Scotland, some attention was paid again to the International Strategy of the Scottish Parliament.
Although Scotland is one of the smaller national groupings, we support you in your efforts to ensure that Scotland does play its part in the international forum of nations. We do not see this as something in opposition to the wider policies of the UK Government - of which we are a part - but rather as a contribution to the international scene that is complementary to these policies.
We commend the "open door approach" to other nations, with a two-way flow that brings enrichment and benefit in both directions. We are concerned, however, that active encouragement of professional people and those of special expertise within Developing Nations to come and work in Scotland to make up some of our deficiencies in personnel, will damage the well-being of these countries. "Robbing Peter to pay Paul" is helpful to neither. Peter loses what he needs and Paul loses his integrity.
We would therefore urge you to monitor very carefully the recruitment of personnel from other countries, so that we do not use our wealth and high standard of living to take crucial people away from developing the essential services of their own countries.
Along with the implementation of an educational policy that will see young people in Scotland obtaining the degree of training and expertise that our country needs for the future, we would remind you that there already exists in Scotland a number of Refugees and Asylum Seekers, many of whom are well qualified and eager to obtain residential qualifications and go on to make a significant and positive contribution to our national life.
Yours sincerely
Rev Bill Slack
General Director
Baptist Union of Scotland
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